Practice Day 2

Another fine morning in Leszno:  cu's popping around 10am, clear sky above with a breeze out of the Northwest.  But...high clouds and scattered light rain expected about 4pm.  We will have rain here Thursday and Friday.

Got the Team registered this morning.  Six pilots and myself in under an hour, not too bad.  SS goes to the scrutinologist tomorrow, and once her technical inspection is finished, all the paperwork for Team USA will be complete.  This pleases Captain America.

All US Team Pilots have launched and Ittner, Alexander, Butler and Tabery all started at 1246. Mockler started at 1256 with Mark Keene at 1259.  Now, the 15M pair have decided to turn back to Leszno and re-start.  The airspace in the contest task area is extremely complex.  Forbidden airspace changes daily and, sometimes, hourly.  Today, there's a real "gotcha" in the Zielona Gora Transponder Mandatory Area.  The center of the TMA is open, but the areas called Bab-Pryzlep and Babt-Wolsztyn, which protrude like Howdy Doody's ears from the TMA, are closed.  This fine point was noticed by Rick Sheppe and our pilots were advised.  Keene and Mockler were approaching this closed airspace and elected to re-start instead of making a costly deviation around it.  They're over Leszno now and reporting very scattered rain with higher build-ups farther east.