Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday 03-03- 2013
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.soaringcafe.com www.glidinginternational.com
Back from Papendal and back to the “normal” blogs.
More stories about Papendal in todays “soaringcafe”, with the pictures from Jiri ” hanging on the ceiling”.
Received a nice mail from Jarek from the Geelong Gliding Club flying from Bacchus Mars in Australia about “WHALES watching“. Whales ?????? I see you think. BUT,… as always I like to share interesting stories and pictures with all of you. And,..I am pleased more and more readers see me as a “soaring-hub”!Thanks for that!
Here we go;
—“I was rostered as a coach on Saturday, 23/02/2013. The weather looked promising and of Thursday Ziggy called me asking for an opportunity for a coaching flight in the Duo.
We had a weather and task briefing at 9am on Saturday and proceeded to prepare the
glider for the flight. It was a busy morning with all club gliders being DI-ed and flown that day.
We launched just before 1pm and after one blue climb, connected with the first Cu some 15 km to the West. The weather was better than expected, soon we reached our height band of 6000 ‘ to 8500’; we decided that we would not take climbs less than 5 knots (the average climb rate for the entire flight was 4.8 knots).
We were moving quickly with the average x/c speed well above 100 kph; as we approached the circle around the
first turn point, Penshurst, I could see a glimpse of the ocean in the distance down South.
There was a nice line of Cus leading south so after a quick consultation with my co-pilot we turned left in the general direction of Warrnambool.
As we approached the ocean, we could see that the N-E wind pushes some Cus over the water some 5 – 10km in. This presented an opportunity not to be missed, we took a climb to 7500′ some 5 km before the shoreline and headed
for a Cu over the water; it looked quite good, but there was no lift underneath.
We turned back, the time was 14:45 and 175 km to run to Bacchus Marsh and the whales, we did not spot any perhaps we will have better luck next time.—”
Thanks Jarek and you can see the flight on the OLC on February 23 ; flight number 15 on the list!
That day was called by Rolf as “another brilliant February day in Victoria.”
Just to let you know; Warrnambool is an old whaling town and now is a destination for whales- watching -tours.
From the Perlan Project Friends I received the latest news letter, full of newsy news.For example; On March 16 2013 the Perlan Team is invited to visit Seattle to make a presentation and provide an exhib at the Soaring Expo 2013, sponsored by the Seattle Glider Council.
It will be held at the Seattle Museum of Flight at Boeing Field.
http://perlanproject.org/news/ and
http://perlanproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-Perlan-Project-Newsletter-January-February-2013.pdf
Talking about the Project ,…..Last Thursday morning after waking up, I put my TV on and looked straight in the smiling face of Dennis Tito. What a truly inspiring and interesting guy. He wants [with a group of investors] , to send a couple [ preferable husband and wife] for just over 500 days to MARS in 2018. Not visiting but passing by pretty close. Dangerous but spectacular. I would n’t do it , but I am old like Dennis , for him a reason to not do it himself, but he has been already in the ISS as the first space tourist, travelling “up” with a Russian capsule.
This week the Mount Beauty Alpine Gliding Course starts [tomorrow], from March 4 till March 11.
Received the ALPINE FLYER as well. In this Flyer an interesting story from the CFI Mark Bland, about a cable break on low altitude “solved” by the instructor and a comment I share with him
—“Safer gliding is about not repeating accidents that have occured many times before in some cases hundreds of times.
That requires knowledge, skill, good airmanship and an ability to evaluate risk.—“So far Mark.
More at www.mtbeauty.com/mt-beauty-gliding-club/
“Enough Ritz” for now, cu on Wednesday again,
Just received the link to the up-side-down glider and Jiri. http://youtu.be/WlllGQ3MCqI
Thanks Reno!!!!!!
Cheers Ritz