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Alphen aan den Rijn      Wednesday June 8 2011        ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

We had some violent weather here last Sunday, with loads of rain causing severe problems, also in Arnhem where we had “our” NGC not long ago.

Looking ahead on the WWGC in Arboga, Sweden. Some people say; ” Why the hell do we need a competition for women only .” WHY NOT ??!!
Talking about the WWGC there will be at this stage, 47 participants flying in 3 classes; club,[ 18]  standard [ 16] and 15 m. [13]
 I was impressed with Äke Petterssons’s guidance through the landing possibilities in remote areas. Lakes and forest are in this Scandinavian country more then beautiful,  but not always easy when you fly a competition. Äke is the deputy competition director and we go far back .
So training might be good first for some and started on June 4. The official training will be from 11-14 and the comps start on June 15 till 25. Will keep you informed as a few friends and some other girls I know/met  are flying!
Arboga is situated to the West of Eskilstuna and surrounded by 2 big lakes to the S and E.
On the picture; Tor Johannessen , president of the jury in Arboga [middle] and Arild Solbakken the chief steward[middle]

 

During the Dutch Nationals  I had a long and interesting conversation with Iain Baker from JS1.The JS 1 flew impressive here at the Nationals with a 1 ,[ Ronald Termaat ] and 2 spot , [Maurits Dortu ] overall till the last day when the number 2 was called on duty and could not fly. I had an interview with Iain , business managar at Jonker Sailplanes , here to assist with whatever was necessary to deliver the gliders to their owners.”It is ALL about personnel service”
To celebrate the arrival of a container full of JS1 gliders[5]  , no not all for Holland, also one for the UK, Lithuania and Denmark, all pilots were invited for a Braai , a SA BBQ.  On top of that all official stamps and spare parts for the Service Center Terlet ,were in the container.This Center is now officially certified by the SA Civil Aviation Authority to do inspections and reparations.For more news about the JS1 you can look at their new site; www.jonkersailplanes.com

   

 

Another type and flying for the first time in a Dutch competition was the HpH 304 s “SHARK”.
Dutch importer Ton Staassen found 2 young top pilots to fly this very roomy glider , European champion Rene de Dreu flying glider 1 and runner up  Tim Kuijpers. The gliders just arrived before the comps and practise in it was not really possible. But during the competition the boys got better and better, as they said , it was not the glider but other additional circumstances, that did not bring them in the top. They really needed bug wipers to be competetive, so they were installed. With a 600 kg glider , full of water, the shark was fast, and the cloudstreets were flown , as expected, with big speed. For more news about this glider , called on their flyer as bringing  “new dimensions in gliding” look at;
www.hph.cz or www.hph-benelux.nl
I received the pictures from Rene.

 

Today an occlusion divides Europe in cold and warm. Finland is lucky with great temperatures. so I hope for some nice flights from there. The OLC is more or less dominated by the USA at this stage, with lot’s of nice flights from club and standard class gliders. Off to Amsterdam now.

See you next Sunday, get a few guests over Pentecost but I try to be there!
Cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn    Sunday   June 5   2011         ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

  This is over Terlet, but it looks like on June 1 here!

And yes…when I looked the next day, that great weather was not only here, but in more parts of Holland with flights over 500 km [ Johan Hamelink from Malden with a great  500 km FAI triangle in Ventus 2CT 17m]  and in Belgium with flights going straight to nearly the N. of Holland .[ Dennis Huybreckx from Keiheuvel  511 in LS 8]
Ekeby at Eskilstuna [Sweden] , where I had the honnor to be the editor during the WGC, had some good flights up to 500 km. I remember that already then,   some German pilots have a soaring-camp over there .It seems they are there now again.
And I also heard that they had rain in Varese.
While we suffer here more or less from draught! A weird world, when I lived in Australia I never would have thought for ONE minute, that I would use the word draught in Holland. I told you already that we had the dry-est spring ever , not the warmest but for sure with  the most sunhours about 200 more then the normal average; 710 hours now, —517 the normal; average.

Talking about Varese   after rain came atleast one more day of flyable weather however, with a small task  , low clouds and  weak thermals;  this time Giorgio was 2d. The last day was cancelled due to bad weather as well. A pity!
The comps ended still with a clear winner in this 18 m.class ; GIORGIO GALETTO, with 28 points !!!! Runner up was from Austria but flying a lot in Italy as well; Peter Hartmann with 21 points. As many points, also 21 for Corrado Costa .
Only 3 days out of 6!!!!

  Giorgio with his wife Marina and good friend Leonardo.

 The 45th Hahnweide Competition  has finished and had lot’s of German pilots but also some pilots from Holland , as well as a few from Europe who belong or belonged to the top, may I mention; Russell Cheetham, Guido Achleitner, Werner Meuser, Reinhard Schramme, Wolfgang Janowitsch, Uli Knauss, Uli Schwenk, de de Broquevilles , Josef Eder, Alexander Müller and I surely forgot one .
After 2 days of rain and 3 flown days , they tried again on Thursday with short tasks!

  Wolfgang in the middle.

But Thursday turned out to be a “black” day . They first cancelled the open and 2 seater class. Flying was possible for the others , but on the end of the day a fatal accident occured to a 55 year old soaring- friend. The very first deadly accident,  in the 45 year history. It happened while landing on the airfield of Hornberg. Investigations are on , to find out what happened. VERY sad!!!!!!
Friday there was a day of reflecting , of settling,  after loosing a soaring-mate, and on Saturday life continued so did the comps with their last day!Most probably this is what the pilot, who lost his life would have wished as well.
By the way we lost this week a 28 year old pilot making hours by flying around with an advertisement- banner  behind him as well.
So on the last day,yesterday, small tasks between 196 km. and 218. Pilots lost points and some won.
 Adrian Henry won in standard class the title.
In 15 m. class it was  Italian pilot Giancarlo Grinza who won the last day and received about 150 points more then Michael Eisele, so the “PeterPan pilot” from Italy won with 23 points ahead of Michael. 
In 18 m. class, Reinhard Schramme won the last day but that was not enough to make him winner overall, though he moved up to 3d place. This honnor was for  ,Werner Meuser. Both are great pilots, certainly in the past and as we can see still now.
The open class last day was won by Uli Knauss but the Hahnweide title was for Alexander Müllerwho was just 40 points ahead on Wolfgang Class, both flying ASW 22 BLE and both from Bayreuth. Pierre and  Arnaud de Broqueville ended up on spot 3 ……ONE point ahead of French pilot Sylvain Gerbaud.
The 2 seater class had top pilots  and top gliders,  as both the ARCUS T AND M ended in the top 2! Former WGC champion Wolfgang Janowitsch flew the duo discus to a very good 3 spot.
Some of my Dutch friends ended in this class on a great 7th and 8th place.

A  joint dinner and the prize giving closed this great competition with unfortunately not a real happy end.
My deepest sympathy goes to the family of the pilot who got killed!

From the former part of Holland, Curacao, in the Caribbean  several people will depart in 2014 , who have bought a ticket for a commercial space-flight! At this stage 30! They pay 95.000, dollar for 5 minutes outside of the atmosphere. They expect to sell in 2010 about 200.000 flights which means a boost for tourism at the Island  of Curacao, where I had a very pleasant life in the past.

Great to see  over the last days that the pilots flying their camp at Ekeby are at the right time on the right place. I noticed good results yesterday on the world wide OLC list, up to 712 km in a discus 2T and 555 km in an LS1 f.

   

And last but not least. The Airbus,  making a very successful emergency landing at the Hudson River with captain “Sully”, is on its way to its final destination; Charlotte. It was supposed to arrive there in 2009 but now it is on it’s way on a truck; final destination now an aviation- museum for a longtime rest and PR for courage , great airman ship and a touch of good luck, as all 155 aboard survived!!!!
Enough for today, off to Amsterdam, finishing with some pictures from the Dutch Nationals by Bert Kuijper
Cheers Ritz

   

Alphen aan den Rijn     

 Wednesday June 1  2011, winter starts in Australia , summer in Holland   ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Sorry for the inconvenience but NOW, the NGC site is back on line!!!AND …we got over 204.000 vieuws on that site.

   joy flight with a sponsor at NGC.

It is always difficult to let go…when you have had fun, if it is on a NGC or a WGC or EGC or WWGC or JWGC ,I guess I am not the only one who has problems with that.
For me it was pretty emotional, as this was my  LAST job as competition journalist at a competition field. I guess if Chaves or Uvalde would ask me , I still might give in for ONE more time/ reconsider , but I am pretty sure they can handle their own PR- show with writing. So I count this as my last job!
 I think that writing is still interesting for readers, but more and more the new social media are going to take over. Pilots in 2 seaters write from above on Facebook, glider tracking has a great future, i-Pads and i-phones , as well as Black Berries are going to take over for messages on Twitter , Facebook  etc, straight from the strip or from the 2 seater and the young ones seem, atleast here in Holland ready to take over. It is their time now, I still have the enthusiasm, and I loved the last 2 Nationals here in Holland, but I am not the spring chicken from earlier times anymore !
Better to stop on a high,  then when they say: “Tsje, again that old lady”!!!!
I can hear Tor already say; “Let others be the judge Ritz”.
 
Of course it was again an easy [ but busy] job as we had fun and when you have fun , everything feels easy. The team was ONE and I was part of it. Felt touched that, when I missed out on drinking the bubbles after the closing ceremony, on the team-loft , they came with the magnum bottle to find me. I missed all their phone calls earlier but maybe it had to be like this as I surely would have cried! It IS an end of an ERA. At Least for me!

I LOVED EVERY MINUTE IN EVERY COUNTRY I WAS!!!!! THANK YOU TO ALL WHO INVITED ME!!!!!
I will surely miss it, but try to visit different comps who are not too far away.And….no I am not going to sit behind the geraniums. So keep me informed with news from your areas and I will take care of it. Of course I keep doing research on what’s happening in our world.
I started in 1967 , after my first visit to the soaring field from Venlo and now in 2011 I stop at Terlet , and in between I have visited the world and got LOTS of friends, here in Holland but also everywhere in the world.
In that time I got solo, was crew, TC, FAI jury member,FAI  steward and editor  at several comps, co-owner of the Sportavia Soaring Center in Tocumwal Australia and what they say; The eyes and ears on a soaring field. And as said I loved every minute, though some moments in our world were  tragic as well! 
Surely we will meet again somewhere in the world.

  At the NGC picture made by Sietske.

OF COURSE I CONTINUE WITH THIS BLOG,  AS WELL AS  MY COLUMN IN GLIDING INTERNATIONAL!!!!!

So back to normal and to the blog!

The Nummela Qualifying Grand Prix  only counted 3 days.Winner;  young Aku Jaakkula with 23 points. Not winning a day,  but being the most consistent , with 8-7 and 8 points on those days. Runner up was Juha Sorri with 17 points. Well done Aku !!!

The Belgium Nationals  had  5  days out of 8  .The last day had in 15 m class a surprise as young Bert Schmelzer jr. had a less good day and after a few days on number 1 in the overall scores , he unfortunately  lost nearly 200 points on this day . So Emmanuel Litt is the new Belgium National Champion in 15 m class. 
In open class Yves Jeanmotte won in Ventus 2cx/18m. Congratulations to both!

Varese had till now 2 days. Guilliano, one of my friends and a great tracking specialist is in Varese now for the visualization of the qualification of the  GP. The first tracking system I ever saw was his from by Post Frontal.[www.postfrontal.com]Together with the information given by Art Grant from Canada, with his great voice, this was for lot’s of people an eye opener.
The first 2 days were won by Giorgio Galetto!! 20 points in 2 days!!! Good on him!

Talking about tracking systems, I was very much impressed with the live-tracking during the NGC here in Holland. 3 young men [ in their 20thies!!]  are fully enthousiastic involved with it.
It is called ADS-B; Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast.
What does it do?
ADS-B is information, send together with the transponder signal. This information holds GPS info as height, speed and position, but also flight and transponder identification. This way [together with all spot  position data ] live tracking is possible!!!I hope some of you followed it during the Nationals, it has great future!!!! The output from the  beta version,  was very encouraging as it was VERY popular in Holland!
[ www.glidertracking.com ]

The 45th Hahnweide competition at Kirchheim [unter]  Teckhas, as you can understand a long history. I was pleased to see that the airfield is situated on the Klaus Holighaus street 59 now. Good old Klaus!!!
George , always has flown Schempp-Hirth gliders, from Cirrus to Nimbus 3d and most in between. Those gliders have been always GOOD and we had great service.
After 3 days Alexander Müller is on spot 1 overall. He is not only a “kilometer-eater” but also a great competition pilot! The Arcus T and M are on spot 1 and 2 in the double seater class. The new generation gliders of Schempp Hirth. Former world champion Wolfgang Janowitsch is 2 in the duo discus XL.
Good old Werner Meuser tops after 3 days the 18 m. class and in 15 m. classs it is Walter Eisele’s son Michael who is best till now.In standard class French pilot Adrian Henry is till now the best .
Yesterday was cancelled!

In Canada soaring wakes up as well,  as I heard from Art. Do not know how much fun it is “dodging rain, snowshowers and sleet”, but it was, as he said, fun for Canadian pilot, Ian Spence, who flew nearly 800 km. from Invermere Airfield over the Rocky Mountains!!

And….then we had on Monday at some places a tropical day with 30 dgr, blue skies and 2/8 of very nice cumulus clouds over Amsterdam!!!!!On Tuesday however we were back to 15!!!! I noticed the weather was good at Terlet as well on Monday , with a flight up to 586 km.
May had a total of 13.421 lodged flights on the OLC.
Yesterday on the last day of May, an interesting flight from Minden Nevada, where I was with a team for the pre-worlds , but through circumstances [ fire bombers had to be able to work at ALL times, also during finishes] they ended up in Uvalde Texas!!That’s were we have the next WGC again.
But to get back to Minden; A Kestrel 17 flew yesterday a great wave flight with a southerly wind- component ;2.254 km with a speed of 176.57 km/u.
And…a duo discus ; 1.229 km with 162,45 km/u. NOT BAD!!!!!
By the way we had the dry-est ever spring, and the 2d warmest.So you are totally up to date now.

Cu next Sunday, cheers Ritz
By the way at www.vimeo.com is a great video from the Dutch Nationals by Peter Jansen. Enjoy!

 an end of an era for me!