Rain, rain and more rain. Uppsala !Schempp-Hirth… new milestone. USA Club class Nationals.

UPPSALA MASTERS 2019.

Continued and like at more places their weather was not really “helping”
The Britt’s say it so nicely:”a week of apocalyptic rain .”
They squeezed out day 3 on Friday with 1.30 and 1.45 AAT’s….better than nothing. Pffff….

As shared by the organizers with the text;
“After a cloudy morning, finally scattered clouds. Pilots now ready to give it a try.”

Open; 1.30 AAT… 182 km. was the distance flown by team Acketoft & Wendt [EB 29DR] followed by Wolfgang and Andy in ARCUS M with 171 km.The winners flew the task at the dot, Wolfgang/Andy needed 13 min. more. Antti was 3d.
11 From 13 finished.

Racing; 1.45 AAT…181 km. was flown by winner Aku, who I still know from my several Finland visits. Nice talented young man. He needed 1 more minute [as the set time] for his distance.
14 From 17 finished, among them Visa Matti, as number 14, so just in. Martti was just out but missed out on only 50 points.

   

A 500 k-day!!!
As shared by Uppsala Masters

AND THEN,…...the waiting for good weather was rewarded with 518 in open and 462 in racing class; AND,…all who started FINISHED on Saturday the last but one day!!!
open; 518.52 km… Another Acketoft & Wendt-day . Speed was 116km./h.,  7 k./h. faster than Boerje in the Ventus 3T who was as runner up. After all the “window’s” such a great long taskis a pleasure for pilots ,crew and organizers.

racing; 462.94 km… and 15 from 17 finished and the Finnish mates had a great day with 4 of them in the top 6. Olli Teronen [ARCUS E] was the daily winner with Aku on his heels.

And then it is Sunday ,which means last day of this Uppsala Masters. Day 5 out of 9 not too bad, in these difficult times. The 4 tuggies were ready to go ,so were the pilots.
open; 314 km….later changed in 1.45 AAT
They started with the knowledge that it was nearly impossible to go to spot 1 overall as Jim and his mate were nearly 400 points ahead. In the top 4 were still some possibilities as Boerje was just over 100 points ahead on the ASH 25/EB 28-team  and 138 on Antti.
All flew just over or under 200 km. but the the best were Wolfgang and Andy winning the last daily 548 points keeping them on spot 5 with 3.011 points.
Boerje was runner up and stayed on the silver spot overall. Jim and his mate lost a few points but nothing to worry about. Antti did well, very well . In his Ventus 2cxaFES he moved to the bronze spot, good on him.

Final results in this class;
1. Acketoft & Wendt from Sweden in EB 29DR with 3.574 points.
2. Börje Eriksson from Sweden in Ventus 3T with 3.269 p.
3. Antti Lehto from Finland in Ventus 2cxaFES with 3.082 p.

racing; 295 km.…later changed in a 1.45 AAT.
The overall top 5 was between 2.943 points and 3.122. Aku, Tapio and Olli from Finland on spot 1-2 and 4 and from Sweden Ronny and David on spot 3 and 5.
Olli, Tapio and Aku did what they had to do finishing on spot 1-2-4 with on 3 the LS 6 from Norwegian pilot Per Morten Løvsland . Still small changes as Aku lost his first spot to Tapio; only 14 points but they are all friends so no worries after a beer and a sauna “they live all happily “.
3 Finnish pilots in the top!!! Aku and Tapio both topped the overall scores each on 2 day’s this week, the last day is for Tapio.

Final results in this class;
1. Tapio Tourula from Finland in Ventus 2BX with 3.614 points.
2. Aku Jaakkola from Finland in Discus 2A with 3.600 p.
3. Olli Teronen from Finland in ARCUS E with 3.486 p.

Prize-giving-ceremony-pictures shared by Uppsala Masters

With other words,…the Fin’s did well!!

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 Some great flights last week!!!

Whilst some countries had miserable weather others had ripper days.
June 11; indeed also with showers during the flight, Mathias Schunk in Quintus M. flew from  Königsdorf a distance of 1.296 km!! As good /great ,but from Unterwössen a superb flight in a KA 6 by Jan Lyczywek; 822 km.And best for that day; 1.164 km. from Wiener Neustadt by Markus Gusenleitner.
June 12; 1.326 km. in DG 600M /18m. from Niederoblarn in Austria  by Johannes Hausmann. And 2x a 1.150 km. one in Austria and 1 in Germany. 827 km. in Hornet from Kufstein is not bad either!!!
June 13; Another great Robert Pratt day flying from St Gaudens in France in ASG 29E/18m. ;1.286 km. And in an ASH 26 1.022 km. from Oeventrop in Germany.

On Monday,June 17, most had to go to work again, the skies “exploded”. You could fly from Holland to Russia, clouds everywhere AND,…between 9AM and 9PM. From Holland one of the young ones, Lars flew in the ASW 28 E/18m. a distance of 714 km. from Terlet, first to Veendam [NE] and then straight direction far East into Germany .One of the students from Delft, Sylvain,  flew from Terlet in an LS 6 653 km.
From Locktow in Germany another 1000 km. flight ‘with a Namibia -feeling” by Bernd Goretzki , who shares his soaring-time between Locktow in summer and Namibia in winter.[Ventus 2CM/18m]
Tijl started in Belgium at the Keiheuvel and flew in the Ventus 3E 794 km. and Neil Dijgers in his St Libelle flew 617 [500 km. triangle]
Jean Luc from St Hubert 830 in an ASG 29E.
Tomas Suchanek fle in Czech Rep 768 km and Uwe Thiel with a friend from Spain [ Cuenca Sotos] 838 k. in Nimbus 3DM.
Many between 500 and 900 km flights from all parts of Europe for those who were free/ ghad a day off.
Yesterday about the same hot and dry weather with a 1000 for Alexander in his EB 29 from Bayreuth.

 

 

Schempp-Hirth.

We all know they make great gliders and a new milestone was reached in building their ARCUS gliders; number 300.

“We are very proud to announce we’ve just delivered the serial number 300 Arcus this morning to our friend from Namibia from Bitterwasser. We wish them, their pilots and customers plenty of nice adventures in the air around the world with this beautiful sailplane!”
With from Schempp-Hirth, Tilo, Brigitte and Biko.
Have n’t seen Brigitte and Biko for ages but they have n’t changed!!

AND

To never forget Klaus either, I share their picture from him as well. Remember the many times we met at comps or at the factory and specially his visit with Ralf to Tocumwal and Leeton.

As shared by Schempp-Hirth

AND

Flying the then brand new NIMBUS 3D in Benalla by George and Dennis in 1987.

Turbulator-tape under the wings gave some problems but Klaus fixed it himself.

A family-affair with mum[me] and daughter Inge cleaning the glider, Dennis concentrating at the wing, George talking to Bruno [Gantenbrink ] and his brother Adrian and good old friend Tony Tabart .
Pictures from WGC in Benalla 1987.

Unfortunately some sad news reached me as well,as last Sunday a 62 year old pilot died after a brand new Ventus 3T crashed straight after it was up in the air. They say it was a test flight from the Hahnweide. The glider is beyond repair and it was the Ventus in which Tilo won the final FAI SGP in Spain last week.
Hope they find out quickly WHY.!!???Just terrible.

——————————————

CLUB CLASS NATIONALS IN THE USA from Sunflower!!
June 4-13.

As shared by 2019 US Club Class National Soaring Championship

Sunflower has not hosted a National competition since 1989 [in Open Class], but they invested, made important changes to the airport in Yoder and it seems everybody was happy with their host the Kansas Soaring Association.
“Yoder is the closest town to the Sunflower Gliderport. It was originally built as Hutchinson Naval Air Station in WWII, was home to the Kansas Air National Guard in the 50’s and 60‘s.”
Pilots had to deal with wind , blue day’s and overcast but also a great day and they still flew on 6 out of 10 day’s; 3 Assigned Tasks, 2 Area Tasks, and one Modified Assigned Task.
CD was Hugh Grandstaff and the competition manager Tony [Condon]
The 22 pilots had their first valid flying day on Friday June 7 after 3 cancelled day’s ,with Mike Westbrook in the Discus 2BW, winning the day. The task was a three hour TAT.
“Mike Westbrook raced around at almost 65 mph raw to win the day with Tom Holloran right on his heels. There is a big wad of pilots behind them with 100 points separating 3rd through 13th.”

as shared by Midwestern Soaring Association

June 8 was a prey for Mike again. A blue day very windy as well and 7 finished . The rest was “out” .
Four gliders  landed in the vicinity of St John, KS. Three landed at the Stafford airport, two at the Roberts ag strip and one landed out between there and Sunflower. All of these are along Highway 50 so there was quite the parade of trailers up and down that corridor late in the day.

June 10 was the next flying day a fun day of flying in the BLUE and Jacob Fairbairn, in H-201 Standard Libelle was the next winner. Tony [Condon] was 11th and Daniel Sazhin, the USA top junior had a bad run this competition with this day a 20thiest spot in his H-301 Libelle.
Not long and Szeged in Hungary is waiting.[JWGC 2019 July 28 August 10]

June 11 was flyable too and Mike was the best again , so 4 day’s in the pocket, 3 for him. Tony mentioned ;
“Had fun working the gaggle today. It was basically a Grand Prix task.”

June 12 , day 5, was for Danny Sorenson [Discus 2AW]who was already runner up , but beat Mike this day. A special day, with cloud streets, “we were post frontal with all indications pointing to an excellent soaring day. Hugh and the task advisers consulted with our weather experts and set a 226 mile Assigned Task. We were not aware that the longest Club Class Assigned Task was 227 miles from Hobbs, or we would’ve made it a little longer!
You surely remember that Hobbs was the place were Kees Musters became world champion.
Danny by the way, is the son from Ken Sorenson the CD of the 2012 WGC in Uvalde Texas.

June 13 last day and won by Tony in the St. Cirrus!! Good on him. An Assigned task from 75 miles.
His enthusiastic reaction later;
I GOT FINAL GLIDE WITH A BALD EAGLE!”

Tony here, without bald eagle.
As shared by Tony and Photo by Paul Sodamann.

In the end there are winners and here they are.

1. Mike Westbrook 4.434 points.I must have seen him already in Rieti as he was in one of the first junior teams they send from the USA. I was the competition-editor there. I checked with Tony and he also ” has flown the last two Club World’s in Lithuania and Poland.” He is back in my mind now!!And indeed looking better at the picture,…. I remembered him.
2. Tom Holloran with 4.167 points. Sorry do not know anything about him.
3. Danny Sorenson with 4.164 and that IS  close!!! 3 Points!!!!He lost them on the last day when going home  the SW of Sunflower “was under complete shadow.” and he struggled.
Tony was 6th.

 

The winners.
Mike [Westwood]as the best and Danny [Sorenson] as number 3 and Tom [Holloran in LS 8[ as number 2 to the r.

and those special very nice trophies a bit “closer”.

Very special prizes
Top three trophies are done thanks to KSA Treasurer Kirk Bittner. They turned out really nice with Railroad Spike Sailplanes spiraling around three stalks of wheat. ” They were awarded at the banquet.

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I was impressed by the words from Brian Spreckley, during the last FAI SGP Final,  where he spoke about a strategy of survival, …why we loose so many mates in gliding.
Keywords; maintain the margin,….stay on the safe side….TODAY IS NOT THE DAY.
On youtube.com you can find it.

CU next week and indeed have fun, great fun whilst gliding but stay on the safe side.
Next week more about the 9th 15m National Championship in Poland with 20 pilots. They started on June 13 and go till June 23 from Ostrow; OSTROW GLIDE 2019.
They had 2 average day’s  1 cancelled and 2 good day’s with a 4 hour AAT and 408 km.
Also news about the always interesting USA 18 m. and open class Nationals from Hobbs in New Mexico.

“Dry as a bone”
Shared by Soaring Society of America

After 2 practice days the 13 pilots in open and 30 in 18m. started yesterday with a win for good old Dick Butler in his CONCORDIA and Jae Walker in Ventus 3 just ahead of Jerzy in ASG 29.

Cheers Ritz

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