It's a non-flying day for the 39th World Gliding Championships at Tabor. Forecasts called for another weak blue day: not actually unflyable, but probably lower & weaker than the previous two. With much better weather said to be on the way, a rest day was declared yesterday evening.

Much of the US Team is now in Prague, doing some of the many touristy things that noble city is famous for. It's very accessible from Tabor: There's a train station within walking distance of the airfield (indeed, we often have to wait several minutes when crossing tracks on our way to or from there). The ride (about an hour) is both cheaper and quicker than driving. I imagine it's fully practical to live in Tabor and commute to a job in Prague.

The recent difficult conditions have had their inevitable effect on flight safety at WGC2025. A new part of this story is the imposition of a 100-point penalty on Tom Arscott (glider DW) of Great Britain, who was standing first in the 15-Meter class. We understand this was for an incident in a Thursday pre-start gaggle, judged to be unsafe flying. A short video of this – a 2-D construction from flight logs – was shown at Friday's pilot meeting. I think this penalty would not have been given without good evidence of a dangerous maneuver. But I'm confident the pilot's view is in part along the lines of "What about all the other aggressive gaggle flying we've all been witnessing? Why me and not all the others?"

At the 2017 World Gliding Championship in Benalla Australia (a contest much troubled by weak, blue soaring conditions), a feature of each morning pilot briefing was a display of all glider IDs and the number of close encounters each had experienced the previous day, as determined by analysis software that examined all flight logs (encounters between teammates – who routinely & deliberately fly close to each other – were not counted). This was thought by pilots there to be effective: the knowledge that your careless or aggressive flying today would be on public display tomorrow is a meaningful deterrent. I've not seen this used since; I think it should be a regular feature at soaring competitions.

I was able to do a walk this afternoon, during which I came across a small "Cars & Coffee" style event. The most common marque was Skoda, a Czech auto manufacturer. This company has been in business since 1850, though didn't start making cars until about 1925. It's now part of the Volkswagen group (which, among others, also owns Audi, most of Porsche and part of Bugatti). Many sporty-looking versions, including numerous convertibles were on display, looking like they date back 40+ years.

Also prominent were Jawa motorcycles, also made in this country – some looking ancient. And there was a military-style truck made by Tatra, yet another Czech vehicle manufacturer.

-John Good