Sweden - WWGC2011 - Friday 17 June 2011

Today the rain started at 08:00 and continued well into the early evening with some heavy downpours.  At the briefing at 10:00, the contest Director declared that there would not be a task set as the weather was not going to be any good at all, and therefore that it would be a ‘Rest Day’.  In International Competitions like this, there is always a rest day, unusually on the 7^th day after 6 days of flying, well we’ve not yet had the 6 flying days nor the official rest day, so it was good to get it out of the way at least.

Steve and I had put out the gifts given to me by GE Oil & Gas to present to the competitors, on the tables in the Briefing Room early in the morning as agreed by the British Team because it seemed rather appropriate to be handing out umbrellas and associated produce on such a wet day.  All the gifts were very well received and the competitors gladly posed for a photograph holding their new umbrellas.

After lunch, many of the competitors including ourselves, went to Arboga to the ‘Robot Missile Museum’ .  What an interesting place!  Besides the obvious missiles (included a sidewinder missile) they had models of various turbine engines, marine engines, V1 doodle bug, as well as a couple of simulators.  We all had great fun as we were shown round, climbed into cockpits and tried the simulators.

Back at the camp site I changed into my running gear once the rain stopped and went out for a 30 minute run alongside the river that runs by the Arboga Gliding Club and towards the large lake.  Besides a trot back form the Standard Class rigging area to the camp site yesterday, it was the first proper run that I’d managed to fit in this week. 

We are not sure whether there will be any flying tomorrow because of the weather.  The Met man seems to have a little bit of hope that there could be a break in these poor conditions, but we shall have to wait and see.