International Gliding ! Airbus !Still enough soaring in Europe ,but it slows down!

Alphen aan den Rijn      Sunday    September 6    2009

After 2 days of REAL autumn weather here in Holland,  with heavy rain and wind and  a long thunderstorm [3 hours ] over Alphen on Thursday evening/night, we luckily go back to a nice after-summer-period with temperatures up to 25 dgr. on Tuesday.
This is good news for my Australian friend Gina, who will visit me next week. Though she visits Ireland first [at this moment] and …they have about the same weather as we do now.

Yesterday I received the September issue of International Gliding.On the cover page is written ” we are the best in what we do!” and to be honest I totally agree. It is a human, easy to read magazine. John Roake is the “boss” , it is “made” in New Zealand but the news is totally INTERNATIONAL.
Robert Danewid from Sweden, about wave flying in Norway.
A portrait of Spanish pilot , competition director, FAI jury member etc Angel Casado.
The ARCUS by Jochen Ewald !!!!
The jet-powered ASW 20 , the PW 6!
A short story about my friend Manfred Radius from Canada,  who did a great evening-display with his “Salto” with the jet sustainer motor at Oshkosh!
Manfred was our guest at Sportavia for many years and before performing at the Avalon airshow, [Melbourne] he practised over our airfield making all our guests and half of the town Tocumwal, as happy and excited as possible!An amazing pilot!!!!
A story about the 18 m. Nationals in the USA [Ephrata] by Bill Elliott , who flew his JS1 to a 3d place ,which makes him fly in Szeged in Hungary in 2010 in 18m. class. By the way , as I told you Andy Davis won in the UK the 18 m. Nationals, but…I forgot to tell you he flew an JS1 as well.
News about vintage gliding, “vintage pilots ” Joachim Keuttner who celebrates his 100th birthday on September 21 and the progress of the first home-built PIK27 [ Finland ] in Australia by friend Bob Ward.
As you can see , enough news , also about instruments as Spiderwatch [a major advantage on ELT ], which gave me yesterday a very pleasant afternoon of reading and catching up.

The young German pilots are still having a lot of fun in Vinon.  3d Place winner in the last JWGC , Alexander Spaeth , in his young enthusiasm wrote as text with his 661 km. flight :” I hate the valley from Barcellonette”, but for sure he had a great run!
In Australia they fly through the year in Jondaryan , but now with the beginning of the spring the kilometers  are growing…..and…. 350 km is a nice beginning of spring. Today they even flow 438 km. with an LS1f.
In Holland we had rain in Amsterdam but good flying in the SW part of Holland, flying distances over 300 km even with the Standard Libelle. A day on which they just could fly straight on for kilometers, without thermalling , as they said !!!!
My friends in Israel had a great day as well as Rafi flew 367 km from their airfield Beer Sheba Teyma. And in Germany , former World Champion Reinhard Schramme, flew in a duo-discus 482 km. Don’t forget it is already late in the season and the days are really getting shorter!!

Airbus top man Thomas Enders said in an interview  in the French paper Le Parisien, that they study possibilities to replace the black boxes  with the flight information in the future, for direct satellite connections. They found , in the end, the black box from the crash close to the Comore Islands, but the other one over the Atlantic Ocean ,has never been found. To improve the safety of flying ALL information should be available after a crash, but….when you do not find the box , you have a problem. So this might be a great solution.

Quick action in India, where a Boeing 747 ready to go from Mumbai to Riyadh, on the taxi-way to the runway got fire in one engine. The fire was quickly put out and all 200 people  left in a flash via the security doors and slides. No injuries and all people travelled later on Friday to their destination, maybe a little more apprehensive.
Less lucky were the 5 passengers including the pilot, from a small plane in the USA [Oklahoma] , hitting in heavy fog , the cable of a high mast, killing all of them including 2 children. Very sad!

That’s it for now! I am negotiating 3 different jobs in PR/ writing/marketing, in 3 different parts of the world which have been offered recently, so it looks all very exciting! But…soaring.eu and my contribution for Gliding International STAND!!!

Cheers Ritz

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