Cheer for Team Tabery in the 32nd FAI World Gliding Championships

So you may think that it is just the Olympics coming up, but it turns out that the "Olympics" of sailplane racing is also starting in a few days.  My dear daddy is representing Team USA and will be racing in his home turf in South Texas to see if he can fly fast and grab the gold!  Sophia and I will visit the race too, I am excited to see what she thinks of these massive airplanes, watching 100 sailplanes launched into sky in 45 minutes is a pretty amazing spectacle and one I hope Sophia will enjoy and feel inspired by.  It certainly inspired my own love of aerodynamics and transport phenomena.

You can keep track of the racing status, scores, and some real time GPS data on where the contestants are during the flight by checking out the web site :

http://wgc2012uvalde.com

There may be some team blogs and other sites, but I expect to you browse through from the site above.    Here is Team USA site as well :

http://www.ussoaringteam.org/usc_multi1.htm

The first day of racing is a week from Sunday -- August 5.  there will be a couple practice days with scoring showing up sooner but the practice days dont count, so nobody really cares about the speeds those days.

Sailplane is a pretty incredible sport, the contestants get a tow via airplane up to 600m above the ground then they are off and in the mix for the rest of the day.  Using only the convection in the atmosphere they are able to race around the 400-800 km course set each day at speeds of 130 or even 180 km / h!  That is with no engine folks!