Thursday, April 01, 2010

Andradas Day 5

Today was looking a little better this morning and everyone was keen to get up the hill. We arrived early for a change and just about everyone was set up or setting up on the north launch. I was tuning a few gliders and saw the clouds starting to tower as the the sun warmed the ground. I told Alex and a couple of others they might want to stop setting up as it was not looking promising in my eyes. My glider was still firmly on top of the car and I did not plan on moving it in a hurry. Well I was right about 1 hr later the rain hit us hard. We waited hoping that it might pass by like it did yesterday and clear up behind. It did not instead it started sending lightning bolts down on takeoff where there were still like 40 gliders setup. There were a few very close hits on launch no more than 100 m away and I think very close to some gliders. I was waiting for a glider to get hit and just explode with carbon fibre everywhere. The rain continued and the rest of my car were still set up so there was no way to leave until the rain stopped. We waited all of us for about 4 hrs on launch before it stopped enough to start packing gliders. Our next problem was that you need to cross a river and we were told that it was not passable now due to the flooded river. Once the rain stopped Dustin managed to dry his glider and actually fly off and land back at his hotel on a glide. He was the only to fly and the rest of us drove slowly down the slippery wet road. The river had come back down and only the 2 wheel drive cars had problems getting across. One car I think destroyed its engine trying to cross it and had to get towed all the way back to town. Tomorrow is the last day and unfortunately I don't have a good feeling as the ground is very very wet around here. Even if it is flyable I don't think it will be very good but lets wait and see.