Aaron Swepston writes:

The Vertigo organizers accepted registrations well after their
published deadline, so while it was a concern about the registrations not being
sent or confirmed by the closing date, it turned out to not be a problem. The
organizers wanted to have a good meet, a good show, and were very accommodating
in that regard.


Our U.S. Team consisted originally of Mitch, John and myself, with alternates
being Erik Delf and Kipp Bottorff. Eric was next on the ranking list, and Kipp
was eager to compete and was already stationed in Europe on a work contract.
Erik ended up saying that he could not go, obligations and expenses being the
main obstacles. Mitch wasn’t sure if he could swing it either, as it was an
expensive trip and other domestic obligations existed as well.


There was reportedly the probability, possibility of airfare funding from the
organizers for both John and Mitch, but there never was a confirmation of that,
and last that was heard on that idea was that the plan for airfare funding for
them was “fruitless”. Mitch said that he was out, that it just wasn’t in the
cards this time around. So the only ones that were tossing their hats in the
ring were myself, John and Kipp.


Kipp has a new glider, but I suspect that he was a bit less confident with it
than he had been in his previous glider. Add to that the somewhat disjointed
communications between all of us, and he ended up being out of it.


John made arrangements for a glider that resides in Europe, and got his airline
tickets, so he was good to go. I was set as well, but apparently the airline
crackdown was not limited to toothpaste and shampoo, and my load of gear,
harness/chute, “glider” in huge capped PVC pipe, etc., were not acceptable as
check-in items this time.


I’ve had difficulties with check-in before, but making arrangements at the time
of ticketing and having the reservation flagged for oversize excess baggage has
gotten to be reliable, even though there is typically the bit of round robin
discussion between the check in agents and the baggage people and a few other
people, but the results are always the same, except this time. With a refused
glider, that pretty much is it.


I think that pretty much is how we ended up with only one pilot as our
representative. I don’t imagine that travel will be getting any easier as time
goes by, so likely the best option will be to pre-ship glider and gear well in
advance. Never had to do that before, but live and learn.