2009 TEAM USA IN PORTUGAL UPDATES!

[JAS]

Traveling is always an adventure and this one is no different. A few delays here and there... customs not letting us through with our $500 dollar plane(s) , looking for FedEx but finding the airport again (pure luck)... and to top it all off, spending the day sick in the room, with the broken air conditioning...lol. BUT, even with the forklift forks busting through my box, both my planes, and all the rest of the teams planes, made it without a scratch.

Today the guys went out to the field to get some practice in. Andrew arrived and eventually met them out there as well. Seems that we are flying in a bit of a valley so the winds up high are at times different then what is at the ground level. The Canadians were there as was Shane Robinson from Ireland practicing as well. Seems the trim of the day was adding down elevator trim. Not sure why, but I guess I'll start by adding some before I fly tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll get to see what fun they had today.

[yooki]

9:45 here and I'm pretty beat. We've been out practicing at the main site the past couple days and, miraculously, have pretty much been by ourselves (lucky!). The site is less than ideal... trees everywhere and being in a valley make for some great scenery but really rough air. We'll see how the event pans out but I think parking might be an issue as well. In any case, the entire country is beautiful and the weather has been awesome. There are a few hours of the day that are pretty sunny and hot but it's not humid and very cool nights. Enjoying it here and now I need my good nights sleep

-Brett

[SleepyC]

I snuck in! UPDATES GUYS?!

[Animal Jesky]

Sleepy,

Know we know how you feel with live feeds. We are having very limited internet connection. I'm in my room trying to make sure I'm able to get this sent out without it crashing.
Things over here are going great. Everyones model is flying really well, all the locals are really helpful. We have been going out to a military base that has been closed for us to go out and fly. Our routine is breakfast at 7:30 out the door at 8, fly all day and back to the hotel around 8ish or so. We are all flying extremely well. The wind here is very different from what I'm used to. It is very bumpy with many thermals in it. I'll try and get some pictures uploaded shortly but for now the internet sucks!!!

Andrew

[Animal Jesky]

Day 1 is in the book. Everyone had a good day at the worlds. We are all flying on seperate sites so no scores will matter until all 4 days are complete. I have started to upload pictures to the folder. I will send Sleepy a PM to see if we can make our own Big Events gallery.
Jason flies tomorrow in the Morning as well as Brett. QQ and myself fly in the afternoon. It is really hard to keep yourself busy all day when you have to fly at 5pm. Today myself and Verne went out to the practice site and got 3 flights in and headed out to the contest site by 3. Jason and QQ had already flown. Both flew very good flights from what everyone said. Jason's line is stacked full of great fliers, CPLR, Onda, Seba, BPLR, and many others. The points race is very close with all of these great pilots. The order right now in Jason's line is
CPLR
SEBA
Onda
Jason
On QQ line he is in the lead with Gerhard Mayr behind him with Chad Northeast close behind.
On Bretts line is Bernd in the lead with Suzuki right behind and Brett behind them.
On my line I flew against Akiba and am ahead of him by only 8 points. It is going to be a tough battle the entire way though. We are all in great spirits and ready to kick some butt!!!

Here is the Link to the pictures.
http://www.flyinggiants.com/gallery/...ry.php?cat=740

[yooki]

Day 2 done. Today went much better than the first day for me. Flew the backup today because I wasn't happy with how the primary flew yesterday. My round was much better, hopefully I can build on that and put in a good result for the US. Threw an ounce in the nose of the primary and flew it at the practice field tonight and it's flying even better, so I will be back to flying the primary tomorrow. Things are going pretty well, all leading up to the semi-finals and (hopefully) the finals. So far my first world championship has been a fantastic, all-be-it stressful, experience.

All of us really appreciate the support from back home. Keep it coming!

[JAS]

Well everyone... we're back and I think everyone is back to everyday life. Brett should be burning the midnight oil in school, Andrew is back to work (and getting ready for the Shootout), Quique is probably back at Horizon and I'm working on some new stuff for Shulman Aviation.

We all had a blast at the Worlds. We learned a few things about each other in the process and have all come away better because of it. We all thanked our TM and Asst TM, Albert Glenn and Raiko Potter, in Portugal, but I want to thank them here as well. Thank you guys for all your hard work and keeping things running smooth even when we thought they were falling apart.

The contest was very well run. They were on top of anything and everything and extremely friendly to boot. Now if I can learn NOT to pick the red marble after my flights...lol. (you picked marbles for a random weighing after your flight. If you picked the red one you had to weigh. No biggie, but I was the most popular red marble picker...lol). The field was a bit interesting for a pattern contest, but as it turned out, it gave all the pilots a new challenge for each round. We flew both directions, with winds both in our face and off our backs. Everyone had to be able to fly in all conditions. Dust was a problem, but not major as they would water all the drives when the ground got dry. There was still some, but not like there could have been.

My personal result was disappointing, but deserved (possibly more-so). For some reason I couldn't seem to keep my head in the game. I had a few moments of good flying, but nothing like I had hoped it would have been. I haven't quite figured out what happened, but I will not let that happen to me again. I was really embarrassed at times of the way I flew. But my standards for my flying are very high, so even my good flights, while scoring well, were never up to my standards.

Observation of the rest of the team:

Quique flew very well most of the flights I was able to see. He did have one oops in a P round when the wind/cross-control caught him off guard in a stall turn, but most all of the flights I watched were very good flights.

Andrew flew consistently well all week. No major mistakes, maybe a few minor things here and there. Possibly flying a little lower (base line) than the guys ahead of him in the scores, which could have been the difference.

Brett finally showed he was human after all. His nerves got the better of him all the way until the last round of the Semi's. When he was doing the demo F round, he was back to form of the Brett we've known.

I know we're all looking forward to our break from pattern for a little while, and then back to the grind of learning new sequences for next years Team Trials at the Nats in Muncie. Then the new US Team gets to start saving for the big trip to the 2011 Worlds.... in Muncie...

Thank you again for all your support of the Team and for watching as things unfolded. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

[JAS]

Here's a few pics...

1. Not what I really wanted to wake-up to in the morning on the plane... (but it had been that way for 3-days according to the pilot)


2. Lisbon from the air


3. The Canadians figuring out how we can get our planes out of customs


4/5. A couple of pics on the drive to Lieria



6/7/8. The castle across the way from our hotel

[JAS]

a few more...

1-4. Random at the practice site. Was a base and we were allowed to stay in the hanger to pit. It was great!





5-8. From a castle near the practice site.

[JAS]

1. Andrew and I doing the 'hat thing' with Tetsuo Onda of Japan


2-4. Unknown selection




5/6. Staying alert after a very long day

[JAS]

1-4. Closing ceremonies





5-7. France, Japan (sorry about the back-lighting) and USA teams




8. Final results

[JAS]

and last of the pics...

1/2. The little tunnel on the way...



3-5. The evening gathering and farewell




6-8. One wiped out team....