Ciao from Rieti!

The US Team is together in Rieti.
All six pilots are here, and all flew for the first time yesterday, and then again today. We have been dealing with the typical problems of getting rental gliders, installing equipment,
finding our way around the city and learning to communicate. Mark has been here for a week now.

Francois, Dottie and I have been here since last Friday. Pat , Jonathan, Gigi, Manfred and Carolyn arrived on Saturday, Chip and Paul on Sunday. Our last two crew members, Quay and Jacob will be arriving this weekend. Francois' glider finally arrived on Monday evening.

The organization here in Rieti is hard at work trying to complete the infrastructure for Sunday's Opening Ceremony. The pictures were taken on Sunday, and the work has progressed quickly. I'm sure it will be a race to the finish. We had a sample meal at the pavilion yesterday and will have lunches available during the competition. Our offices will be located in the hanger and our hope is that we can escape the heat there and have a place to meet. Air conditioning is not common in Rieti and temperatures have been running in the nineties with high humidity. We have been dealing with thunderstorms for the last several days and even had significant amounts of hail on Monday. The hail was pea sized here at the airport but golf ball sized in other parts of the city. There was significant crop damage in some of the surrounding areas.

Giorgio and his wife Mariangela are with us again and it is wonderful to see them. Some of you may remember that Giorgio served as our crew last year at the JWGC. At that time we learned he had been flying competitively in Rieti for 37 years. So Giorgio was our crew and our coach.
Giorgio had accepted a position as the coach for the Italian team prior to my contacting him about working with the US Team. We were very fortunate to be able to work things out so that Giorgio could be with us again this year. As you can see from the photos, he is already hard at work debriefing yesterdays flight--and repairing a broken set of eyeglasses.

Everyone has landed for the day, and we have a safety briefing to attend this evening. Today ended the unofficial practice period and tomorrow we begin the official practice period,
with morning pilot's briefings and tasks. Francois and Pat have completed their scrutineering, Mark and Chip are scheduled for tomorrow and Manfred and Jonathan are scheduled for Friday. Official registration begins tomorrow as well. Completion of these tasks will be quite a relief.

I'll be reporting more often as things get underway. Until then.....

Richard