Enough ” reading-stuff” to share a blog with you today Sunday ,as I am leaving for a week. Next Sunday more about the JUNIORS.
NARROMINE…PRE WORLDS /JOEYGLIDE for the JUNIORS.
The Pre -worlds , in Australia they call the junior comps JOEY GLIDE after a baby kangaroo, started for juniors in Narromine and the unofficial practice days were not really usable due to the weather.Look at this;
GREAT picture!!
As shared by JoeyGlide on FB.
Time enough to “bond” for the young ones, whilst looking at the great lightning and for a beer for more ” bonding”.
On the practice day on December 5, everybody was ready for it and the weather forecast was looking better for every up- coming day.
This day could only ” handle ” 2 hour AAT’s.
As shared by Joey Glide.
32 Participants in Narromine for this event and some of the European pilots are still saving money to get there in 2015. Others were so lucky to be there as pilots from Denmark and Sweden, from the UK and Lithuania.Of course living closer by but still a few kilometers away the 4 boys from New Zealand.
Day 1 still had some suspect influences so AAT tasks were set from 2 and 2.5 hour .
Both classes flew for a few kilometers the best up to just over 40 and aborted their flight to return “home” .
So a day to extra practice ,rigging , flying a bit ..checking all instruments etc.. de-rigging and back home for bonding.
This cloud was hanging OVER town and was not supposed to disturb the flying.
BUT……”A wall of rain before the first turnpoint caused the fleet to abort the task and turn for home. Despite a squall line going over the airfield, all pilots made it back and landed safely. Congratulations to all for sensible decisions and safe flying in difficult conditions.” as you can read on their live blog; http://joeyglide.juniorsoaring.com.au/
With the message on Joey Glide;
“A very large cloud building over Narromine township, fortunately not over the task. All competitors have been launched and the start gates are open, they’re off and racing!”
Kiwi pilot ‘s Alex and Nick keep a blog and on this day 1 Alex wrote;
“A big storm developed on task, with only the very brave trying to push through it. In the end everyone turned around and raced the storm back to the airfield.
It was a mad rush to get the gliders in hangers in time, with lots of people holding gliders down as the gust front passed. A couple of poor chaps had to land in the storm but they pulled it off well.
No one got a round so no scores for the day.”
He even had time to make some pictures.THANK YOU ALEX AND NICK for sharing.
Alex and Nicks Gliding Adventures.
After scrubbing day 1, day 2 was better and 2.30 AAT’s were set and on FB we could see ” flashing finishes” on a video from Andrew [Maddocks] So a better day with in club class 275 km. distance flown by James Nugent with 97.3 km./h. in the LS 3a and in 15 m . 328.6 km. by Matthew Scutter, [Discus 2b] with a speed of 122 km./h.
Young female pilot Ailsa was runner up in the LS 8.
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They are going for it!!!! They??? Pilots who are flying 1.100 -plus! Alexander Mueller [flying from Pokweni] one of the well known kilometer-eaters flew 1.320.81 [959 km FAI triangle] and one day later 1.337 km.[1.102 km. FAI triangle] and 2 over 1.200 -plus! All open class gliders .
Alberto Sironi from Italy flew 3 new Italian records from Bitterwasser. On a pretty blue day with not the strongest conditions he flew a declared 1075 km. FAI triangle with a speed of 140 km./h..
Our Dutch kilometer eaters Jos and Daan, flew another 1000 a total of 6 already.
One day later a total of 5 FAI triangle flights from over 1000 km.
And the ” SHARK” flew another 1000 km from Kiripotib , this time with a Dutch pilot. Another SHARK did the same with a German pilot from Bitterwasser.
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Good news from Jonkers; “Another first for JS – the first flapped 18/21m high performance glider fitted with a manual hand rudder control for pilots with reduced leg functionality.
The MRC system has been desigend solely by the young JS engineering team over the last 6 months. According to Mr. Louis van der Walt, the project manager, the complexity was much more than intially anticipated. “The flap handle was modified into the manual rudder control, while the flap control was changed to a electrically driven system. Additionally the airbrake has 5 fixed lock positions, and the wheelbrake actuator is moved to the control stick. Although it seems simple, the complete design consists of more than 300 parts, 17 engineering drawings and more than 35 engineering documents…” This project surely kept our engineering team quite busy… With the flaps now electronically controlled, a fully redundant auto-flap system is being developed in co-operation with LXNav.” Over the next couple of days they hope to complete the certification process and once the certification process is completed, the MRC will be an option on the JS1. In the process they will have the help of the new owner Adam.
Adam , with Uys in the glider. AND… The JS Engineering and assembly team with Adam Uys. As shared by Jonkers.
Tocumwal had some thunderstorms but also some real nice lenties and cumulus clouds. Joergen was so kind to share them, as he and his wife Birgitte spend a few months in Tocumwal this year.They fly with the SRGC and they are specially pleased with the briefings by Ingo.
Not yet the super weather in that part of Australia.
Toc from above as seen by Joergen and Birgitte On the first picture you see the airfield , the golf club and where the trees are also the Murray River and in the back the good old town.
By the way I just published at www.soaringcafe.com the story about MILVUS, functional clothes for pilots…..enjoy!
CU next Sunday cheers Ritz
On Sunday December 7 2014