This early hot spring-weather creates great circumstances for pilots, but unfortunately also disaster for others in Australia!!
It’s weird to write about this great weather for soaring with a good competition as a result , when  more than 1000 km. South,  fires are” roaring like hell and destroying houses and nature including ANIMALS” .
Seeing Australia as my second home country,  it hurts to see what happens around the town of Sydney and those gorgeous Blue Mountains.
I feel for ALL!
For those who have no clue where these fires are,  here is a link I got from an Aussie friend and it still does n’t look good ,though there was a bit of rain, but today will be around 35 and a tough wind,  so extremely dangerous and people got the message to better “leave the area “;

http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=683

Looking back at week 1 in word and picture!

 

“315km racing task. Gone for a short sharp task today & save energy for a 500-600km task tomorrow”

“We only have 4 tugs, one is U/S and one has gone back home to DDSC for the weekend“.

“All home safe. Great interest in how A1 managed to blitz the field and come home so fast. It seems to be something like Stay high, Fly fast and don’t turn.That is he didn’t turn for 70+km on the first leg.” about day 5 winner , junior pilot Matthew Scutter.

” Yesterday Ben Loxton had a 7.1kt average climb”

” Blue sky this morning with Cus forecast for later. Briefing is early today at 9am to allow for an earlier launch. Rumours are of a 600km task to the South (usually South is blocked by airspace but it  is not active on weekends) we shall see.”

“All gone. 50 gliders launched with 4 tugs in 90 mins.”

These are all sentences I picked up from the GFA- FB-site to show you the atmosphere of week 1 in Kingaroy, with pictures presented by the GFA. It says more than stories, is n’t it? It also shows how smooth the launching is, how good the meteo and how involved all pilots are.

On Monday they continued:
ALL pilots had just over 500 km. With  NNE winds 10kts  and 28C at Kingaroy, NO high cloud in the task area,  that task should be possible.
25C was needed for launch height (4500′ QNH) 28C will give 8000′ also not too bad and  “Getting better in coming days.” even better, though pretty tiring.
Early starts from just over 11 onwards and indeed most pilots finished.
Matthew Scutter who is “HOT” won again! Speed over 502 km. was 129.3 km./h. Matthew spend his Aussie winter in our European summer and flew the JWGC  in that time, so enough experience over the last months for him and it SHOWS. Good on him.
CHAPEAU in this class for Steve McMahon ,who finished after 5.50PM in his Mosquito, 86 km./h. ,but he WAS HOME!!! Great effort!

Matthew with Sebastian Kawa during his check flight in Poland.
Courtesy Matthew.

136.5 km.h over 509 km. in 18m./open was n’t bad either. Ian Graigie in the JS 1 JET was runner up , just before young Ben Loxton who is really showing what talent he is/has. Daily winner;….with 136. 8 km./h was Arne from Denmark. Good on him!

 

Arne and Steve Wallace in Kingaroy.

In St class the 5th place was for NZ pilot Alan Belworthy , flying a DISCUS, member from the Tauranga Gliding Club. Visited the club when I visited NZ  in 2010, loved Tauranga and still love the view on Mount Mounganui.

Mount Mounganui in NZ.

She is on the bottom of the scores , but I am sure she loves every minute of her time in Kingaroy; Annemiek from Holland. She uses nearly 4 hours, where others only use 2.24 but,  who cares she sees more!
Where others have 125 km./h. in her class,  she has 71.8.  BUT…. she flew and finished over 405, 316 and 319.
On day 6 she managed to fly 462 km. from the set 505. On day 7 she only missed out on about 20 k. A pity!
She even was on spot 3 on the WORLD WIDE OLC list on October 19!And I am sure she learned a lot!

First time flying in Australia is pretty impressive.

On Tuesday, another day in soaring-competition-paradise, blue though, with 438 k in 18m/open class and remarkable,  about ONE hour difference in start times. David Jansen started 50 minutes later then the early birds, BUT , won the day! Another 1000 points in HIS pocket! From the last spot [ 20] in the combined 18m/open on day 1, he is on spot 8 overall now!
Arne is still in the lead, but Tom is “pushing”.

A very concentrated Tom.
Courtesy; GFA site

In St. class day 7 was a prey for Greg again. He leads the overall scores with more than 400 points.
376 km. for the 15 m. pilots and this is for sure not Lisa’s competition. She outlanded and lost more points on her concurrent ‘s. A pity as I know she is good, but that’s soaring, as we all know. One good thing; Her husband Peter won the day . Matthew lost 200 points on Peter, so not a flash day for him either.
Who will receive the prizes as national champion,  on Friday evening during the presentation dinner? Only 3 days to go, exciting!!!!

A very tragic accident in Belgium with a Pilatus PC 6 Turbo Porter, killed  all 10 para-jumpers and the pilot! Amongst them one young lady from 21 , who went up for the first time, as a birthday present. Some tried to save themselves by jumping,  as parachutes were found open, but they were still too low. Very sad! RIP!!!

AND…I share with you the next link…from the Soaring Society of South Africa as seen on FB, with the latest news. Not all of you are on FB so here you are;
http://sssa.org.za/index.php/soaring-magazine/archives

Cheers Ritz
On Wednesday October 23 2013, very early in the morning, as I am off to the S. of Holland,  so no time to see what happened today in Kingaroy. You will be able to read that on Sunday or look at www.soaringspot for the preliminary scores. The day Dieter Dundee has arrived in Tocumwal.