North Pole Flight Command announced yesterday that the Santa Tracker Map will be opened exclusively here on SantaTrackers.net. We are pleased to announce that as of this morning the map is live and available at this link.

Please note that while the map is now open there is not year much flight activity to show you. The North Pole Navy has repositioned to the North Atlantic and a limited number of flights are going out over the water.

We have it on good authority they will be test flying the sleigh first in Sector 3 and that those flights are scheduled to begin just after Leon Day. So, for the next week or so, you should only expect to see the test flights over the waters of the Atlantic and it may not in fact move very much.

What’s going on?

Well, the reindeer have all been selected. All of them are working a schedule getting exercise, food and even a few shots to fight against tropical diseases. They are being conditioned for a very heavy flight schedule in the months ahead.

The sleighs themselves are nearly flight-ready. There are 12 of them. They are being washed and waxed. Some are being loaded with weights. Others are being installed with special tracking equipment. No two sleighs are alike in how they are outfitted.

The test pilots are in flight school. They are receiving simulator training. Some are already reviewing their flight mission notes with assigned locations and test procedures they must follow.

Some sleighs are being flight tested over the water for the next week or so. I’m not sure the nature of those flights but they are very limited. Some of those flights are just to get the reindeer used to being used with this model of the sleigh.

And no – Santa will not be involved in the test flights. He rarely is at this point in the season.

We will keep you posted. And you can now keep your eye on  the map.

Greetings Elves of Europe and Africa,

As Elf Max shared with us the other day, we will be able to track test flights of Santa’s sleigh exclusively here on SantaTrackers.net this year. We do not yet know when those exactly will begin. However, I just learned today that the first flights will take place in Sector 3 – we’re first!

This is an outstanding opportunity for us in Sector 3 to get a jumpstart on our training.

I encourage all elves in our Sector to pay attention. Some of you may even want to watch the skies for possible test flight sightings in the weeks ahead.

Once I know more of the dates for these flights, I will let you know.

Elf recruiting is about to become a big deal, guys. I’ve been in a lot of meetings and there will be a lot of talk about this going forward. And I mean a lot.

It is a strange thing, if you ask me. It’s only June. Most people aren’t even thinking of Christmas. What’s more, Santa has not yet told us what our recruiting goal is this year. He usually does that in July, or at least he has for the last several years.

Maybe he will do it sooner this year. I do not really know. Everything else seems to be happening sooner this year, so why not Santa’s big announcement?

Anyway, regardless – getting new elves is going to become important.

How do you recruit new elves where you are? Well, that’s something we will be talking about for months. We know that no matter how hard we work it seems the most new-elf sign-ups happen in that last week before Christmas. That is not ideal. It means just a short period of training time for those elves who just sign up.

We know it is a much better experience if they sign up sometime before Christmas so they can get trained and have the fun that tracker elves usually have. But, it’s up to them.

Think about your friends. Think about your family. Heck, think about your parents. They need to become tracker elves, too. I’ll tell you right now it takes a lot more time for parents to train as tracker elves. So you might just want to start working on them now.

Keep an eye out from an elf named Flip Beanz. He’s a numbers guy. It’s his job to keep track of and to report on the number of tracker elves we have. I think his first report of the season is coming out in the next couple of weeks. He’ll tell us what the score is.

Also, your Elf Supervisor will be talking a lot more about this this year.

North Pole Flight Command has announced today that the regional headquarters for Sector 3 in Europe and Africa will be located in the Belgium city of Sint-Niklaas.

We are, of course, very excited by this news. It means the work of tracking Santa in Sector 3 can now begin.

What does that mean?

It means the elves from the Projects Department from the North Pole will begin working to remodel a selected building leased in Belgium. We expect to occupy that space to begin setting up our computer workstations, monitors, maps and other associated equipment in tracking Santa. Once that is operational we will test the systems by monitoring test flights of Santa’s sleigh.

For you, the tracker elf living in Sector 3, there is work to be done too. Not only will you want to build your own home tracking center you will want to engage in the work of recruiting other tracker elves for Europe and Africa.

I will be posting news and direction in the Sector 3 tracker group. You can login and join that group at any time now.

It’s going to be exciting!