Day 2 in Issoudun ! Day 5 + 6 in Hobbs!

WWGC high grass 2  WWGC SEI in gras1

No worries ALL OK!!!! Soft grass!
Pictures shared by the Dutch team.

 When I came back from Amsterdam on Monday-evening,  I quickly looked at what had happened and I could not believe my eyes , both my friends Natasja [Holland] and Teresa[Sweden]  in a field. What a pity!!

—“3 outlandings today, Sophie Burgevin (FRA) landed at Romorantin airfield and will come back in few minutes “airborne”, Natasja Van Der Neut (NED) and Teresa Toivonen (SWE) also, but really in crop fields so it will be a little bit longer. 2 of the “yellow dogs”, the young boys running on the runway during the launches and finishes are going north of Vatan to help the swedish team to retrieve the pilot and its glider.—“
I told you already about the high crops. The pictures above show how high!!! Luckily the grass was soft [ grown as food for the animals] and the farmer fantastic , making a “road” to the glider and a circle around it with his tractor, so the crew could easily de-rig.
Quite an experience with no damage, only a little block under the wing to not damage the wing was lost , but looking at the pictures Walter Eisele was so kind to do the reparation. You might still remember that Walter was the CD during the Bayreuth WGC.
WWGC Walter
On day 1 Natasja mentioned; “Yesterday wasn’t a very representative flying day. Had troubles with navigation and when it was reset the back up navi failed. Aargh! Not a relaxed flight.”
Today a  busy evening for the Dutch team with a retrieve , a pity the Aussie “blunnies” , had not yet the good fibe!
WWGC Natasja in cockpit WWGC Natasja and crew
Natasja and her crew.
Courtesy Frouwke.
Kerrie [Australia]  mentioned about Monday ;
—“Another 269k fixed task to the north of Chateauroux airspace into the scrub – in mostly blue – should be right up my alley in theory. Altho now I’m adding pre-start gaggles to crop & airspace to be terrified of – yesterday I left the gaggle several times but you don’t get many turns in the blue before they find you – on track I found them a 5.5 knotter (a rare find yesterday!) but when the wall of fibreglass arrived I went to water & left! —”
She flew herself in the Pegase to an 18th place with 820 points.
WWGC Swaantje and Kerrie
Swaantje  , {NOT so happy with her flight } and Kerrie, { glad to be back} ,  relaxing after their flight.
Swaantje flies a lot in Australia , she can nearly be called an Aussie!

With CIRRUS coming in later from the North-West on this Monday , a temperature of 27 dgr. it did not look too bad and in the morning was said;” The metman is positive!” IMPORTANT!
Tasks ;  269.5 km. for the Club ladies and  Pavlina from Czech Rep. “raced” around with 74 km./h. winning the 1000 points. Sarah was 6th and the German girls finished in the middle.

The standard ladies had 320.5 km. on their plate and also here a Czech lady was the best; Dana Novakova with 84.2 km./h. Good to see Jill [UK] settled on a 2d place between all 3 Czech girls. The German ladies also here in this class finished in the middle, not loosing too many points.

The 15 m. girls had to fly 337.7 km and here it was a real French day with Jutta on top! Hungaryan Diofasi who I met at JWGC’s was a good runner up before the other French girls.3 Outlandings in this class.

WWGC Jutta and French team WWGC French team

The French team with Jutta to the left and the rest of the girls in the middle and TC Eric on the right.
As shared on FB by Daniel Audier.

 It seems in the end that it was quite a tough day as all bloggers mentioned that everybody was tired even some bloggers.

Day 3 had AAT’s in each class, with a min. time from 2.30 in club and standard and 3 hours for 15 m. The 15 m. was up in the air, but before opening the startline, they scrubbed the day for all 3 classes.

For today I noticed at the European weather forecast that the weather is not too good in most parts of France, but good in Poland for the first official practise day from the EGC.
Today is called a restday in Issoudun with in the evening the International Party.

Contest day 5 in Hobbs was a good again one after the [sand]-storm the day before, racing was possible and so they did! It turned out to be a good day full of cu’s.
In open class it’s nearly every day about Dick in the CONCORDIA and Ron in the ASW22BLE. Also on day 5, a 3 hour TAT was set and  Ron won the day just before Dick [271.89 mile/437 km. in 3.11] Ron leads now overall with 24 points.
In  15 m. class Mark Keene won the day [223.78 mile/360 km. in 2.59] and is on spot 2 overall now behind David Mockler.
In the evening a warning for a SEVERE thunderstorm was given and even the CONCORDIA and ETA BITER had to be de- rigged. NEVER saw that in Uvalde.

USA NationalsCU.  USA nationals hiding under wing

Day 4 heading to some shade under the SUPER CU as seen by Peter Alexander and some shade under the wing, as seen by Kathey Pope. Pictures courtesy SSA gallery.
Peter was by the way the “sniffer” during the WGC in Uvalde.

Day 6 in Hobbs was cancelled maybe due to that BIG storm atleast due to lot’s of rain. The comps continue till the 4th of July.
But there was a new day 6 yesterday, a triggy one , but the CD was right. On the official site [ www.ssa.org ] you can read the story by Karin, here are some parts:
“We woke up to grey skies and got hosed on during rigging – it was so sad to see the first 20 or so gliders sitting on the grid in the rain.”
“CD pulled one out of the hat: a 1.5 hr MAT for both classes.'”
“Gates opened late; 15:10 for Open’s and 15:50 for 15M”
“Some pilots decided it was worth to go over time, and most shook their heads upon return; where did this come from! The CD wondered if he undercalled the day.”
Preliminary results for day 6 Ken Sorenson, the CD from Uvalde won [122.2 miles in 1.37.21]and Dave Mockler is still on spot 1 overall with 166 points on the runner up, John Cochrane.
In open class the ETA BITER won with Heinz flying 9 TP’s,155 miles [249 km.] in time 1.54,52.  Ron was 2d with 4 TP’s, 125.10 miles in 1.35,4.

On the OLC I noticed that the first of July had some great flights. Germany had the best for Europe  , 1000 for Alexander Späth in the Nimbus 4 starting at  Hahnweide and for all reasons he was n’t too happy as it could have been better [ he declared a 1000 FAI triangle , could have flown 975 FAI  but would have had to make an outlanding then, so he gave that away] and ELY for the USA, with Jim Payne topping the list with also nearly a 1000 FAI triangle[ 988.4] .
Good flight in the ASW 27 by Ramy Yanetz,also from ELY,  a total of 1.124 ,3 [853.7 FAI]
—“Fantastic day with some great runs as well as dodging OD and virga.—“ was his comment.
Also yesterday the weather went “on” with 2 more long flights.
In 2011 the OLC had 2 days with more than 1000 flights in JUNE and one over 2000 [ 2817 nearly 3000!!] 2012 had 5 days in JUNE, with over 1000 flights , this year 2 but also one over 2000 a day.[June 8]

It’s getting closer; The EGC in Ostrow. Look at the skies , but they talk about hail and thunderstorms for the night and wind . Anyhow they could still practise and the official practise  starts today. The first official TC meeting is tonight at 8. The comps start on the 6th with an opening ceremony on the 5th. Last day July 20 with also the closing ceremony and prize giving. So now you are totally up to date! Oh, not to forget the President of the jury is Bruno Ramseyer [IRL] and the chief steward is Jaroslav Vach.[Czech Rep]

 Ostrow by the Belg.

Ostrow skies yesterday as seen by my Belgium friends.
A lot of the Keiheuvel pilots are there!

That’s it , whenever possible and when interesting for all of you as well, I will be back more over the next couple of days.
The latest digital version of the newsletter from the Perlan Project you can find on  http://perlanproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/The-Perlan-Project-Newsletter-May-June-2013-1.pdf

Cheers Ritz
on Wednesday July 3 2013 , birthday of Dennis who would have been 44 today but only celebrated 18 birthdays. NEVER forgotten!!!

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