Our team after the last flight with our observer for the flight, Diana from Russia. From left to right; Tem, Diana, Wendy, Phil, Pete, Yosh and me.Well done to Johnny , Joe and Uwe for another fantastic display of how it should be done.
After a hard week of flying, 29 tasks and about another 20 hours in the sky Johhny Petrehn has come out the other side at World Champion. Again Uwe is one of the brides maids which must really be starting to hurt. As always he was a popular person to have on the podium next to the Americans. With only 400 points between each place on the podium it was still tight to the end.
My result is up there with my worst at a worlds in 36th place. The rest of the Aussies finished in 18th (Paul Gibbs), 31st (Edwin Michell) and 44th (Andrew Robertson). I don't think any of us are very happy with our places but as always are ready to fight again - next time in Austria 2008.
At some stage I will get the rest of my track logs on the blog as they show in more detail where we were going - or not as the case may be.
We are now at the Holiday Inn at Narita after dropping the balloons off for airfreight back to Australia. Andrew, Adam, Pete, Dad and I got together to swap photos and we have around 1700 between us and just under 4.7gb in total. Got to love digital cameras.
I will also put down some thoughts on the 600ft/min climb rate restriction and the effects it had on the competition and behaviour of the competitors. I am expecting this to be a hot topic at the next CIA meeting so time to start contacting the competitors sub committee and lobbying your local delegate if you have an opinion. Rule changes will probably make their way onto the agenda of the Rules SC in the near future so watch out for them and make your voice heard if you don't like where things are going.
It has been a fantastic week but the sadness over the passing of Masashi has always been near to many peoples thoughts. It is still sitting heavy on my heart. I think he would have been very proud with the result of all his hard work - although even more so if one of the Japanese had got up top for a fairy tale ending.
Les Perfield did a great job as director and the team of officials Masahsi had in place need to be recognised for pushing on under difficult circumstances. As always the Japanese organisation was second to none and the continued support of the Honda Motor Company is a fantastic thing for our sport.
PS: having looked in the mirror again, I am not really a dickhead. I just had a bad day which is easy to do when pushing a bag of hot air around the sky.
