Finally it seems that there is ” NO doubt” ;  MH 370 has plunged down in the ocean about 2000 KM SW of Perth [ Australia]. What it was doing there, will remain a secret for the time being, as no pieces or so have been found. We all have to believe the information and I do understand the frustration of the family and friends who have been informed in a pretty terrible way and don’t believe anything anymore.
The Aussies are helping as much as they can and one comment from the Minister of Defense is to appreciate:”  We’re not trying to find a needle in a haystack, we’re trying to find the haystack to start with” !

The Japanese pilots from Itakura, had a great wave weekend flying up to  5668 m. AGL,  flying 588 km. in a DG 400 on Sunday!
They were 2d on the worldwide OLC distance- list and that does n’t happen often,  just behind another DG , this time 505/22 m. which flew 699 , I call it 700 km. by 2 German pilots flying from Puimoisson in France with mistral conditions up to 3454 AGL.

The South African Grand Prix is still far away , January 3 till January 15 2015, but a few pilots are already on the 18 m/ list, as Oscar and Laurens and Sven from South Africa, Tassilo , Holger and Uli [Schwenk] from Germany and John [Coutts] from New Zealand, but living in S.A.

Some good news from SEE YOU/NAVITER:
“ Oudie IGC has received the highest possible approval from the FAI GFAC committee! It is approved for “all flights” which means you will be able to claim badges and world records even with selflaunching sailplanes.

Oudie IGC is a unique self-contained portable Navigation and Flight recorder combo with a battery that will easily last the whole day flying. It is designed specifically for the needs of the Sailplane pilots.

We are finalizing the production now and will be shipping the first devices very soon. If you want to have one we are expecting a small queue in the beginning. Please contact your local Naviter reseller and let them know you want one!.”

The latest!

Whilst the Chinese president is in Holland for the summit, some of the Chinese glider pilots are learning how to fly in Tocumwal. One of them with a very European name , Felix, even went solo in our former glider , Blanik VH-GXO, launched by our former Scout VH SFO. Good to see both flying.

  

  

The Chinese guests, the Belanca Scout, Dieter ready to help the IS 28 in the air and Ingo congratulating Felix with his first SOLO!! Good on him.
As shared by Bruce Wilson, tuggie at the SRGC.

HAVE to say something about the Nuclear Summit in Holland ,as it put our country on the map in a very positive way.The security was , maybe too secure and some  people had a problem with that, {Obama even apologized for that] but nowadays you can’t do without, unfortunately.
All in all it was a huge success both the Nuclear top as well as the unexpected G7 top. You can for sure read more about that in your papers or on your laptop.

With the words ” Good morning, sir I love your country”  ,Barrack Obama arrived in Holland and shook hands with our mister of foreign affairs , an historic visit as a “sitting”  American president had never visited before Amsterdam or The Hague.
It also was the first visit to Europe from Obama.
A mighty interesting “circus” , around him, with 4 impressive helicopters , Black Hawks, landing as in a DEMO, 1 second  behind each other on the square in front of the Rijksmuseum in the middle of Amsterdam AND   departing that way as well. A tad later , the Marine 1  and 2 ![to avoid knowledge in which one the president is]  .
Arriving as well,the Beast ,[ very special car a Cadillac from 2009 and ready for replacement I read next year,  with everything in or on it to secure the president] …all on Dutch/Amsterdam soil.
” Renaissance”  as Michelle Obama is called in the code-world was not with him,but the “Renegade”  as Obama is called ,was  charismatic enough for both. Veni, vidi vici….!!!!!
A very informal visit in the morning with ” Hi Mark how are you” when Obama arrived at the museum and met our Prime Minister Mark Rutte and ” Barack ,welcome here in this special environment” ,when Rutte, welcomed him in the first statement from both in front of the NIGHTWATCH. Obama called this PR spot, splendid!Pictures  got all over the world.
Love this joke as shared on FB by GUESTZONE.

 

The Rijksmuseum opened her doors mid April last year and till now they had 2.7 million visitors. Specially the 17th century art , by Rembrandt and Vermeer is loved by ALL visitors world wide.

This is the 3d Nuclear Security Summit and Obama specially asked Holland to organize this one, after he organized the first one in 2010 himself .The 2d one was in Seoul in Korea.
An AWACS plane from the NATO,  from a base just over the border in Germany , a few helicopters  and 2 F16’s from the Dutch Royal Air Force flew over The Hague and surrounding to protect from above and whilst the president landed in his AIRFORCE 1 ,… Schiphol-Amsterdam-Airport  was on hold; no planes were allowed to depart or arrive for a few minutes.

Of course the summit is important for the nuclear security of our world, but the heads of state discussed in a G 7, [G 8 Russia, was not invited] the situation in the KRIM/Ukraine  as well, an other very important topic.

During the TOP no soaring from most airfields was allowed , but where they could in the SW , they flew on Monday, direction South far into Belgium [where they have all restrictions now as Obama visits our neighbors today; 100 year WW1 will be remembered] and got nearly 500 km. { 442 triangle}  in an ASH 26E. On Tuesday another nice sky but till this morning the airspace restrictions were in place.
Though airfields out of reach of the forbidden airspace [more east] were open and pilots flew from Terlet nearly 500 km. in a Discus bt and Ventus ct/18 m.

  

Skies on March 25 2015 as seen by Bertje, Leo and Robin in Holland.

Another nice wave flight from Jim and Dennis;”A fun commute from our new Minden home to our old Rosamond home.”;1.429 km. For the full comment you can read later what they have to say more about it on the OLC.

That’s it for now,after some pretty cold nights, spring feels as it should for this time of the year with 11 dgr. up to 15.
A bit fresh after over 20, but  we have to do with it.
Cheers Ritz

Another week is over and still no news about the MH 370!!! Weird to see, that in the time we live in, something like this can happen!!
The latest stories are about ” stalking” another 777.
It feels , if it was not so tragic, as if you are reading every day a new part of a science-fiction-book or a thriller.
In some theories they even think that the 777 might show up during the Nuclear Security Summit here in the Hague next week,  where not 48 [ as I said in my last blog] but even 60 world leaders will appear.
Others think it is shot down and not protected by their own airforce!!
” Stalking”  , hijacking, wrong info put in before the flight, not competent pilots, transponders switched off……..it ‘s already TOO much for me, how would this feel for the family and friends of the passengers and crew.
Hope they find soon signs of what happened, but unfortunately from the past we know it can take a while.

Last Wednesday Tony Condon from the USA topped the OLC list with one of those special ” goal-flights”. Flights you don’t decide to do one day before, flights which need quite some preparations.
This time in a St. Cirrus flying 517 km. from Wellington [USA] to De Queen in Arkansas very early in the season.

Tony and his St Cirrus.

OLC link to the flight here: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3486851

AND  here is his story;

Spring Go South

By Tony Condon

Spring Go South. KSA members have been saying that for decades. Since well before Jim LeSeuer wrote his article “Distance in the Spring” in the March 1967 Soaring, pilots in Kansas have been watching spring cold fronts pass, watch the weather behind them closely, and occasionally chase one towards the Gulf of Mexico. Bernie Mohr followed just such a front on his flight in his modified BG-12 on April 2, 1971 from Newton, KS to Osceola, AR, a flight of 436 miles that stood as the Kansas State Record for over 40 years. Tonk Mills described a post cold front flight in the Fall in his September 1989 Soaring article “November Flight” where he flew 265 miles in 4 hours.

In my early days of Cross Country soaring in my Cherokee II I was often looking for a cold front to chase. While almost all of my flights in the Cherokee were downwind dashes, none of them that I remember were post frontal and my best distance flown in Iowa was about 100 miles. After moving to Kansas my flights got longer but that elusive cold front just hadn’t worked out. Steve Leonard, Andrew Peters, and I would spend each spring analyzing the upcoming fronts and then watching them go by ,while watching the Satellite pictures from our desks at work. It seems that these fronts tend to happen Monday through Friday.

Since I have been liberated from desk duty for the time being, I had one roadblock out of the way to attempt a flight. The week before the flight I had noticed strong north winds forecast for the Talihina, OK area on Wednesday and wished that it would be reasonable to get a towplane there for a long day of ridge soaring. After John Wells gave an excellent presentation on Saturday night about Soaring Weather, I realized  that the cold front on Wednesday just might be bringing good thermal conditions. I contacted John on Saturday night to see his thoughts on the Weather. On Sunday I asked him if he’d like to chase me. The forecast was indicating that the soaring would definitely be good and with due north wind. I started looking at routes down towards Dallas and further on and started working on getting everything ready for a potential flight.

On Monday, I arranged with John and KC to chase. That was a big relief to have a good experienced crew available, and well in advance of the flight. Leah and I went down to Wellington after work to assemble the glider, our Standard Cirrus “Kate”, and I hoped to change the tires on the trailer and do some other work. We got the glider assembled and in the hangar and then spent the rest of the evening repairing the lights on the trailer. The forecasts still all looked good although without as many clouds as I would’ve liked.

repairs on the tires.

On Tuesday morning, Steve sent an email out about the weather. Looked pretty good for a go south flight and it was good for me to know that his opinion on the weather matched mine. I returned to Wellington and with help from my partner Rafael Soldan we repacked the bearings on the trailer and put new tires on it. I also did as much prep work on the glider as possible so that I could minimize the number of tasks required on Wednesday. The cold front hit early afternoon with wind gusts in Wichita recorded at 53 mph. I was sure glad the glider had already been assembled and was safe and sound in a hangar. The forecast updates were showing a more northwesterly wind and I was starting to wonder about the possibility of soaring to the Talihina area and using the ridges there to extend my distance. On Tuesday night, Randy Teel posted a wind forecast on the Talhina Soaring Facebook group and wished that he wasn’t busy with airline simulator training that week. I mentioned I was hoping to fly there from Kansas and he recommended a turnpoint to join the West end of the ridges, near Daisy, OK. I had never flown that far west on the ridges there and his information and shared experience was important for my confidence on the route.

Tuesday night I confirmed with John and KC that we would meet at my house at 9 AM to head for Wellington. KC had a lot of confidence in me as he said he would pack an extra pair of clothes in case we ended up at the Gulf of Mexico. Optimism. I like it. I spent the rest of the night getting batteries charged, looking at forecasts, finding maps and developing a task for the day. I decided that a launch at noon would be about right and set a task from Wellington to Cochrane Ranch airport near Daisy, OK and then to the Three Sticks monument on the Kiamichi Ridge and then to Texarkana, TX. Total distance was 360 miles. I figured 6 hrs at 60 mph would be a spectacular flight for March 12^th, but decided to declare big or go home. Since I have never flown south of the ridges I also spent some time looking at the route between Three Sticks and Texarkana. There are a lot of trees down there, but an airport at De Queen, Arkansas was about halfway, which made me feel better.

The VERY important “chasers”.

Wednesday morning I made a quick check of the forecasts. Everything looked the same, the sounding still showed that noon would be a good takeoff time and the forecasts still showed clouds until Interstate 40 with a slight chance of clouds after that. Further east into Arkansas the clouds may extend further south so I felt that my plan of cutting east on the ridges was a good plan. As we drove towards Wellington, the first flush of low altitude cumulus arrived. The mood in the car was pretty high. It didn’t take long to get the glider ready. Rafael asked me to bring the towplane over and after some searching we found the plane and discovered that its battery was dead. No fear though, Air Plains had a cable for jump starting. Whew! I pulled the glider out about 11:30 AM and could see the first cumulus wisps on the horizon. Good timing. Mike Logback texted me at 11:45 AM to let me know that there was Cu in McPherson, Northwest of Wichita. KC and John got the towplane started and I launched at 12:14 PM, just as the first Cu wisps were arriving over Wellington. Perfect timing.

about 15 minutes before takeoff

I found lift immediately off tow, went through my start line, and told Kate Ground to head out. They had just finished hooking up the trailer and were on their way. I tiptoed very carefully at first, taking any lift going up and waiting for the cloud field to develop in front of me. I had had several flights in the Cherokee where I pushed out too hard to start and spent the rest of the afternoon watching a beautiful soaring day go by. I was not going to repeat that! By the time I crossed the Oklahoma border the sky looked much better and I was usually between 4000 and 5000 feet. About an hour and a half into the flight I got the first really good climb, 4.3 knots to nearly cloudbase at 6700 feet.

The clouds were not streeting so I couldn’t take advantage of long straight runs. I was still flying pretty carefully, as I’ve had a lot of experience trying to dig out in from low spots on windy days in torn up thermals and I preferred not to add to that experience. The 20 mph wind was blowing right down my course line so I figured even a weak thermal was still allowing me to make good progress on course and was worth taking.

I passed Interstate 40 west of Henryetta as the clouds started to thin. Base had been rising and the clouds getting thinner and thinner. Beyond I-40 there were just a few faint wisps or haze domes and solid blue beyond. I initially was inclined to turn more East and follow the clouds but out in the distance to the east the clouds didn’t really look a lot better. There had been a series of large fires with more on course in the blue and I was confident I could find lift in the blue. So I stuck with the task. Shortly after that I had my last radio communication with my crew. A few climbs from fires allowed me enough altitude to make it to McAlester. Nearing McAlester I saw no more fires but blundered into a good climb that gave me enough altitude to make the turnpoint. Alright! Shortly after I found a 4.7 knot climb that got me back up over 7000 feet and gave me plenty of margin to get to the turnpoint and get down on the ridge.

I joined the ridge east of Daisy. With the strong surface wind it was not a challenge to maintain over 1000 feet over the top. I passed by Sardis Lake as the ridge turned east and took 3 turns in that averaged 6.5 knots which made the gap at Clayton no sweat. I joined up with the familiar Kiamichi Ridge and ran east to Three Sticks. The ridge leg was a piece of cake and gave me plenty of time to game plan for the last leg of the flight. Ideally I wanted to get a really tall climb right at the turnpoint, at least get high enough to make De Queen and then hope to find another few climbs to make Texarkana. There were still thermals coming off the ridge so I hoped that the day still had something left.

   

flying along the Kiamichi Ridge in Oklahoma AND Sardis Lake in Oklahoma

The plan worked partially. I found a good thermal right at the turnpoint and took it to 6400 feet, which wasn’t quite enough to make De Queen. However the thermal was dead so I set out. Shortly after that I found another climb which was very weak but was going up so I held on as long as I could. I gained 1300 feet and drifted 5 miles and my Oudie now said I could make De Queen at over 1000 AGL. I set out and found a spectacular river of sink in the blue and the margin started to disappear. Landable fields were few and far between but there were a few and I was pretty happy to find some zero sink about 7 miles away from the airport at 1500 AGL. I didn’t gain much altitude but drifted a mile and a half and was in a much better place. The last few miles presented no problems and I was happy to land at the airport in De Queen, even if the runway was straight across the wind. Task distance worked out to 318 miles in 5.5 hours. A good day!

Greetings from De Queen in Arkansas.

The airport was equipped with a nice leather recliner so I relaxed and started to catch up on several texts and emails that I had received during the flight. Word had gotten out thanks to my friends notifying the world on rec.aviation.soaring, Facebook, and by email and several people had been following along on the SSA Sailplane Tracker. I contacted my crew and they were about 2 hours behind in Talihina after having some trouble finding a good route through the ridges in SE Oklahoma. They arrived shortly after sunset, the local Sheriff’s Deputy let them in the airport and we were on the road a little after 9 PM. We arrived back in Wichita at 4 AM and I was wide awake riding the high of a great flight for at least another hour.

Thanks a lot Tony for sharing this great flight with ALL of us!Indeed WHAT- A- DAY!!!!

 

 

Tony, here busy with another soaring-related hobby.
Courtesy Leah [Tony’s very supportive wife]

Practice for the upcoming WGC’s is HOT these days. The Aussies have a squad week in Narromine and I wrote already about VERY good practice from West Wyalong a while ago, between Allan and Matt.
The Aussie team ;
Team Poland ; Tom Claffey and Ben Loxton in 18M and Matthew Scutter and Craig Collings in 15M. 
Team Finland ; Allan Barnes and Matt Gage in Standard and Adam Woolley and Eric Stauss in Club.
No Aussie entries this time in Open or 20M classes.

As Adam mentioned;” 2nd day of the squad week, looks good. Team Finland really gelling nicely, all having a great time!
300 km. fixed task for dry gliders, 350 km. fixed for the wet gliders!”

Shared by Adam.

 

The “life is good”  formula works for the Aussies :
” good fun racing today, together all day – went faster as a result. Enjoying a nice meal & cool ale now at the club house.
Thanks to Mike for excellent ground support today (& every day)”
And what about Matt and Allan, both having / enjoying a  coaching-flight in the DUO DISCUS with Ingo Renner!! What better practice can you have?!
As I read he is still in good shape saying p.e. ” good sink is difficult to find”.
And when somebody asked  about the role of “luck” in racing, he said  “The more practice I get, the luckier I get”.
So Ingo!!!
And talking about Matt;
GFA has ratified the following records flown by Matt Gage:

Australian National Records in Standard Class

Free Triangle Distance: 1,048.54 Km

Free Distance via up to 3 TPs: 1,060.76 Km

Date of flight: 16 January 2014

Glider: LS8/15m

Location: Benalla

Claims have been submitted to FAI/IGC Records Office for 2 Continental Records, Oceania Region, from this flight for the 15m Class Free 3 TP Distance and 15m Class Free Triangle distance records.
So well done to Matt!

 

Adam and Mike.
As shared by Adam.

Some Dutch pilots travel to France to prepare as Jeroen Verkuijl and Jelmer Wassenaar [LS 10/18m.] and others practice at home as Alfred Paul Alfers who mentioned:” Physical exercise for Finland started. Last weekend 5h garden work out and 60km on the racing bike. 
Today my friend convinced me to aim for 80 km. of biking…..which finally became 110 km. in 3 h. 45 min”

As you see/know, you don’t jump in a glider and fly a WGC. There is much more to it!!!!
Some of the German squad fly in France as well.

EUROGLIDE 2014 will be from June 23 till Saturday July 5 this year.
79 Teams in 3 classes [ glider, turbo and  self launcher]  have entered, from 6  different Nationalities!
A huge HAPPENING as some teams exist out of  4 pilots.

Starting fromEindhoven (EHEH) to Dahlemer Binz(EDKV) in Germany.

Then to the South West to Poitiers(LFBI) in France.

From there to the East, just North of the Massif Central, to Roanne (LFLO).

The following leg to Klatovy (LKKT) in the Czech Republic passes through four countries, France, Switserland, Germany and the Czech Republic.

The finish is in Malden, the Netherlands.

The total distance is 2438 km (clock-wise 2475 km).
Please note the route will not be exactly the same for all classes.

For all news and the teams;
www.euroglide.nl

More than enough for today. CU next week, or on Sunday in the CAFE!
cheers Ritz

WOW, we had a real spring/summer weekend with temperatures up to 22 dgr. in the Southern part of Holland!
It was very blue here, so no cross country weather, but time enough for check -and- local- flights to test the glider , the instruments and to just  be together as glider pilots , at the field/clubhouse,  to start their talking with ” hands and legs” about their flights from last year or the years before  or their plans for 2014.
It’s ALL happening again!

 

Members from the Gelderse at Terlet enjoy the sun and the finish of their 3d soaringday in 2014!
Picture shared by Hobbit.

The longest/busiest  runway at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam , the POLDERBAAN, 3800 m. long and 60 m. wide [ 18R-36L] ,was closed last Monday for more than a month,[ till April 21]  due to the fact that the Nuclear Summit will be in the Hague on March 24 and 25 and due to maintenance after the world leaders have left.
48  of them[Obama -yes, Putin -no]  will visit and to  let them land straight away on this runway and to give them the opportunity to   park their [private] planes at this runway, it is closed already now.
The eyes of the world will be looking at the Hague, as it is an important summit.
With the leaders a total of 5000 delegates will arrive, as well as 3000 journalists.
Parts of the highway from Schiphol-Amsterdam to The Hague will be closed for normal traffic and will be only open for guests.
This SUMMIT  will be HUGE and will cost around 24 million euro, security NOT included!!!!
F 16’s will fly over Holland over the 2 days of this summit, boats will be ready in harbors and at sea and around 13.000 police will keep an eye on things.

No worries for the ” other”  pilots, landing or departing from Schiphol Airport,  they will like that the POLDERBAAN  is closed now,as it  extends the flight with about 15 minutes only by taxiing from there to the terminals. Though on the other hand there is one long runway less, so it will/can be busy at times!

” The weather is still cooking in Australia “ was the message from Adam, when he drove from Kingaroy to Narromine, on a ” nice”  day!

Surely not too bad!!!!
As shared by Adam

And…..ANOTHER WOW -factor!!!! One of our Dutch glider pilots , Leon Mol,[ flies Nationals and a lot in Spain -Fuentemilanos!]  has designed the new  leather  interior of the JS 1!!
Their business in the S of Holland  is unique as they are excellent cabinet makers, specialized in design furniture, but also in renovating.
It has nothing to do with gliders I know, BUT, Leon is as said a glider pilot and the co-operation between sailplane lovers resulted in this new interior of the JS 1.
” Backrest and arm rests full leather!!! Pocket for oxygen System. No more tubes everywhere!!!“

  

Uys enjoying the great sitting leather and mentioning;
“Development of the luxury leather in the JS1. This is the prototype. Production will change slightly. The leather is the highest quality available and the colors can be chosen by the customer.
What do you think, should this be the standard?”
More pictures and news at:
www.facebook.com/pages/Jonker-Sailplanes/188010050668

Mol and Geurts also design exclusive chairs as this one.

.

A luxury chair by Mol and Geurts with an audio system built in!!!!
Shared by Leon on FB.
www.facebook.com/leon.mol1?fref=ts
www.molgeurts.nl

For all the news about the IGC Plenary in Varese you can read the soaringcafe -news about the latest.  For those interested, also a video-tour  is published about the exhibition hall in Reno where the SSA convention took place.

Cheers Ritz

March 2 in Holland.
As shared on FB by Gliding Adventures Europe
www.zweven.eu

Last weekend the meteorological spring started here and ……down under they started their autumn.
Sunday here was like spring- weather should be,even BETTER!
For several clubs it was the beginning of season 2014!
As at Terlet where the Gelderse made the first start for 2014 .
Yes ,Sunday was fantastic with blue skies white clouds and on the ground you could feel the thermal-activity, but also a pretty chilly wind!!!
Thei Bongers from this club flew 116 km.

Very first flight from the Gelderse!
Courtesy Max .

AND

the first flight of the brand-new DUO DISCUS XLT.
Courtesy Marion.

  

But more clubs started their season on March 1/2. Up North in Friesland the tuggies had a job for 31 launches and down South they did 22.
It’s all happening again,…..THE SEASON STARTED!!!!
Not for my former club de ZES; their field needed some work first; moles!!!!!!!!
The ACVZ [Amsterdam] flew from their field Soesterberg.
My mates Sikko [Ventus BT/17.6 m] and Daan [ Ventus 2CT/ 18m.] flew 250 km.  and 152 km. Sikko mentioned the cloud base was in the end 1300 m. but a strong wind and Daan tested  his instruments after the winter-maintenance!

7 Flights were added on the Dutch OLC list, so quite a few  “exploring” local flights,to ” feel”  the air after not feeling it all winter ,  but that will change when flights are REAL cc-flights.
Germany much bigger than Holland added 54 flights for the Sunday, with comments as ” this first day was KLASSE/HAMMER with good lift and nice cloud streets“.
Best cross country distance was 362 in a Discus 2T /18m.
No snow in this part of Finland as you can see on this great picture from Mikko Malinimie , who is a professional photographer, shared by one of my Finnish mates Martti, it might be even his son Petri flying in!!!
Petri was a todler when he visited us in Tocumwal!! Time flies!!!!!
So I checked with Martti ……and YES it isPetri flying the plane !!! WOW !!!!!I am getting old! I am old!
Petri is 22 now, a glider pilot now and a tuggy! He even won a day in the first competition he attended last summer.

  

March 1 in Finland and,…………………………………….March 2 in Finland.
Fabulous pictures!

Autumn in Australia was for parts from South to East pretty good too ,with temperatures still in the low thirties and flights with cu’s you could follow where ever you wanted to go!
In the South at Benalla Tobias Geiger flew in his LS 4 an FAI 599.6 km triangle and extended his flight to  a distance of 658.
More to the East,  from Mc Caffery Field , Gerrit Kurstjens flew in his QUINTUS 738 km.

One of the Benalla pilots mentioned;” sky laden with Cu’s again – 3 days straight. Go where ever you want.”
In the East David Jansen [ASG 29E/18m] who flew together with Sven Kolb [Ventus 2CT] said:” Sea breeze at Bundy is always interesting.”
One of the Tocumwal pilots ;” first cross country flight by myself. Will claim silver badge distance with this.
Cloud base at 4000 Toke and up to 5100 at Jerilderie. ”
Was like a big kid in a lolly shop.”
He flew the ASW 15.Congratulations to Phil Heintze.
The season is not over yet is what I heard a lot!!!
Ingo was invited to fly on Monday with Joergen in their new ARCUS M and as pilot in command he flew from Toc. to the mountains [direction S.E / Mount Beauty] and then back via the W. to Deniliquin; 538 km.
I presume he values the ARCUS M as much as the Caproni, but…. we all know,…the less instruments ,….the better for him.

In the USA ,Florida had a good day as well and several pilots had great flights.400 km in and ASW 19 is pretty good.One of the pilots flying from Seminole, even called it ”  a booming day in the sunshine state.”
And,….” cu and some cloud streets; got a 5-6kts after 4 on final glide. ”
So that all sounds GOOD and HAPPY.

The 56th Nationals in Brasil, from Bebedouro,started last Sunday in 2 classes with 9 and 8 pilots in each class.Small tasks to start with ;for B class , with gliders as DG 400, Nimbus 3T , ASW 20 , Discus and Jantars all with their own handicap; 254 km and for A ,with gliders as ELFE S4, PW 5’s and an ASW 21;  190 km.
Day 2 had a 2 hour AAT for both classes but unfortunately there were more outlandings than finishes . No more news as yet.

And  Varese in Italy is this year the host for the International Gliding Committee meeting.This will happen this weekend on March 7 and 8.Lot’s of mates will fly to Italy to talk and listen, discuss and take decisions to make our soaring lives good.

Off to Amsterdam CU on Sunday in the CAFE!

Cheers Ritz