Hmmmmm… I really didn’t know that it was almost two years since I wrote anything… Not that there has been that much going on… lol… (okay… If you know me well enough, you know that the last year a lot of things changed… But we won’t go into any of that now…)
So anyway, here I go again, off on a trip to Scotland (courtesy of Cooper Tire) Going to be staying at Gleneagles, which I haven’t been to since 86 or 87, never can remember which… Right now I’m sitting in Dulles drinking a Bloody Mary and waiting for the second leg of my convoluted trip… Harrisburg to Dulles to Newark to Edinborough… And no, I didn’t plan that one… Travel agent apparently took me too literally when I said I didn’t want to fly out of Philadelphia… (My second least favorite airport in the US, second only to JFK…) I didn’t mean through, just didn’t want to start there… Whatever… At least it gives me time to sit sweating in a hot bar in Washington/Dulles and type this…
I really meant to post from Paris and when I got back, but in the end I was too tired and jet lagged to bother until now…
Paris was great… Lots of walking, as we went from our hotel to the Louvre, then to Notre Dame, then down the Seine river to the Eiffel Tower and then up to the Arc de Triomphe… Seems that someone told me that it was a nice walk, which it was, but it must have been about 3 or 4 miles… We had a great dinner in a bistro down an alley, and everything I had been told about food in Paris was right… After we got to the Arc de Triomphe, I really didn’t feel like walking back to the hotel, so we caught a cab back… Even though the air conditioner in the room pretty much didn’t work, it was pretty nice outside, so I just opened the windows and went to sleep… I had multiple alarms set for the morning, since I really didn’t want to miss my flight out… Our arranged driver picked me up right on time at 7 am, and off to the airport…
Wow… The last few days were a combination of busy and relaxing… On Sunday, the day went from 8 in the morning until around midnight… We got to the hall around 8, got ready, and started putting flights up early… It was pretty obvious that Brett and John would be fighting over 3rd place, as Schram with his 39+ flight was in a very solid 1st, and Treger had consistently been doing times better than us… I’m going to shorten it up, and just get to the end which was that Brett bettered his times and moved into 3rd place in the individuals, and both Brett and John worked with Nick both flights and he bettered his time to put the US into the gold medal position… So after three long days of flying, the US took the top spot in the team, and Brett took third place in the individual… Not a bad week… And both John and Brett are already thinking of what they can do the next cycle to improve… Those two never give up, and will be at the top of F1D for a long, long time…
This is probably going to be short… It’s been a long week, and a few of us got back early after the flying, and I basically want to clean up, watch a bit of the Olympics (in German, but better than nothing…) and get to bed…
Same routine as yesterday… Up at 7, quick breakfast, into the vans, and off to the hall… Everything was on time today, and the 3rd round started at 9… Brett had the same thing happen on a steer as the first two rounds, prop tucked under the wing and down… Nick didn’t have a great time (BTW, I’m posting all of the times and semi-live updates on @jeffreyhood on Twitter, so I won’t go into detail on here…) and John had a 34:25… Some of the other fliers put up good flights (35+), so the US team was still in 5th or 6th place… Since we got done a bit early in the round (rounds are 4 hours, with 3 fliers during that time…) we got to lunch early and had some time to relax… Round 4 started at 3, and Brett went first and put up a nice 34:27 with one nice steer… Finally Brett got a good time on the board, and Nick went soon after since there was almost no drift, and put up a 25:08 to get him two times over 25… John launched right after that, and almost hung up at the top, but it slid off and dropped about 15 feet and he then did some nice steering to get it back on track… He landed at 34:29, which was another good time… On the junior side, Parker didn’t improve in the 3rd round, but did improve in the 4th round with 26:43… Spencer improved in the 3rd round with a 25:17, and Parker is leading his brother by about 2 minutes…
Up at 7ish, off to a quick breakfast, and into the vans at 8 to go over to the hall to get ready for the first round… Round 1 was supposed to start at 9am, but not too surprisingly, things were running behind schedule… And the whole day got pushed back an hour… Round 1 from 10 to 2, lunch from 2 to 4, and Round 2 from 4 to 8… The flying order for the first round was set to Ray, Kagan, and Sanborn…
Well, the practice rounds are over… All of the US team seem to be ready for the start of the World Championship tomorrow morning… Round 1 is from 9-1, and Round 2 is from 3-7… The US team looks pretty good, and although the reigning World Champ Treger has been putting up some very good practice flights, so have our guys… Kagan is a former World Champion, and Sanborn holds quite a few records, and both have been putting up some very good practice flights… Nick seemed to be getting things sorted out today, and I’m expecting him to put up good flights in the next few days… The Tyson team also has been getting ready, and it is going to be fun to watch them against the other juniors…
Well, the Dorcol Cup is over… Brett took first place in the senior division, and Parker took first in the Junior division… John took third in the senior division also… Looks pretty good for team USA for the world championships, as the better models were kept in so they would not get damaged… The other teams started showing up on Wednesday for practice, and some good partial motor flights were put up…
Well, it’s the middle of the second day here in good old Belgrade… Yesterday ended okay, and Sanborn was on top of the leader board for the Dorcol Cup, and Kagan had a good flight also… The flying ended at 7 (extended an hour since there was a lack of timers…) and after that we packed up and went back to the hotel to get cleaned up and then to dinner… Kagan and Sanborn decided to stay at the hall to practice until 10 instead of going back…
Okay, so I should have known better to write early on how good the trip was going… After the flight out of BWI to JFK, it pretty much went straight downhill for the rest of a very, very long day… The flight from JFK to CDG (Paris) left over an hour late… and I was thinking at the time that my connecting flight to Belgrade would be close, since it was 1.
On the way to Belgrade… Hopefully the rest of the flights will work out as well as the first hop… Lancaster airport puddle jumper to BWI (which is always fun…) and even better, the Delta gates are in the same concourse so no security check (until JFK… since it is international…)
I think everyone else is already there, and I’m really looking forward to meeting so many fliers that I have emailed but never talked to… Should be a really fun week…
