Thunderstorms !! “Arnborg”- girls are finally HIGH !German 18 m. and open class in progress.

Confusing weather in Europe, bad, good, better ,best!!

13.5 m. WGC in Pocuinai.

zzzzPrizes

Winning these prizes is the mean reason they fly ….extra motivation/inspiration.
As shared by the SSA.

When I finished by blog last Sunday I just could add the news , that the day was cancelled. Thunderstorms appeared faster than expected, so after 7 days of flying this is no problem, in fact it is GOOD!!!
Monday was an official rest day so they continued again on August 11.
” After 7 straight days of racing, we get two days off (storms today and official rest day tomorrow)“. by team USA.

Team France;Antoine and Frederic
As shared by Pole France Planeur.

zzzz13.5 m. French pilots

August 11 ; ” we have good weather again, with a 340km task .
—Mostly sunny. Clear. High 31C ,low 17 dgr. C. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 km/h.—
So,…the start gate opened at 12.55 and off they went for another day.
WOW….Stefano did SO well. He was the only pilot to finish. Great job as well from Morgan coming close ;314 km.French pilot Antoine Havet had 307 km.
Local hero Vladas had 304 km. !!!So except for Stefano , all out-landed in real or virtual.
Not bad those FES engines!!!!

I share the Aussie report including news from the pre -worlds flown parallel with this 13.5 WGC. Aussies Toby and Dylan fly/practice in that competition.
“A great day for the Aussies yesterday. A day win for Tobi, now leading the club class and Morgan was 2nd (only one got home), solidifying 3rd overall. Dylan also solidified his 3rd overall in the mixed class – none of whom got home.

The weather shut down with what felt like a sea breeze crossing the airfield, only it came from inland. The best guess was that the cold front that cad crossed the day before had reversed back into us. This shut down all thermals on the last leg much earlier than predicted.”

August 12; “ Today we have a 2 hour AAT – we need 35 degrees to break a low inversion, but 36 degrees will cause widespread thunder storms.”
More on that later.

———–

WWGC …ARNBORG in DENMARK.

zzzzzzElena  zzzzzzAussie lady

Italy [Elena]   AND Australia [Kerry]

zzzzzzzDutch lady  zzzzzFrench lady

Holland [Natasja] AND  France [Aude]

Sunday August 9;
The ladies fly!!!Finally a day with cu’s and a base between 1200 and 1700 m. So the girls were “high”!! The best even got 1000 points for the day.
standard class; 315 km.Most started just before 2 PM.All finished within 4 minutes. The last came in at 6.30 PM. One out-landing.
It was France , then twice Czech Rep, France again and Czech Rep and 4 times Germany.2 Times Poland, once Denmark and the out landing for Australia. Daily winner ,Melanie Gadoulet, 3 overall now after Jana and Dana.

Club class; 303 km.best speed 80.4 km./h. by Aussie pilot Jo Davis in the LS 4, but due to handicap Elena was faster in her LS1f.[77.93 km./h/]Her 2d daily win over the 6 days they flew.
The Dutch girls did well,   on spot 3 and 4 the German girls , early starters were on spot 11 and 12 from 17.
Sarah, who won even 2 days was on spot 14.
The overall top 4 is CLOSE; 3011 for Sabrina from Germany in the St Libelle, Lihuanian Edita in the St Jantar 2999,Italian Elena with 2994 and Chrissie from Germany with 2945 points.

15 m. : 310 km. and one out landing. 2 French girls in the daily top Marilyne and Anne, then Anette and Katrin from Germany and Jana from Czech rep. ALL flying 80 km./h.
Overall; Anne leads with more than 300 points on Marilyne. Then Annette and Katrin.

Monday August 10; cancelled!!
International Evening.
AND,..Annemiek who won day 1 ,”got ”  her prize, a flight in the open 2-seater G2 from 1950.According to steward Frouwke Kuijpers , this is from the 10 built , the only one still flying.

zzzzzAnnemiek in G2

Tuesday August 11 ;
1.30 AAT’s in each class.BUT,…the weather changed ,….and a longer B task , 2 hours was predicted , but when they did so, the weather turned back to “so-so” again.
Reason to cancel club and 15 m. class and as the standard has one day less ,they were allowed to fly for the B task back to 1.30.
The line opened at 3.35 PM with a base of 800 m. and 1 to 1.5 m lift. Reason for several pilots to stay close to the field.BUT ,…they started so they had to go!The 13 girls left within 4 minutes between 4 PM and 4.04.
12 Flew over 100 km./h. Nearly all were back just before and 2 just after 6PM.
French girl Melanie and Aude are “chasing” the Czech girls for the overall top.

August 12;
Decent tasks today; 331 for standard, 300 for club and 373 km. for the 15 m. girls.
More later.

———–

EGC in RIETI.

zzzzDavide

Nice picture of Davide at Briefing, after he won the day, on August 8.
as shared by the organizers.

Sunday August 9;
“For today, the Contest Director, decided “no task” because of bad weather forecast with many thermo-convective thunderstorms all around Rieti. As we can see in the photos Terminillo mountain is in the clouds. Tomorrow it will be rest day: a weather system coming from Atlantic is pushing a cold front over Italy with heavy thunderstorms and some risk of hail.” 

The Terminillo.

zzzzThunderstorms in Rieti.

 BUT,….lot’s of FUN with the preparations of the NATIONAL EVENING!!!!!!
AND… enough happening as you can read in Terry’s  story for the day;
First part of my post fell off? We had the international evening tonight, a great event. My favourites were the Russian Vodka, the Polish Vodka, the Austrian clear stuff, the Dutch orange stuff, the British gin stuff, The Czech beer, the Czech Vodka, The Slovak Vodka, the Spanish Sangria, the Finnish Korsakova stuff, the Belgian beer, plus various food tastings plus a whole lot of other clear stuff that I cannot remember for some reason. ” 

And  TEAM UK;
A full report of last nights international evening, we won. Although most teams might not consider international evening as a competitive event we did, and it went well. We quickly decided that for environmental reasons it was better to serve our eton messes straight into the mouths of our victims, and this was then quickly washed down with a appropriately strong glass of gin and tonic. This led to some competitive sausage eating and more eastern european vodka than is healthy for anyone. I wouldn’t expect many more posts from the team today, the camp is very quiet and we are two team members down at the moment, location unknown.”

zzzzzzInt evening in Rieti.

Monday August 10;
Official rest day! GOOD,….looking at the pictures and video of the INTERNATIONAL PARTY, , they might need 3 days of rest !!!!!!

Tuesday August 11 ;
The morning-weather in Rieti as seen and shared by team UK.

zzzzweather Rieti

NO TASK…

zzzzRieti no task

Wednesday August 12;
They are flying again, not yet with the great Rieti circumstances but they fly;
Today area task of 340 km for club class, 430 km for standard class, 379 km for 15m.

———-

GERMAN OPEN and 18 m. CLASS NATIONALS.

ZZZZStendal1

During practice!
As shared by the organizers.

In Stendal Borstel, they started yesterday with the always exciting open and 18 m. class Nationals.
A few HC pilots as well; from Holland Alfred Paul Alfers [ASG 29] and Sikko Vermeer.[ASG 29 E]  From Belgium Pierre de Broqueville [EB 28] ,from Sweden Boerje Eriksson and Markus Ganev [both ASG 29 E] and from Rusland Maksim Okhapkin.[ASH 25]
A total of 76 pilots !!!!
August 11..Day 1 ;
estimated first launch at 12.30, tasks to the east. In the end the first launches started at 2.30 PM.
18 m.;272 km. but after a field briefing reduced  to a 2 hour AAT.
open class ;269.5 km. C tasks were valid but nobody flew higher than 500 m. so the day was CANCELLED in both classes.
Can’t say they did not try!!!

August 12 tasks; are not on yet but according to some people over there the weather is not yet “flash”.They set a racing task as task A and the B task will be an AAT.
More later.

———-

Bailleau.

zzzzBailleau

70 at the grid as seen and shared by Ken.

They carefully tried with a 1.30 AAT for the experienced pilots;speed class. One class ” The friendly one” was cancelled the other called ” long flights” got a 2 hour AAT.
After 2 cancelled days pilots are eager to fly again. But it is waiting and waiting as you can see on the picture shared by Frank Hiemstra.

zzzWaiting in Bailleau

No worries ,..they flew last Sunday. Stijn Vanden Boer from Belgium flew 163 km. in his 15 m. version LS 8, with a speed of 109 km./h. good enough for 378 points. Frank [Hiemstra] from Holland in the St Cirrus was runner up ; 161 km. in 1.39.
The Long flight pilots flew as well, had indeed a longer flight just over 200 km and the Bailleau- locals did best!18 from 19 finished.

August 10;
228 k. in the ” friendly”  class, 435 in the” long flights” and the “speed ” class got 302 km.
Rik and Stijn Vanden Boer did well in the speed class starting pretty late , chasing and winning the day in an LS 8 and St Libelle.
Except for one pilot they all flew the 435 km.in the “long flights” ,good on them!!
August 11;
19 Pilots left in the Long Flights and with a 2.30 AAT ,the 4 best spots were for the locals from Bailleau; 270 km. with a speed of 108.12 km./h. in a Duo Discus XT gave 760 points.
The speed -pilots had 2.15 as time for their AAT.A good day again for Stijn winning the day with 195 km. in his St Libelle.Not such a good day for Frank as he was 23 and loosing more than 200 points.

zzzzBailleau by Dennis

Bailleau as seen by Dennis Terpstra one of the competitors.

August 12; 396 for the long flights and 297 for the speedy ones!

———–

Fuentemilanos ;  was hot again during the last days, hot as in HOT /warm and hot as in many good flights.
Kilometer -eater Guy Bechtold added number ???? to his list of thousands.
Vinon;” Sometimes difficult, sometimes easy”. was the comment from Bert Schmelzer jr. on his 811 km. flight in his “new”  ASG 29. Together with his partner Barabara and his brother Tijl they fly in Vinon this week.

Unfortunately I read some VERY sad news too about the French mountains in Le Figaro. One pilot ,53 years old died when flying from Serres already on August 2 but they only found him on the 10th, another one both German by the way, only 32 years old crashed in the Haute Alps [Embrun] yesterday. TRAGIC!!!!

———–
For those interested;

The countdown to one of the most exciting and competitive sporting events this fall has started. 20 of the best pilots in the world will be coming to Varese, Italy, where they will compete for the title of FAI World Sailplane Grand Prix Champion. Using the latest 3D presentation and video technology, the organising team at Varese will bring you all the drama, tension and excitement live, with race coverage every afternoon from 5th to 12th of September. Follow all the action each evening!”
I will follow it as well , with so many others!

———-

To finish also for those interested ;

Kingaroy Soaring are the proud hosts of the 2015 Gliding Queensland State Championships.

All information can be found at the following link – http://kingaroysoaring.com.au/

Save $50 by registering by the 3rd September meaning all you will pay is $100 registration.

You are up to date, with the latest,CU when there is enough and exciting news again.
Cheers Ritz

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