Hey All,
Again I apologize for the gaps in coverage, but as Silbo’s mission comes to a close, so does the semester.
Silbo is now just under 300km from the shores of Gran Canaria and so our teams are preparing to get out there to recover. So far, the plan is to take Silbo from his current position and pass the Savage Islands on the eastern side, reach the ESTOC Zone (designated by the push pin) and station keep for 24-48 hours, before continuing towards the Canaries. Then from the island of Gran Canaria, a team consisting of members from TWR, PLOCAN, ULPGC and Rutgers will venture out for the recovery. We aim to do the recovery by May 18. From there, we plan on replacing the old Alkaline Batteries with new Lithium and redeploy within a few days and send Silbo on his way to Cape Verde.
This will be a distance of about 1,350km and should take us about 2 months. From here, Silbo will aim to be the first glider to cross the equator as we fly from Cape Verde to South America.
Finally, although we took a break in the middle due to a number of technical difficulties, Silbo has now flown 222 days covering 5200km; 1 more day than the historic flight of RU27 as she crossed the North Atlantic from NJ to Spain covering 7400km. Now if we throw in the flights of Cook & Drake (attempts at crossing the Southern end of the North Atlantic Gyre) and Ru 17 who was our first Trans-Atlantic attempt, we have a solid foundation to the Challenger Mission of nearly 2 years and 3 month of transoceanic missions that have flown nearly 21,000 km!
Force & Honor to all!
Nilsen Strandskov & Antonio Ramos