Version 8 of Santa’s Sleigh will head into Sector 5 direct from the North Pole this morning.

It is not known how long the sleigh will be in Sector 5 or where precisely it is headed. We are not even sure how long Version 8 of this year’s sleigh will be flown. We have been told that versions 9 and 10 are nearly ready to go.

After the Halloween break it is hoped by many that we get better news coming from the test flight teams. So far designers and engineers have been stymied by mysterious problems. As they have tried to work through them the sleigh has seemed to developed problems in areas where there were no problems before. This is especially surprising since this year’s design is based on last year’s sleigh, which was used in a record setting run by Santa.

Test teams are not prepared to answer our questions about this year’s sleigh. Normally we could share news of what the test flights were doing but this year it is a different story.

We are hoping for good news soon. Designers, engineers and test pilots are weary of having to report discouraging news all the time.

For the record, Santa himself says he is not worried about the sleigh. He has expressed confidence in the development team in figuring things out so that this year’s flight can be successful.