Euro 2002 Gliding Expedition
Thursday 4th July 2002: A day spent flying at Schärding
Tone made a perfect landing in the LS4 after his first solo flight abroad. |
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The night was disturbed by the sound of incessant rain and a grey overcast greeted us. All three gliders were rigged, and local check flights proceeded amid gusty crosswind conditions interspersed with torrential showers. Cumulus appear on the horizon, cloudbase rises as do the teams' spirits and everyone flies something, admittedly only local soaring and circuit bashing. Another great effort from the one man catering operation keeps the team happy and the local mayor gets in on the act with formal photos of us and flying club dignitaries.
Meanwhile
our leaders have consulted the weather entrails and plans are hatched for
another tactical move, this time to Wiener-Neustadt, 196 miles away to the
south of Vienna. This should place us in a good position for access to some
real alpine flying and act as a stepping stone to Slovenia later in the week.