We woke up to bright blue skies with the loads of humidity in the air.   Would we see thunderstorms?
 
The daily briefing confirmed out expectations of showers and thunderstorms. The team spent the entire day working around the showers and thunderstorms from the 1st turn area. 
Watch Garret Willat’s video review of the day(on our FB page) and the challenges of picking their route around the showers and thunderstorms from the backseat of PWR.
Daily airspace review during the daily briefing to ensure all pilots are aware of the airspace which you must avoid. If you enter closed airspace, the first offense you are landed at that point. The second offense, you get zero points for the day. The 3rd offense, you are kicked out of the contest:
It was amazing to see the cu’s pop after the morning briefing… When we went into the briefing, there were only cu’s on the distance mountains to the East and West of the airport. When we left the briefing about 20 minutes later, the sky around the airport was filled full of cu’s. A sign of the showers and thunderstorms to come on task:
View from the back of the grid with the cu’s popping:
Cu’s buildingtoward the first leg at 11:00 am:
Mike Robison and Garret Willat’s ride: ASH 25 EB 28:
Taking off in grass runway 06:
Midday view from US Team Camp looking west:
From the 7:00 pm Captain’s Meeting this evening, contest management announced that we will have a rest day this weekend. They wanted to know which day was the preferred day. Sunday looks like the weakest soaring day this weekend with showers and thunderstorms expected. Team USA prefers Sunday. This coming Tuesday will be international night. At this point, they believe, the soaring will be good through the end of the contest.
As I’m finishing up this report, we have thunderstorms rolling though producing lot’s of thunder, lightning, and rain…
More to come…