Friday Update

We arrived at the practice site and the guys managed to get in a couple of flights before the rain started to fall. However after about an hour the skies cleared but the howling winds moved in creating a severe blow out cross wind. The teams from Japan, Portugal arrived and we took turns flying by country.

At around 1:00pm the Galvez Aerodrome hosted us all to an Argentina barbeque consisting of ribs, beef strips, a pork strip type of meat which was fantastic as well as two types of sausage and plenty of different salads. Once again the hospitality being shown to the pilots has been totally unexpected.

During lunch the team from Suriname arrived with our good friend Freddy Hagens who we all knew from the D8 in the US when he was living in Seattle. Freddy now lives in Brazil and this is his second trip to the F3A worlds representing Suriname. It was great to talk to him and share memories of cross boarder flying and how we first met him at the Canadian Pattern Nationals in held in Princeton BC.

We got back to the hotel at around 6pm and found out that Dave’s packs will not be delivered as Argentina customs wants to see his original passport along with the hotel clerk’s that the shipment was assigned to. We have been told that under no circumstances, do not give anyone your passport. UPS will not return the shipment and have advised Kelly that the shipment will be destroyed in 6 months. As far as we are concerned they can keep the shipment, as it’s not worth the hassle. I’m sure we will be able to obtain replacement packs from Duralite/FlightPower due to the circumstances as Dave is flying their packs (mine) and it wasn’t a case of a lack of effort to get them to Argentina.