Important Test Flight Plans
The test flights of Santa’s Sleigh are heading to Greenland for a few days. How the sleigh performs there will determine where the test flights go next.
Progress is being made at the Regional Tracking Centers in both Sector 3 and Sector 5. Either or both could go online in the next week or so.
So flight planners are uncertain at the moment whether the test flights will stay in Sector 4 or move on to Sectors 3 or 5.
It is unusual to have this kind of uncertainty with the test flight plan.
Like most things at the North Pole there is a good amount of long range planning to the test flights. They have a long checklist of things they want to accomplish with the sleigh and they customarily know at least two months in advance where the flights are headed.
I’ve never seen uncertainty like this before.
What seems to be driving it is the fact that the sleigh is not where it needs to be at this time on the schedule. In other words, the sleigh should be hitting marks that it just isn’t hitting.
Speed is the critical issue.
The sleigh needs to meet certain speed thresholds – both fast speeds and slow speeds – in order to move to different kinds of test.
For example, if the sleigh is fully loaded and can land with a cross wind of 5 miles per hour within a certain zone then they can move to conditions that are more extreme in nature. But if they CANNOT land accurately in that zone there’s no need to test the sleigh against different conditions.
It is not unusual during the months of June, July and August to basically see small setbacks in the test flight schedule because a missed mark has required changes in the sleigh and they wait for the next version of the sleigh before moving forward. But to see so many missed marks and these quick orders for new versions of the sleigh is not normal.
Version #3, called Clara, is coming this week. Some think they waited too long to make that version of the sleigh, and they need to move faster before Version #4 is ordered.
That’s right. Version #3 isn’t even here yet and some are already calling for Version #4.
That means the sleigh is not developing as fast as it should.
The North Pole Prediction Market, where sugar cookies are bet on North Pole futures, is going crazy. Elf Angelina, who runs the official North Pole prediction office which is part of the Accounting Department, says her office is getting slammed with requests for information.
I have a feeling you’re going to get to know Elf Angelina a bit in the months ahead. Her predictions are watched closely not only by elves who casually bet sugar cookies but also department heads. She does serious work and elves, like for example those in charge of the Wrapping Department, depend on her predictions to make their operational plans.
What I’m saying here is that Santa’s Sleigh and it’s test flights – even they continue to go poorly – could slow down everything else at the North Pole and we could end up in a crisis with Operation Merry Christmas.
Can the Prediction Office affect the work of Tracker Elves?
What do you think?
- Important Test Flight Plans - July 19, 2026
