8.30 AM: Good morning from nice cool Uvalde where I was welcomed this morning in “my” marquis corner with: “Hi Ritz, your tea-water is ready.” On my question if all 96 gallons of beer were gone yesterday evenin , the answer was simple. YES! At this stage NOT a very blue sky but clouds to the E and SE.

What a lovely party it was and such a good crowd showed up. Thank you to our Austrian and German friends to provide us all, to share thoughts in a great easy going atmosphere with excellent food and beer. Never saw Wolfgang and Ludwig work so hard and I did not know that Tassilo was such a great waiter. Here is an impression in pictures.

 

Today is the last practise day [ number 7], so pilots had enough time to get used to the area, the circumstances and the weather. On the picture from Richard you can see the runway and the taxiway and from both, gliders are launched. Gliders will be parked to the left and the right of both the tarmac runway/taxiways with the nose to it and pushed up before launches start. Open class gliders depart from the taxiway. All gliders one by one, behind each other, but on two strips. You can also see the tie-down area to the right.

Pilots even “pimped”  their spot at the tie-down area. Look at the next picture from Richard…he calls it innovations!!! Hope they put pegs in the ground to hold them, as dust devils here look SO strong.

THE PARTY – Continued!

 

 

 

Text with the party pictures:

1; lovely original clothes
2. Australian TC Mandy surrounded by the Trotters.
3. Australian 18 m. pilot Dave with his mum
4. Austrian Ludwig Starkl in the “kitchen” serving up.
5. Canadian TC Ed with his wife
6. USA WE crew Gary
7. German female pilot [ one of the 2] Susanne, the current female World champion.
8. part of the Dutch team
9. Olli Pilot TEAM Finland with his TC Teemu. Olli is the current Finish 18 m. champion.