Elf News Reporter at North Pole News Network
Elf Meg graduated from Southern North Pole University with a degree in journalism. For several years she was a star reporter for the North Pole Gazette and then briefly served as a producer for North Pole Radio News. She brings her experience in media to North Pole Flight Command, serving as both an Elf News Reporter for North Pole Radio News and Managing Editor of North Pole Flight Command.com
Elf Meg Nogg
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The caravan of sleighs – ultimately heading for retirement at the North Pole – are doing their last bit of test service on this, their 2nd day, of extended flight.

The plan is for them to push over the Regional Tracking Center at Wiseman’s Creek in Australia before taking a long route north over the Pacific Ocean to visit Sector 5. We are uncertain of their exact flight plan but know that in time they will fly over the Regional Tracking Center in Mistletoe, Kentucky.

It is assumed that the long course towards Australia, over the Pacific and then the entirety of Sector 5 will take most of the day, if not all of it. It’s an ambitious flight plan. We do not know when they are stopping or where they will be staying the night. (It certainly will not be in Mistletoe, Kentucky. There are no facilities there to house sleighs, test pilots or reindeer).

The next day, which we believe will be the final leg of this long journey, should take them to the North Pole, where our test flight teams will be paired up with new sleighs. Those new sleighs are of a corrected design.

Those new sleighs will leave, presumably after another day or two, and head to a new theater of action, where a more traditional flight plan will be planned.

Once we know of those plans, we will inform you.

Elf News Reporter at North Pole News Network
Elf Meg graduated from Southern North Pole University with a degree in journalism. For several years she was a star reporter for the North Pole Gazette and then briefly served as a producer for North Pole Radio News. She brings her experience in media to North Pole Flight Command, serving as both an Elf News Reporter for North Pole Radio News and Managing Editor of North Pole Flight Command.com
Elf Meg Nogg
Latest posts by Elf Meg Nogg (see all)

After more than 20-continuous hours in flight the test flight caravan of 11 sleighs has paused for the next 8 hours at least. They have landed on the deck of the SS Tannenbaum, which is on duty in the Indian Ocean.

Nearly 20 hours ago the flights resumed in the South Pacific, heading east first to Milagro, Ecuador. From there they crossed over South America and over the South Atlantic before appearing in the skies over Sector 3’s regional tracking center in Bethlehem, South Africa.

Then they broke north through Ethiopia and into Palestine, where they did a flyby of the Regional Tracking Center in Bethlehem, just east of Jerusalem in Israel. Continuing south and east they just landed in the Indian Ocean to end their day.

When flights resume tomorrow it is believed they will head east towards Australia.

Their flight schedule after that has not yet been determined.

We will keep you informed.

Elf News Reporter at North Pole News Network
Elf Meg graduated from Southern North Pole University with a degree in journalism. For several years she was a star reporter for the North Pole Gazette and then briefly served as a producer for North Pole Radio News. She brings her experience in media to North Pole Flight Command, serving as both an Elf News Reporter for North Pole Radio News and Managing Editor of North Pole Flight Command.com
Elf Meg Nogg
Latest posts by Elf Meg Nogg (see all)

As rumored all day today North Pole Flight Command is clearing the flight schedule for test flights of Santa’s sleigh to resume. All operable sleighs will take off from the deck of the SS Jingle Bell, anchored in the South Pacific, within the next few hours.

Those tracking the sleigh – mostly tracker elves via SantaTrackers.net – will see a much fast track of the sleighs over the next few hours.

The sleighs will be performing what is called a repositioning exercise. This is a change from one part of the world to another for the next few weeks.

Complicating this repositioning effort is a change to the next generation of this year’s sleigh design. As we reported yesterday, the cause of this week’s sleigh crash was determined to be a defect in the design. This defect has been corrected and 12 new sleighs have been ordered and are just about ready to deliver for additional testing.

Therefore, the repositioning of the test flight theater will correspond to the activation of these new sleighs.

Also, as part of the test flight program, the fast-step repositioning and replacement of the sleighs will also correspond with communication coordination tests with each Regional Tracking Center. This is why elves in each Sector were put on high alert today.

The test pattern – while advanced in speed in a process we call “fast-step” will see the sleigh move quickly from sector to sector over the next 72 hours. They will at the end of their fast run head to the North Pole.

While there, the first generation of test sleighs (11 of them now), will be retired.

While at the North Pole test pilots and reindeer will be outfitted to the replacement sleighs and therefrom head to the new theater of action.

We do not yet know where those first test flights in the new sleighs will happen. By Thursday or Friday of this upcoming week, we should know.

Elf News Reporter at North Pole News Network
Elf Meg graduated from Southern North Pole University with a degree in journalism. For several years she was a star reporter for the North Pole Gazette and then briefly served as a producer for North Pole Radio News. She brings her experience in media to North Pole Flight Command, serving as both an Elf News Reporter for North Pole Radio News and Managing Editor of North Pole Flight Command.com
Elf Meg Nogg
Latest posts by Elf Meg Nogg (see all)

Investigators from North Pole Flight Command revealed today that a design flaw is the likely cause of the sleigh crashed reported earlier this week.

It seems an odd revelation because this year’s sleigh is based on last year’s record setting flight of Santa’s sleigh. So confident have designers and even Santa himself have been of the design used last year that it was duplicated with only minor changes for this year’s sleigh.

“We found the flaw was actually part of the sleigh Santa used last year,” said Elf Quinton Q. Quigley, head elf of Research and Development at the North Pole, the department charged with running the Sleigh Design Team. “Santa’s sleigh performed so flawlessly last year because it didn’t fly under the same challenging conditions of this week’s test flight. The design issue, coupled with the weather conditions at the time of the crash, coupled with the flight maneuvers we were running at the time, coupled with an under-carriage design that allowed water to accumulate and seep into critical flight components, combined to create perfect conditions for flight failure. It is doubtful that Santa would ever see those elements combine on his actual flight.”

As Elf Buck Sanchez, head of Flight Operations at the North Pole, noted, “This is why we test fly the sleigh. To put it through crucial paces that reveal problems. Then we fix them.”

The test flights of Santa’s sleigh will resume soon. But not before a whole new fleet of test sleighs are equipped with corrections to the design that caused the crash. Those new prototypes, or Gen 2 of this Sleigh Design, as the engineers call them, are under construction right now and will be pressed into service next week.

That means some changes to the flight schedule, which will be announced soon. Please stand by for more information.