Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday December 4 2011
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.glidinginternational.com www.soaringcafe.com
Courtesy; Martino Agnoletto “City of Ferrara in summer time”. THANKS!!!!
Due to the fact we had the dryest EVER Novemberhere in Holland, the waterlevel in the rivers is lower then low. Some of the houseboats [and we have lot’s of them in Holland ] in the canals in different towns, are standing straight up in the mud! Now we are going to have tomorrow a real storm and it seems that St. Nicholas and his white horse can’t climb the roofs of the houses to bring presents to the kids.The expected 9 Bft. might blow him off!!!
The ski-season in the Alps, is normally beginning this weekend ,….but there is NO snow. Not even on the top. It can change quickly however. Competitions on world-level, have been moved to Calgary in Canada or just cancelled till later.
In Bitterwasser the super conditions continued and also Kiripotib, Pokweni shared in the happiness. In SA , Gariep Dam had 2 great FAI 1000 km. triangles flown by German pilots Klaus Engelhardt and Markus Kries. But also Kiripotib with UK pilot John Bally had one…..VERY good! The first 26 pilots on November 30 , all flew with a speed between 122 and 149 km. km/h. That 149 was for friend Daan who together with another Dutch pilot Henk “rushed ” the ASH 25 , over 964 km. There you go , Daan is still TOP. Hopefully the weather stays as good and we will see more from Daan and Henk this week!
Dutch pilot Bert de Wijs and German pilot Ernst Otto Dumke, NEARLY flew an FAI triangle in their 18 m. gliders! Just missed out on 50/60 km. They surely get there!
On December 2 the first 50 places on the OLC were filled with top flights undere them too-many-to-count-1000 km.flights.
On December 3 kilometer-eater Guy Bechtold, started his flying in Pokweni with a first magic flight of 1.212 km. in it a 1.152 km FAI triangle! Speed 134 km./h , glider EB 29.
The season till now is a happy one for all visiting pilots.
The NSW State comps at Temora continued after 2 days of “drinking coffee ” with 3 hour AAT’s in 3 classes. Enough coffee for Bruce, as he won AGAIN, though he called it a tough day on FB. 3 Days 3000 points, this time, 292 km in 3 hours and 2 minutes. That JS1 fits him as a glove!
Local pilot, Tom Gilbert had a good run with 346 km. in the their 3.30 AAT[ for both 15m and st. class] in the SZD 55, being 2d for that day.
They had 2 more days with reasonable good weather, and Mac Ichikawa, won both days and by winning he topped both the st. class and 15 m. class . In 18m/open class it was Bruce who won those days so the 5000 points in this comps were his!!! Great effort. On the last day he flew the JS 1 over 272 km with 139 km on the clock.
In club class local pilot Richard Frawley, won in his Mosquito, 3 days out of 5 and with that the State comps.
The German boys flying from Stonefield, [West from Waikeri], powered by Fly-down-under, finally had a great day of soaring with 728 km. in their “own” discus 2 shipped from Germany and the Nimbus 4DM with 648 km. Benjamin and Fabian are looking ahead at “the real weather”. It will surely come!!!! As said before where-ever you go for overseas soaring it is not every day “ball”. The weather still has to be there.
On December 1 the Nimbus 4DM pilots, flew 707 km. claiming it was a good day but a bit of as low cloudbase. The last 2 days were good fun for the boys.
The West of Australia was good, with a flight in an ASW 20 from Beverley of 864 km.[ 700 FAI] and 783 km. in a PIK 20 D from Southern Cross.
A young [37] year old female medical doctor from Holland , moved to Australia to a very remote area in Queensland were they needed a doctor badly.From 2006 she worked there. This week she and her 48 year old husband were killed in a crash with a small plane. Witnesses said they saw fire just after the plane was in the air. Both died instantly.
I was most impressed with the pictures from the soaring along the dunes. I picked 2 more for you to extra look at, as the brand new DG1001TE is on them; flying and on the ground.
Courtesy ;Lars Groot.
I finished my memories about the SSC in Tocumwal.Hope you enjoyed them as well. Next week it is back to “normal” , in “my” part of the soaringcafe. You can just click on this site in the right top-corner of this blog to find it. See you then Cheers Ritz.
Courtesy; Bill Hill.THANKS!