Jul 26 – Arrival in Prague, Czech Rep

The team all flew to Prague in the Czech Republic where we met on Friday morning at the rental car building. One of my pieces of luggage was lost on the flight from Frankfurt. The good news was that it came on the next flight and did not delay us for long.
After hiring cars and a van we got all the luggage planes and winches loaded and we drove for three and a half hours through the Czech and German countryside arriving at our Hotel (the Hotel Gondel) about 6:00pm. After quickly checking in we left the girls at the room and headed for the field to get winches set up for Kulmbach Open contest which would start with first flight at 8:00am in the morning. We followed Dave driving the van as he had the only GPS and as luck would have it we were separated by a slow car when we were not far from the field and had no idea where it was. We tried one way and then another but had no idea where it was or what it even looked like. It was a country area and there was a small village so seeing another car pulled up beside the road I pulled up alongside to ask for directions. In an uncanny piece of good luck the gentlemen happened to be of all people our good friend and annual GatorF3B CD Roman Vojtech. Roman was also lost but he had been to the field before so it wasn’t long before we were able to join the rest of the team at the field. The field was set in the middle of corn fields and just enough room for setting up winches East and West.
After getting the gear unloaded and winches set up we were able to get a few flights in before the sun set. This was important to me as I was flying a borrowed Target (thank you Jeff DuVal) and hadn’t yet flown the model or set up any programming for it, so I was keen to actually get it in the air before the first round contest flight in the am. The air was very bouyant so I enjoyed two decently long flights before dark and got the model mostly sorted out before we needed to pack up and head for the hotel. Tom and Darrell also got a couple of flights in so although we were all dog tired it was very worthwhile that we had visited the field on Friday.
The drive from Prague had been exhausting for all of us so by the time we got dinner and showered it was almost midnight and I guarantee everybody on the team slept like a log the minute their heads hit the pillows. I know I did!
Alarm was set for a 5:30am start.