Latest news by Ritz on November 8

Tocumwal Australia.

The weekend had great weather, with flights in Corowa up to 740 km. Ingo spend his weekend, a long one cause of Melbourne cup day, at Mount Beauty. He flew a triangle from there, with as first leg Tocumwal. He smiled and said: “We ( he and the discus )felt homesick”. So easy enough they flew straight to Toc and further to do his trip from 530 km. Great effort!In 3 days he flew 18 hours which is not bad for this time of the year.

Good news from Ingo as CFI too. He mentioned that the first flights from the club will be in the weekend from the 25th. More news later!!!!

Anders from Sweden arrived today at Toc airport. He was happy to be “home”, but saw straightaway that home was not anymore what it was!!!!He had a drink and a talk with Dundee , went with Peter to collect his “gear” and his trailer with his ASW22 and moved then to his new “home” Corowa. We wish him safe flights over there.
Pepe left for Narromine where he spends a few weeks.Enjoy Pepe!
Jari will arrive on the 16th to fly here or at Corowa when things have not started here.

Great gliding weather also in Africa. In Pokweni they flew an 1120 km flight and in Bitterwasser over 750 km. Even in the UK the weather is still good, with tasks flown up to over 620 km. Well, this is special as it is November!!!!And on the other site of the world!!!!

Melbourne Cup day was as always a great day. Lots of drinks ,bubbles OFCOUSE!!! and good food , nice games and …..I won 35 dollar in the sweep. 2 Japanese horses won , one with a Japanese jockey and one with Damien Oliver , an Australian hero. As the Japanese jockey could only say “EPPY” and “good horse” Damien had to do the talking as runner up.

Biggest worry in this part of the world is the draught! Prime minister John Howard even managed to visit Finley, just 20 k up North , to see how bad the situation is. Farmers pay up to 50.000 dollar for extra water , to find out they get only 3/4 of the allocated water without re-imbursement for what they do not get.

We celebrated Inge’s 34th birthday yesterday in the sun around the pool at their motel.Intervieuw with Ingo on Sunday at 4. Keep reading! Ritz

Latest News by Ritz on November 6 2006

Sorry to all readers who have no connection to Sportavia in Australia. It must be boring to read this “stuff” but you can just skip it if you wish.
Yesterday I visited my first meeting as a member from the Murray Border Flying Club. They have 2 sections since a while one for power flying and one for gliding, but we are ONE club.
Great news after all the domestic items, as we heard that the club has a tow plane; a Maule has been bought by Tim and Bracy Cooke . It needs a hundred hourly and a tow hook and it will be ready to go.Great effort from Tim and Bracy and Geoff the president of the club.They all got a huge applause and the meeting ended on “a high”.
The club gets new members all the time. Yesterday 10 new were accepted!!!It is only 35 dollars to be a member from the club.So join in when you want to see gliding back in Toc again.!!!!!

At 2 the skies looked really great. The morning started with high nice clouds in the W. and E. just after 10 and also over the field.Up N. they disdappeaerd again. With 29 dgr. it is just fabulous weather and we hope to have gliders quick in the air now.It is weird to have great gliding weather and to see NO gliders up high. The one and only we saw , was the duo discus who after some training left behind the Scout to the Hunter Valley 2 days ago.

Ingo and Judy visit a gliding camp at Mount Beauty and will be back soon. Ingo is as you might know , the new CFI from the club.
There will be even better news soon!!!!! I will keep you updated.

We will say good bye tonight to Nathan, who leaves to go back to his partner Sue and to live in Cooma.
Nathan has been working SO hard. He deserves to be mentioned as a more then valuable staff member over the last couple of years he has been at Sportavia.Good luck Nathan and safe flying. He did after hanggliding, ultra light flying and gliding while being in Toc.A fabulous guy!!!!

Will keep in touch, Cheers Ritz

Latest news by Ritz on November 5 2006

Tocumwal:
Pepe arrived yesterday. He will stay for a few days , before he moves on, for a few months of good Aussie gliding.
Lothar and his wife arrived this morning and joined the new club here at the airfield in Tocumwal. There will be very good news (hopefully) soon about the club. I will keep you informed as soon as it is public, you will know it.

John arrived this morning too, just to see how Dundee is after they cut the power off in the caravan site on Friday. Hana and Lada and Dundee still lived there . Dundee had to sleep in his car but a few real good friends took care of him. That is gliding too!!!!´

Infact the season should have started yesterday with wings night. Sorry for all who went solo last season and miss out on their wings. Instead of a “buzzing field “, it was quiet though the young voices of my just arrived grand children made some happy noises!How great, to be young and not bother about things!!!My family moved in , in a motel in town, after we could not stay, as planned a LONG time ago AT the airfield, due to the “power-cut-off”.I stay with good friend Margie, also a former “boss ” here at the field. Enough to talk about!!!!

Jari is coming soon , so is Rob and Brutus. Jari hopes to fly here with the club and Rob and Brutus pass by to see us all for the last time together AT the airfield.

With 28 dgr. a 3 knot wind from the SE and nice clouds popping up , but also disappearing again, it looks like a nice day. Eddie is very busy with ultra light flying over the entire weekend and Dundee is preparing a BBQ with German Bratkartoffel for 8 tonight .

Lots of visitors for the museum here today. That will stay open for a few more months.The weather is good, gliders and overseas guests are arriving in Australia, so more gliding news over the next couple of weeks.

As you can read on the Corowa site , 3 containers have arrived and they start flying today ! We wish them a safe season.Also to Max and Derek at Benalla :safe flying! Off course to all my friends in Waikirie, Narromine and Jondaryan, the same message! Cheers Ritz

November 2 2006
Latest news by Ritz

If you want to see how Italy is preparing for its Junior World Comps in 2007 you can check their just “up and running ” site . Look at www.wgcrieti.it and click on JWGC and you will find out what´s written in their first bulletin in the documents and rules section. More news will follow soon.Deadline for preliminary entries is January 31 2007.Please keep that in mind, thanks!

Yesterday night I had dinner with Bill and Val Riley. Bill was the founder of Sportavia in the early 70thies and as the more or less ” protector ” of Ingo Renner, the one and only 4 times world champion, he visited many different gliding places in the world. To nearly ALL WORLD COMPS where Ingo competed, they went too and it was very interesting to hear from them, that both loved the Rieti side in 1985 best of ALL. As Val called it :”The town embraced the gliding and the pilots. They had the most beautiful tenors singing in an old abbey . Everybody felt so welcome and happy and at no other field we had such a buzz as at these World comps.The area was so beautiful and the food great , the hospitality warm and the gliding place easy, not dusty and with a good infrastructure. ”

This week I will have an intervieuw with Ingo , see what he remembers of Italy and from all other places where he flew. Of course we want to know what he found of his first winter since “ages”.A bit later we talk with the current World Champion in open class Michael Sommer, so stay tuned.Ritz

Latest news by Ritz
November 1 2006

If this weather is what we are going to have this summer in Australia then it does n´t look too bad! It is 30 dgr. with strong thermals , even on the ground ( we had to clean the house after one tried to get through it and…..even lift it!)blue skies and nice fluffy high clouds.

Jo is doing a great job as the new correspondent for Australia. She send me a lot of info, but unfortunately I could not open all files. Hopefully the new site is ready soon and she can straight go in it with her news.Thanks Jo.Two of the items she has sent :

—–The Australian Gliding Museum was saddened by the passing of member Geoff Richardson on 3 August 2006, aged 92 years old. Geoff had started the designing and building of the Golden Eagle when he was 20, and this famous glider, first flown on 26 December 1937, is now the world’s oldest glider in regular use that is still airworthy. Geoff mixed his own casein glue as he was not satisfied with the products available at the time. —–

—–In the October 6 issue of the Australian Gliding Magazine, Terry Cubley looks back on the World comps Club class in Vinon. Enjoy the article in Soaring Australia and for our European and American readers here is a little summary.
“It was a pleasure to compete at Vinon. Without doubt, it is one of the better gliding sites available around the world. It is a great airfield, great management, beautiful mountain ranges, hot and dry weather (usually) with some marvellous scenery. Each day provides a huge variation in conditions, lift sources and excitement….

The landing options were actually quite good in most of the task area. Not a huge number of choices, but well marked with GPS co-ordinates and a booklet showing landing directions, etc…….

A high percentage of competitors were not carrying FLARM – there was some concern that it provided a competitive advantage (or disadvantage – you can’t hide from people). Our Australian FLARMs worked well, and appeared to have a better display than the European version. It certainly helped identify the club aircraft flying in the contest area….

The Europeans insist on start lines rather than the Australian multiple start points. This really supports team flying (which is banned in Australian competitions) as all members of the team can start together at the one point. As a result, we ended up with huge gaggles per-start, with in excess of 30 gliders…Most of this issue could be fixed with the multiple start point system…..

There were some excellent examples of team flying. The Poles, French and British teams were very good at it. The Austrians, Germans and Czechs were very good at sharing information, and although they weren’t together all of the time, could benefit from this exchange. These 6 teams took out almost all of the top 15 positions in the competition. There are benefits from information sharing and we Australians need to get better at this. “—–

Just send some info and pictures (made by Jo) to Marina Galetto for their site from the Junior World Gliding Championships.They will start with it soon and I will give you the adress to follow what´s happening there, as soon as I have it.

” For ever young,” a great song which I was playing in my van while cleaning,when the power was cut off here at the caravan site of Sportavia at 12 pm.Will never forget that. In the song you here quite often the word “madman”.Why did a pick that?????!!!! We got power back straight away , for 2 days only to sort out what really is going to happen. Leave you for the day. Ritz