The Team
Three people. One aircraft. Everything to do.
Team 77 was small: Mark Hensman, Greg Ritz and Patrick Davidson. Between them they fuelled, cleaned, placed markers, made plans, managed video, analysed data and kept the aircraft ready.
The Problem
The runs looked clean. The RDU disagreed.
Pylon hits and height penalties kept appearing even when the track looked clean from the ground and on camera. Cameras came off, GPS checks started, and a foil base was added to the receiver. Still, nothing solved it.
“What if it isn’t the flying? What if it’s the GPS?”
The Discovery
A solar storm had hit.
Greg started investigating reports of southern lights and the effects of space weather on GPS. A call to the South African National Space Agency confirmed the team was dealing with severe geomagnetic conditions that could make GPS tracking unreliable.
Sunday Morning
Run 36 finally gave them the answer.
After 35 runs, Team 77 made one more attempt. Run 36 was clean: 65.772 seconds. Patrick saw it on the RDU, called Greg on the radio, and they landed to log the flight.
36 runs. Four days. One solar storm. One clean flight. Qualified third.
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