Thursday Am Flight.

OK  We are now into day two.  Things are starting to get a little tense.  The tasks are getting much harder.  Here is a diagram of today's task.

Each pilot had to fly into a common goal.  Pilots choice of launch spot.  Launch had to be 3km from common goal.  Each pilot had to choose a goal (PDG) at least three km past the common goal.  We were allowed to choose two targets.  The target we chose would also be the first leg of an elbow.  An elbow is where you try to fly back the way you came.  This makes your choice of PDG very important since it will be the starting point of your Elbow.  We all came in on the first target flying side by side.  Tree topping for left.  Got to the field and I actually had to drop my marker around Jon.  Jon waited a little longer and dropped right on the X.  Dad was further off but in the target field.  Then it was climb climb climb to find the layer to take us to the furthest right of our two chosen pilot declared goals.  As we were about half way to the PDG the radio went blank.  We could not talk to anyone nor could we talk to each other.  Someone was jamming the frequency.  The radio signal was so powerful we could not even talk over it between each other in the balloons.  Come to find out that my sister had put the microphone in the cup holder in the van depressing the talk button.  This went on for almost 30 minutes.

I turned on my backup handheld radio and switched it to channel two.  After a short while Jon came on the radio and said "TA1 are you on two?"  It did not take long before Jon's wife Sandy figured it out and we were able to get her to flag down my sister and clear the radio.  We all came in on the pilot declared target and made great drops.  I dropped my marker at the feet of my ground crew sitting just outside the van next to the intersection that was my target.  Jon was just north and father was just south of the target.

Now it was hug the tree time.  We had to get as far left as we could before the left quit.  We spent about 35 minutes just going from tree to tree getting as low as we could without touching anything and getting disqualified.  We had to get three km away from the PGD before we could drop our center marker of our three that made up the elbow.  We all three dropped our markers in a little subdivision just north of the airport.  As soon as we made our drops it was CLIMB CLIMB CLIMB.  Up to 4450 ft to go as much to the northeast as we could.  We found a nice layer there on a heading of 040 degrees.  We hung out in this layer for another 35 to 40 minutes to get our 3KM distance from the previous marker then we all dropped like rocks.  We had been in the air for over two hours and needed to be on the ground.  The problem was that as you descend you begin to go backwards toward your previous marker but you don't want to drop from too high or you will never find the marker and not get any score at all.  A Zero score here will kill you!  I was able to spot a subdivision being built with only roads and no homes.  Dad was able to spot a warehouse area and drop safe in there.  Jon was forced to drop into an area of homes.  We all landed and the crews were there to pick us up right away.  We all went back to get our last markers scored and were all happy happy.

We found my marker and scored it and got on the radio to let TA2 and TA3 know we were heading back to drop off our score keeper.  Mother came on the radio and told us that Jon has not found his last marker and needed our help to search.  So all three teams with crew and scorekeepers headed over to the neighborhood where Jon thought is marker had fallen.  We had a 6 block area to search and all took off in search looking on rooftops and backyards and anywhere we could.  We had been looking for almost 45 minutes and hope was getting thin when Jon came on the radio and said "Looks like I am buying my wife dinner!  We found it, but we have a problem it is up in a tree!

The marker had gotten caught in the top of a tree.  A BIG TREE!  The marker was more than 85 feet in the air!  No way to climb up and worried about getting penalty points for loosing a marker we were all in poor spirits.  We even tried throwing small apples at it to knock it down but it was soooo high up in the tree that we could not even throw an apple that high!  After several phone calls to the scoring officials we determined that it was not a lost marker but just an unrecoverable marker.  We scored the drop as if it had fallen to the ground.

We just found out a few minutes ago that JON WON the elbow part of the flight.!  Father finished 3rd and I took 4th.  Three of the top 4 were TEAM THOMPSON!!

On the three tasks this morning here are the results.

Dad.  15th 25th and 3rd

Jon 8th 27th and 1st

Jeff 16th 13th and 4th.

Yes the TA TEAM Smoked the elbow placing 1st 3rd and 4th!!!