HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY
to my Aussie friends.
Some ” HIGH” news from my Greek friends . This week, on January 21 they broke an altitude-world record in a VERY SPECIAL way from Kopaida in Greece in the Pipistrel Sinus;
” Two days ago we made an interesting flight and we actually broke (paperwork and ratification pending) the 7.143 m. FAI RAL2T (2-seater microlight with thermal engine) world record.
The interesting (and gliding related) part is that we did it with the engine off for the last and critical part of the climb flying in mountain wave!
So, we actually broke a record for aircraft with engines with the engine off!”
http://www.onlinecontest.org/
Welldone guy’s!And ….THANKS.
Courtesy 4 pictures; Alexis and Petros.
With the WGC in Rayskala this year , I am pleased to see several pictures from their glorious past on FB. Great PR tools!
Love the pictures from Kai ,as you all know! Here is the one from Rayskala [ sorry still don’t know where the umlaut is] from above. Lakes, trees AND the field and an old one from the restaurant at the field.It brings back fond memories.
courtesy Kai Monkonen.
Not only for the juniors but also for ALL interested here is some news from the Aussie juniors.
And with the 2015 JWGC in Narromine, ” around the corner” , please have a look and co-operate, I did too;
” The Australian Junior Gliding Club has decided to vastly improve our online presence. We wish to create an online source of information on all aspects of gliding, targeted at juniors (i.e. under 26 years old) but also relevant to the general population.
This short survey was created to discover what information the greater community thought should be displayed and where it should be displayed.
If you could fill it out and pass this link on to anyone you think would be interested (not just pilots), that’d be great!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BZ96PXJ
They continued there chase on records, from Douglas Backhouse, the Dutch pilot Max and his mate Edo. When a 750 after 2 hours of flying, was impossible due to thunderstorms, they declared and flew in the Nimbus 4 DM another new Dutch record this time over 100 km. O&R with 182 km./h.The finish was a bit special as in retrospect the thunderstorm was pretty close , Max mentioned. Here is another great picture , shared by Max.
By the way they set 7 new Dutch records in open class, a great ” harvest”. Yesterday they flew 821 km. Edo is ready to go home, Max is ready to pack his belongings among them his precious NIMBUS 4DM.
A shower close by and a smiling,soaring,ready-to-go- home Edo.
Thanks for the great pictures guy’s!
Tocumwal topped with a flight from Stephan in the LS 4 over 505 km. the world-wide OLC list on January 23. After the heat they had a cool change and the cycle has to built up again.
It shows what a determined pilot Stephan is , already for years,he really loves long distance soaring in the glider[KYO] he has in Tocumwal already for years and years.
It also shows that there are less good days now world wide and shorter and that a lot of over-seas pilots are back home!
Old friends visiting Tocumwal as Pepe and his Brasilian mate Eduardo Pontes. Ingo and Eduardo had not seen each other for 28 years.
And active as always Dundee hooking on gliders.
Pictures shared by the SRGC and more pictures on their FB site.
Only 38 flights were added on that January 23, mostly from Australia, but also a few from Europe.
The mountains are active as Gerard Lherm showed with his flight in the Nimbus 4D, from St Martin de Londres in France; 602 km. .
Yesterday he flew in the 15 m. Ventus B 708 km.
Also a flight from La Cerdanya in the Spanish mountains in the Duo Discus with 200 km. shows European activities mostly in wave.
And the first flight in the new ARCUS T over Vinon by Erik Borgmann was special too; 252 km but tough wind at altitude; 160 km./h.
308 km. from Calcinate in Italy in the ARCUS M from Aldo Cernezzi flying with Luca De Marchi shows activities there as well. They even had lift up to 4 m./s. Not bad!
And specially to achieve your height-gain as first 3000 and 5000 Aosta is active.
Bitterwasser has packed it’s containers on the 23d and for them the season is over! The containers leave tomorrow for their trip home to Germany.
They had a fabulous season with very strong weather but with that also some very strong thunderstorms and even worse …phenomena as micro bursts . Luckily all went well for all pilots, not for all gliders, as you really have to be inside in time, with that kind of weather!
They are very open on their site about this and I appreciate that as former owner of a soaring-business as only then pilots can learn from it.
With 134 guests adding their flights on the OLC , they made 913 flights and an amazing amount of kilometers;
710.940, 28. This is 162.621 km. more as last year, when they had 103 guests. So they still grow in numbers! Good on them!!!
South Africa;
Gariep Dam is still active and flights were up to over 800 km. from there in the 25.5 m span Nimbus 3 T from Klaus Engelhardt.
UK pilots always love New Tempe Bloemfontein as their overseas destination and they are still flying at the moment, though they struggle with showers.
Kuruman had still 1000 km. flights yesterday , lovely to see how much Hans and his family and friends love the new ARCUS M. Pilots also enjoy nice flights from Worcester and Potchefsroom.
It’s weekend so a bit more busy.
To finish some more pictures from the fires close to Bacchus March in Victoria Australia last week, as shared by Joergen.
Fires on January 17.
Courtesy Brigitte/Joergen in their ARCUS.
That’s it! Cu next Wednesday!More news in Sunday’s SOARING CAFE.
Cheers Ritz
on Sunday January 25 2014