How terribly UNIMPORTANT are stories when things happen as in France!!!! I feel for all who lost their loved ones or are praying to keep them alive.I feel sorry for our world!!!In what world do we live. What will happen to our children and grand children.
I worry, I worry a lot!!!
But life goes on, so it should. It’s nearly 30 years ago that we lost our son/brother.I know the pain from a loss. I also know that you have to live with this loss and how cruel it is ,…you have to continue your life. I try!!!!!We all have to !!!
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I saw it from an airliner, several times , but not as good as from a GLIDER!!!
An interesting flight from 865 km. out and return on November 11, passing Ayers Rock …ULURU… the HEART OF THE CONTINENT…and back, in a DG 1000/20 m. by 2 members of the RAAF Richmond Gliding Club.
That’s flying over a lot of ” nothing.” And,…about 400 km. OUT.
As they mentioned on the OLC;“Possible 20M Class Record – claim to be processed – great view of Ularu and the Olgas.”
Can imagine that!!!Chapeau!
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NZ JUNIORS.
They are both very busy and serious with and about their flying.Good preparation, trust in each other, flying together,….this all happens between the New Zealand-juniors Alex Mc Caw and Nick Oakley and already for years now.
They arrive one of these days from NZ in Australia to represent their country during the JWGC, BUT just before their departure, they had a more than remarkable day on November 14!!!!
From OMARAMA they flew in a Cirrus [Alex] and LS 8 a 1000 k. in wave with 163 and 167 km./h. What about that!!?? What a boost for them!!!!
Yes,…. it is being on the right spot at the right time , but you still have to do it and in a Cirrus as well as an LS 8, is JUST GOOD!!!!
As always ” down to earth” Alex comments on this flight;
“A great wave day. Everything lined up perfectly to make it an easy fight. Not bad for an old ST Cirrus.”
Well done guy’s!!!!
The boy’s , Nick to the left, Alex to the right, won prizes before, so looking forward to their flying in Narromine!!!
As shared by Alex.
And mum Jill Mc Caw mentioned:” I love the gliding family. Had a visit tonight from Frederik Agger Noddelund and the Danish Junior team. They’re holidaying in NZ before the Junior World championship in Oz next month. So nice to meet them, even if they are the opposition.”
That’s what I LOVE in soaring as well; WE are a caring family in good and bad times!So important in times as these.
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LAKE KEEPIT.
4 Aussie Juniors at the LAKE KEEPIT NATIONALS, Eric , Matthew and Joe and Dylan.
Always busy with their sport and doing a great job.
Picture shared by Australian Gliding Team.
It looked as if Mike Young was n’t there. He was not scored BUT , scoring must have had some problems ,so I was very pleased to see he IS there and does well!!!
On the first day he was 4th and on day 2 he won the 1000 points ahead of Rolf .
With 2 such good days Mike is on spot 1 overall in Sports class , 64 points ahead of David Jansen.
Let’s continue with the comps in 3 classes .
No tasks on Thursday ;” No task today. We tried hard, but the high cloud beat us and after a bit of a grid-sit we called it off.“
Club class;
Thursday November 12. NO task.
Friday November 13……2. 45 AAT. And,…..it was good “old” Paul Mander who won the 920 points for a flight of 283 km. in time 2.48 so a nice speed of 100 km. /h for the good “old” PIK 20 B.
Runner up was Peter Trotter.
Saturday November 14…..2 hour AAT. Paul was still in the winning mood and enjoyed an other daily win; 201 km. but he was one of the 3 finishers. All others out-landed.Not a lot of points to win or loose so the overall scores after task 5 show us that Peter Trotter [ASW 20 a] is on top with 3043 points, followed by dad Steve O’ Donnell [ASW 20 b] with 2887 and Paul with 2840 points.
Sunday November 15 cancelled.
They started again on Monday with a set task of 381 km. and… “no problems” at all for HC junior Eric [Stauss] flying his LS 3 around with a speed of 115.39 km./h. which was 7 km. faster than Mosquito pilot Steve Mac Mahon who got the 1000 points for the day.
Yesterday with 3 days to go, as Friday November 20 will be the last day,[ just in time for the young ones to get back to Narromine ] they had a 2.45 AAT. Won by Steve O’Donnell with 357 km!!!!
On the more serious site one of the pilots , even one of my friends,survived a pretty bad landing- crash in the scrub N of Tamworth with NO injuries!!!The glider seems to be a write-off.
““I found myself in a really awful position in the middle of the scrub where to turn back was disaster and to keep going was problematic,”
VERY glad he is OK.
Today a 5 hour AAT was set , already task number 8 and it turned out an interesting day ; good for some, … bad for some. Steve out-landed so his day was not too good, but Terry won and flew in the LS 3 518 km. gaining the 1000 points.Scores are preliminary as not all have been scored now!
Standard class ;
Thursday November 12.NO task.
Friday November 13…….3 hour AAT and Bruce won the day with 365 km. in time 259.29 !!!!1000 points!
Saturday November 14 a 2 hour AAT and it was also in this class a day with many out landings.Only 2 pilots finished; HC- junior-pilot Matthew and kilometer-eater Allan Barnes,both were good for 534 and 525 points.
After task 5 the overall scores are; Matthew on top but HC, so Bruce is number 1 [3434]with 4 points less than Matthew.
He mentioned after “surfing the storm front” ;”Interesting day on Saturday – big storms on task meant 95% of competitors outlanded. Fortunately I managed to sneak around the task by riding a few gust fronts, including the strongest I’ve been on by far, peaking at 25kts (on the averager)”
Monday with 448.57 km. showed 2 HC JUNIORS on top Matthew and Dylan.Bruce was 2d and Allan 3d.
Yesterday a 3 hour AAT was set. No doubt Matthew is on “a high” and I hope he keeps it in Narromine as well. He won the day HC, with 451 km. in time 3.24, so a speed of 132.39 km./h.
He and Dylan were the last to start at 13.42 whilst most started between 13.09 and 13.21.
Richard Frawley won the 1000 points with Lisa, Bruce and Allan [100 km. less than Matthew] “just” behind.
TODAY ,….task number 8 in this class and the pilots young and old had to fly 499 km.At this stage Allan won the 1000 points with a speed of 124 km./h. but not all are scored as p.e. Matthew!
Juniors Joe and Eric flew themselves to a great 2d spot!!!
Sports class ;
Thursday November 12.NO task.
Friday November 13…..3. 15 AAT and yes from now on Mike was scored as well; spot 4 with 916 points.
Best result for former world champion Brad Edwards in the JS 1. Brad flew 421 km. during a 3.15 AAT;124.39 km./h.
Saturday November 14; a 2 hour AAT and Mike was the ONLY one to make it back home; 185 km. in 1.38. Also here in this class not too many points won or lost. After 5 tasks Mike [ASG 29] leads the pact 2916, with David as runner up [2836] and Butch on 3 with 2763.
On Monday 538 km. on the “menu” for this class and,…it’s getting boring but Mike won again!!131 km./h was his speed, which was 10 km. faster than runner up Steven Wallace in the Discus 2c.
Mac was 3 d , David 6th and Butch 9th.
Yesterday the 2.30 AAT was won AGAIN by Mike with 357 km. and a nice speed of 142.88 km. Runner up with just a few more meter [357.66 km.] but using more time, was local pilot Dave Shorter in the JS 1.[141.62 km./h.] He started 3 minutes behind Mike.
Today,….613 km. was set!!!! And,…yes you guessed it already Mike won the 1000 points with 128 km./h..
He feels as well in Australia as he did in 1987 with the Benalla WGC , when he was crewing for the UK team and learned the Dutch young ones how to play cricket!!! That’s where I got to know him.
With 2 days to go, Mike is about 400 points ahead on Butch.Unfortunately Mac out-landed after 381 km. A set back from 10 to 14.
Scores are preliminary at this stage, more next Wednesday.
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Namibia.
After the SUPERB day on the 10th, the weather was a bit less and with 2 days of between 360 and 600 km. the trainees learn as much as on a great day, maybe even better. They also practiced GRAND PRIX tasks .
They had to deal this time, with a real sand storm that passed the field ,so they got to know the “power of the weather” as well. Further on they had clouds but also very blue days.
Ludwig mentioned the SUPERB day on the 10th in his blog;
“We started to the east, only the weather was not as expected. Weak lifts in the blue, low operation heights dominated the first hour. But then, as if someone flips a switch, first clouds with strong lifts and rising the base to about 5000meters. The speeds went up, the smile on the faces widened. Most Pilots flow closed to the Botswana boarder, from there back to the edge in the west, and then you can say it really took off. A single cloud line over several hundred kilometers. I could see 218 km/h average on my LX 9000. I have now flown a couple of times here, but this where the best condition ever. Two hours without any circles, always at the maximum speed. Accordingly, the results in the evening. All participants of “Flying with the Champions” flew over 1,000 km, Hans Kandlbauer with Lukasz Wojcik set the maximum of 1173 km and myself with an average of 165km/h on 1100km flew20km/h faster than the second, the Antares 23 showed it’s potential.”
The 2 weeks are over now, not as sensational this year but the weather has a great influence of course, but another 2 new trainees arrived in Bitterwasser for MORE. They continue to fly with Wolfgang [Janowitsch] and Arndt [Hovestadt] .It is and remains an outstanding way of getting more knowledge about cross country flying and with the “help” of the champions you can’t have better guides.
As always they closed the week with bubbles and finger-food and music from the locals. What do you want more??
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The BELGIUM GLIDING PILOT SHOP DAY .
I told you that Rene and Maurits, from the Glider Pilot Shop, spend a Saturday at Terlet organizing the Dutch Soaring Day, for a big audience, one day later they did so on a smaller scale but with as much enthusiasm , at a very beautiful location in Belgium,close to Brussel; Grez-Doiceau. Have a look at the pictures.
AND it was another successful day with enthusiastic pilots.
About 100 young and old , male and female, attended and as I heard the juniors did a great job in taking care of the catering receiving for their great job financial support from the organizers for the JUNIOR team .
AND,….. the young ones organized a lottery with prizes donated by the organizers and all that money will be added to their account as well.
STILL a great shame that nobody of the very talented Belgian juniors will be in Narromine.
The ultimate goal now for these juniors is to send a well oiled team in the future to EVERY JWGC. GOOD on them!!!!
By the way the Dutch juniors , with 4 in Narromine, got financial support as well from the organizers Maurits and Rene on the Dutch day;
info@gliderpilotshop.nl
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THE SUNFLOWER!
The very first DUTCH DREAMLINER the Boeing 787 from KLM has arrived in Amsterdam and is called SUNFLOWER.
The SUNFLOWER
with in front Bas , one of Dennis’ best friends , who was with him in Australia when Dennis had the fatal accident. Bas is an engineer with KLM nowadays.He posted the picture.
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JUNIORS ready for JWGC.
The Czech team arrived in Sydney.
Picture shared by Czech rep Gliding Team.
Straight after arrival it was unpacking the container under superb skies!!
Slowly more juniors arrive in Narromine and so we find more flights from Narromine on the OLC as well.The Polish team is still waiting for their container/gliders. Hope it will be in time as you can expect problems from corners you don’t expect them. I know about shipping containers.
Though ,…I noticed Polish pilot Jacek Flis was flying without ballast already a 500 km. in the Discus.And young Jan Jaworwik, mentioned about his very first flight;
” First flight overseas, first time in Australia, first flight in Libelle, first on imperial units gauges. But still very nice flight. Declared 370km flat triangle.(primary logger failed, backup turned on after release). On the first leg, familiarization with new glider, and new landscape. On second leg, conditions improved, so it was possible to finish task.”
The “young ones” are experiencing great weather and last Monday German pilot, Simon [Briel] who is practicing already for a longer time from Narromine, flew over 800 km.
AND,…yesterday he flew a 750 FAI triangle and added some more kilometers , just not enough to make the 1000; 918 km. With that he topped the OLC list yesterday!!!!!Good on him!!
The Dutch team practices in Corowa and enjoy their time there, which they call the start of their big adventure.They were so much looking forward to this event. They are amazed by the temperature, the great clouds , big paddocks , endless visibility and enjoy each other’s company , learn from those who fly there every year and practice team flying in the beginning over the well known safe areas with airfields as p.e. , via Benalla to Tocumwal and home to Corowa.
Robin flew up to 600 km on Sunday.
Monday Corowa had a day with flights up to 750 km. and Ronald [Deerenberg in LS 8] and Robin, the Standard class-juniors flew a set 500 FAI triangle with 138 km./h.
With a flight to Narrandera and Hay they left the ” comfort zone” flying over parts with just NOTHING.
I got some pictures from friends at Tocumwal from booming skies!!
They plan to fly their 4 gliders today to Narromine. The weather should be good for those 450 km. by air. 5 Cars and 2 trailers will follow!!!I hope to drive back in one of the cars after the prize giving.Still have to organize that though.
Robin; One of the 4 Dutch pilots!
As shared by Robin.
AND
In Corowa they even were on the front page of the local paper!!!!!
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Jonker Sailplanes.
No words needed!!!
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And to finish a great picture [AGAIN] from Geoff Soper.
With the message :
“Terry Delore arrives in Omarama Sat. 14th Nov. after setting new FAI world speed record over 500km triangle distance. Speed 185.1kph, previous record was 162.8kph.”
CONGRATULATIONS TERRY!!!!!
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CU next week. That will be the last blog from Holland. The next one will be at different times, from different places and in a DIARY format from Australia.
Cheers Ritz