Day 6

Jerzy and Maria take a break before the briefing.

Both our pilots are airborne, Jerzy went on task at 13:09. The 15m gate will open at 13:46 (now). BTW, we are 6 hrs ahead of eastern daylight time.

The weather today is somewhat unsettled behind a weak cold front that went through yesterday evening. When we towed out to the grid, there was a lot of mid-level alto cu and alto stratus but fortunately that burned off when convection started. The cu are large and watery with bases initially at 2500, going up to 4500. The start gate is height limited to 3000 ft because of the low cloud base. There is strong southwesterly flow at all levels. A particular concern is cirrus moving in from the W and SW. In the meantime, it has reached Luesse and the sky doesn't look very appealing. Fortunately, there is convection below the cirrus.

Dave doesn't like the alto cu - it burned off later but then cirrus moved in.

The grid order today is 18m, Open, 15m it takes about 80 minutes to launch the grid. Britain and Holland expressed concerns over the time it takes to launch the entire grid, in the team captains' meeting this morning.

The tasks today are relatively small:
18m: Task B - assigned area task - 3hrs - 252 km min, 520 km max
15m: Task A - assigned area task - 3hrs - 215 km min, 404 km max

This is another day where there is not much to win but a lot can be lost. Keep your fingers crossed!