Greetings from Narromine, Australia!

This is your captain speaking… I always wanted to say that.

Team USA is ready to race!

Yesterday was the last practice day of the 5 day practice period. The team has been tuning, tweaking, and flying their ships all week to get them just right. We had 3 good racing days with 2 no tasking days. The team is in good spirits with all scrutineering, tuning and tweaking is now complete.

What is Scrutineering? It’s the process each pilot and sailplane go through to ensure they meet the racing requirements. To stream line this process, the 2023 WGC contest management set up a Google spreadsheet and documents drop were we have been submitting all of the required documents for the pilot, crew, and aircraft before arriving into Narromine which is a great idea. This approach was wonderful in stream lining the registration and scrutineering processes. However, it’s a little difficult to collect all of the information when you are renting a sailplane.

This evening is the opening ceremonies for the competition with 80 pilots from 21 countries. The team will be gathering for lunch shortly before heading off to the ceremonies which start at 6 pm with all of the teams marching in followed by speeches from local government officials, contest management and the FAI. The coming week is looking like good soaring for the start of the contest with temperatures reaching 100º towards the end of the week which should set up some rocking soaring.

We will be posting reports from members across the entire team to give you a flavor of the adventures and experiences of racing and living around Narromine, Australia for the next couple of weeks. We had already been posting quite a few photos on the US Soaring Teams Instagram page.

You can follow the team at:

Team News/Blog
Instagram
FaceBook
Twitter
Daily Tasks and Tracking
Scores & Tasks

We will be racing from December 3 – 15.
Go Team USA!

~Pete Alexander (Team USA Captain)