As Challenger continues to make good progress to the west-north west, Dave has continued to analyze the compass and flight statistics of our glider. As I have mentioned over the past few weeks, we have had a few issues with our steerings routing from a problem with the compass. Dave Aragon has been working since the beginning fine tuning the flight parameters to get ourselves flying as well as possible. There is one limitation to completely solving the problem; we are operating with low power mode set to 30 s interval so any unfavorable movements don’t get corrected for until the computer clicks on every 30 s, sometimes leading to overcorrection. So tomorrow we will run a test flying Challenger at full throttle to see to what extent Dave has eradicated the problem.
While we run the test and through the weekend, Challenger wil continue to pursue the western set way point as we try and cut across the weakest point of the southern flux immediately next to us as we head towards the opposite side of the eddy that leads into the ‘free way’ we will cruse along in the near future.
To the North, Silbo continues to force his way south as the north west current tries to defer his progress resulting in a more lateral movement that we would hope. Although it may take a little longer, Silbo either way is flying towards the large warm eddy to the south west which will provide the strong southern jet that will carry us south.
Force Wind Sea & Honor