Carol and I arrived in Uvalde six days ago and it has been a whirlwind from the beginning. We have a nice 3 bedroom house about 11 miles outside of town that is very nice and comfortable. However, there is no cell service and no internet either. The lack of internet service will certainly challenge my ability to blog! There is good internet at the field and around town.

My JS1 is flying well and ready to go to include the several new “go fast” mods the factory developed under the code name “U606” … I have no idea what that means, but the mods seem good and include: a fairing for the tailwheel, rudder horn fairings, and some mylar changes. Also, I have the new PowerFlarm Core installed and it is working very well with excellent range adding a new level of situtational awareness and collision avoidance. I enabled the “competition mode” yesterday which cut down the false alarms to near zero—I like it very much. Finally, the SeeYou Mobile guys are here and Anrdej installed the new brighter screen for my Oudie and “Wow!” it is bright and very readable. Along with the hardware change came several software changes that are very nice too.

I know have four days of unofficial practice behind me with most days around 500 kms and averaging in the mid 80 mph with 87 as the fastest so far! The weather has been very good but really no classic Uvalde streeting yet. I think we can go even faster.

Gary Ittner, P7, my partner in the 18m class arrived two days ago. We have now had two practice days and continue to work on the lessons from our Team Camp in the Spring. We are well matched to fly together and I feel good that we will work well together during the contest flying.

Here are some of the stats from the fastest day.