We made an inspirational montage as we prepared the plane for the flight mission. Unfortunately it consists of one clip, us straightening out the mangled rear landing gear.

We will have to—

BREAKING NEWS MID POST UPDATE

Our number came up again so quickly that I didn’t even have time to finish writing before we went to the first flight mission. Please put on your best dramatic reading voice again:

Late morning. The sun had scorched away most of the clouds, but the wind remained. Its temper had settled, and the gusts were less frequent and less intense.

But, while our cargo bay was full for the taxi mission, we had to fly unloaded here. The plane needed to survive four minutes in the air, and reclaim the earth on its own terms, without crashing.

But first we needed to take off. We switched propellers and tweaked our electronics, upping our power output to a startling 450 Watts.

It almost wasn’t enough. Stiff wind blew us into the air as much as we flew forward to take off. Thirty pulse pounding seconds later, the plane clawed through the wind to the first flag.

Going the other way was easy; we couldn’t slow down with such a strong tail wind, even if we wanted to. This process repeated, a struggle one way and a reckless sprint the other.

Four minutes elapsed, time to land. The terrifying part. We turned into the wind one more time, slowing until the plane almost hovered. It drifted down to earth, looking almost graceful. But all the way, it was on the verge of being blown backwards and tumbling to a crash.

Finally, the wheels touched down. Bump, bounce, skid. Two laps, no damage. Lighter, less powerful planes were not so fortunate. But we returned, victorious.