Alphen aan den Rijn        11-01-2009

I have now finished answering all emails and post cards I received over the festive period. Great to remain in contact with so many!!!I will share a few words with you about the more then 100 I received
Shige and Mikiko from Tokyo, send me their wishes and also from their gorgeous daughter Chihiro. Yes , a few of you remember for sure their wedding in our garden at Sportavia. Now they are the proud parents of a darling little girl. A pity I can ‘t show you pictures !!!One of their witnesses at the wedding was Mel from the UK and he and his wife Jan visited Tokyo and Shige and Mikiko in december.
Johnny and Corinne came to visit me . Johnnie worked as tuggie for us at Sportavia for about 2 years and Corine helped where ever a hand was needed! Both are driving a bus now here in Holland. Corine  a small one and Johnnie the big one. They now have a lovely 3 year old daughter Marylou.
Marianne , another tuggie flying for us, is in Florida at the moment. She is an instructor at a Dutch flying school preparing young ones for their CPL in two years. As the weather in winter is not good she moved with the students and collegues to Florida. She loves her job and for the moment Florida.
I do understand her as we are “sitting” here in -16 to minus 20. This has not happened for 13 years. So on thursday the first National Championship marathon skating was on  and skating-nation as we are, “we” all participated and could share the feelings as it was  live on TV.
Former Ozzie top pilot Bruce  is now as parent in Colorada keeping an eye on his very good looking daughters Belle and Brooke. Belle is now in the WORLD top of snowboarding. Keep an eye on her, she seems to be really good. The family is good friends also with Woody , who is not in Colorado at the moment, [he lives there] but he flies great flights in Bitterwasser.At this moment Ralf even is the FAI-OLC champion.
Brutus, is back from a holiday with friend and Dutch toppilot Rob in Africa, not flying but travelling and just started a nice new job.

While we “suffer ” the cold, I received an email from Judy {Renner}from Tocumwal that they would love a bit of our cold over there. On Jan 6 it was 38 dgr. and 2 of her airco’ s had given up. Daan had arrived in Corowa the evening of the 5th, so he could straight try to fly another 1000 km. But….He had to built in his instruments first , otherwise for sure he would have done it, as he still flew 607 km. after a late start. It was a blue day in Corowa with wind picking up in the evening but still 2 pilots managed to fly an FAI triangle of 1000 km. [ one valid, the other still 1000km!]Lots of other pilots had great flights!
Mac was in Narromine that day and he flew a 1038 km flight with a speed of 107 km p/h. Finally great weather all over Australia too!

The Benalla State Comps of course had great weather too, so good flights.Most interesting flight from Benalla was from Tobias Geiger who flew 958 in an LS 4! Great effort!!!!!
 The beginning of January was good for both Africa and Australia. As it is still more or less quiet in Europe at the soaring-scene, I jump from Africa to Australia and back, as it is there were the action is!Though from John I heard that New Zealand had great weather too.
On the 6th  of januari again great flights in Africa, both Bitterwasser and Pokweni with more 1000 km flights.Though quite a few pilots JUST NOT made it home, missing out on 50 k!!!!! What a pity!!
On the 8th another 18 1000 km flights were flown in Namibie .What about the flight from Martin Kroke in his Antares;1173 km.One of his TP’s was Rostock Ritz, I like that!!!!Winfried , who I have’ n’t seen for ages, flew in his ASH 25 a flight from 1263 km with a speed of 131 km./ph. Nothing wrong with that either!
 Africa was so lucky with the weather this season; it is always good there , I know, but this year seems extremely good is what I hear.
Unfortunately the African Nationals in Welkom were “hit” by several storms but they still flew  9   days out of    13.
Winners;
Club; Andries Bester
15m/standard; Oscar Goudriaan
18m/open;Uys Jonker
Congratulations to all pilots!

The Benalla State Comps are over too and now they prepare in Benalla, busy, busy, for the 49th Nationals. Some of my friends flew over Tocumwal while practising and mentioned , they think of me when the fly over. Is n’t that nice?!
Winners in Benalla [State comps];6 days out of 7!
Standard class ;Peter Temple , in LS 8, the number 3 from te WGC in Rieti!!
15 m.;Peter Trotter in ASW 20
open class;Lars Zehnder, in Ventus 2 TC JUST ahead of Graham Parker who won the GRAND PRIX earlier in Narromine.5698 and 5689!!!!!!VERY CLOSE!!!!!

 As I said earlier Europe is in the grip of an icy spell. Clearly KING FROST has a grip on us. Very unexpected snow in Spain [Madrid] and Portugal, so much snow in France and Germany ,[ over 40 cm. in a day ]that they had to close airfields [Marseille] and roads as they were not able to clean them quick enough. Munich had minus 33 not the worst ever as this was 43 I heard!!!
ONLY in Holland “we” used 90 million kilo’s of salt to keep the traffic on the high ways “going”.In Holland 18 highways have been damaged so badly, that they need reparation straight away, so lots of traffic jams . As they can start already now, but only repair when the frost is over , “we” all have to be patient.
Then all of us “race” to the skating tracks where ever they are announced! Over 100.000 people were registered yesterday only and they think that nearly ONE MILLION people visited natural ice!! A hype or not??!! I like it.
The bad site is the many fractures from falling, but if you look at the TV , those people sit in hospital with a gloryfying smile on their faces; atleast since 13 years they have been on natural-ice again!!!

Yesterday good friend Kari flew a great 750 km triangle from Tocumwal in the LS 6. Great effort. The weather was clearly good in the WNW, as kilometer -eater Terry Bellair added another nice long flight in his DG 400/17m. to the ones he flew already! 808 km.
From different sites I hear that they expect a few good days , so GO FOR IT!!!!

This afternoon I visit the beach town Scheveningen. At 4 o’ clock, the Dutch pilots and crews from the WGC in Rieti catch up for a walk, luckily the sun is shining and the temperature around 0 over there. After we are having dinner together in a pizzeria on the beach, for sure the fires are on and the hot chocolate will be delicious!Maybe even Gluhwein!!!

That’s it for now . I will keep an eye on “things” for you and if Jo can keep me updated day by day during the Nationals I will be back in between. Great to hear from Gerrit Kurstjens today, that he is participating in the Nationals. For sure he will do well as always, though he is not so much involved in competition flying anymore! See you next week.
Cheers Ritz