You might be wondering, day 2? What happened to day 1? Funny story, I left my SD card in my laptop, and didn’t notice that none of the pictures I was talking were being saved until I tried to record a video in the late afternoon. At that point, I got frustrated enough that I just said screw it, I will start this tomorrow. So, here I am now, technically it is day 1 of me writing, but it is the second day of flying for the 18m Nationals in Uvalde Texas.
There is one thing that I have noticed while here in Uvalde. The miserable, unbearable heat. The past two days it has been above 100° F, with humidity near 50% all day. I am unable to express just how oppressive this heat is. I will be sitting in the drivers seat of my car, in the shade, with the AC on full blast and still be sweating. The electric bills here must be through the roof because of how hard the air conditioners have to work. Good thing we went to work early!
This morning we got out to the airport early to get the glider ready, as we didn’t want to sit around moving the glider around in the heat. Once we got it all buttoned up, we towed it down to the line, where we found ourselves the first people out there. Something I noticed that would come into light later that one wing was significantly heavier than the other. If I am going to be completely honest I thought it was just me being lazy so I just ignored it. We later found out that one of the wings was mysteriously missing water…
The pilots meeting was productive, as everyone was doing their “Hi I am so and so, and I will be running this and that for the duration of the contest.” Although I was not paying much attention as I was looking up the used prices of BMW Z3s. Unfortunately out of my price range I found. Anyway, the task for today was not exceptionally long, it led the pilots up north first, then down south, and then back to the airport. Today was a fairly strong day so I had no worries.
For the first time today, I used the live tracker on the SSA website, and it took a few minutes to understand, but once I had gotten it down it was interesting to follow the different pilots. My dad’s was not updating accurately, so I had to somewhat guess when I would need to go and get him from the airport. He wasn’t too happy when I came a few minutes late, but in my defense I thought I was half an hour early.
Putting the glider away was a breeze, as we have had a little practice yesterday with the tie downs and the covers, although I really do think we should have put it away as it is thunder storming as of writing this. I guess I will have to see how it works out tomorrow!
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