Sportflight

No pictures, sorry. Sitting in the bar, we’ve arrived and the internet connection is live.

James Lipinski managed to share a shower (by accident) with a Czech girl… Zdenka (who is Czech) is pestering me to point out it was not her. We are the only people here, since no other teams have yet arrived. We spent the day practicing short landing techniques and spot landing (and Paul D has said “drinking” at least 4 times now). There is not much going on since we Brits arrived too early.

It’s been really hot today, we all sweated when putting the marquee up, and the sun did not give us any respite all day. We’ve found out that German beer tastes really good, we even ate the local ‘Leberkas’ AKA spam for dinner.

Bit of a boring blog entry, but then it is dark and not much has happened so far… that said, all the inevitable and predictable stuff has already happened - Hadders landed short, Paul Welsh has gout, Ollie Neece (Big Ears) is off searching for leather-clad totty in town, and Richard Rawes’ engine has blown up. No change there, then.

Pictures tomorrow…

I set off today, am writing this in a hotel room (!) in Kent, having landed at Stoke, home of Medway Microlights. The weather en route varied from quite pleasant to downright awful, I had to stop at one point since it was so bad.

I made it to Old Sarum for lunch, only to find all the spam cans had been shifted 15 degrees to the left by the storm that had gone through… leaving behind it one of the Old Sarum syndicate planes on its back. An Ikarus C42 had not been tied down…

I’ve met up with Robbie Keene (and son Rees) so we are making the jump over the water tomorrow.

Packing my tent before getting ready to leave. If you have Google Earth, take a look at the area, the town sits in a meteor crater.

Type in 48 52.22N 10 30.19E to the search box to see the airfield.

Coming to you direct from Email!

The European Microlight Championships (classic classes) start on July 29th.

I’ll be there as an FAI steward, watching to see if anyone cheats!

Come back for an account of the championships through my eyes, or read my acccount of the World Championships in 2005.