Tuesday January 5;

No flying yet in Benalla.BUT,…it will happen soon. The weather is weird. A too hot month of December , a too cold start of the normal hottest month of January.Look at this…..

   

This is normal and this is NOW.

The next 2 weeks will be VERY busy, [lot’s of lunches, driving around behind black Betty , dinners etc .,etc and lot’s of rest after my bones are cracked again] but after I have been in Benalla this upcoming Saturday ,where the next full week just looks good to fly, I will be back with the latest on the OZGLIDE/54th Nationals.On the last flying -day, Friday in Benalla, I will be there as well.One day later I am on my way home!!!

The gorgeous skies yesterday.

Thursday JANUARY 7;
So you wear socks , so you “sweat”  again from the high temperatures. This is AUSTRALIA , mate!!!
Yesterday the skies looked great. We were driving behind BLACK BETTY,,…I show you pictures later when I am back from lunch but after the rain, the skies looked fabulous. HOWEVER at 4 from the South some showers appeared, but then we were back home already.
The great skies meant that flying was possible in Benalla, after they had to cancel the practice day and first day , due to poor/weird weather.
We knew there would be still some rain yesterday ,but from now on they predict,…..”it will be dry”!!!

Tasks were set yesterday so a 3 hour AAT was set in open and 18 m. and the “smaller ships” had to go for 3.30 hours.
As said the rain was visible from here about 77 km. to the N. at 4, and indeed some pilots could not make it home on the first flying day.
In open class Bruce Taylor [JS 1c] was the best with 437 km. in time 3.34, so a speed of 122 km./h.
The French team in the Duo Discus, FLYING IN OPEN CLASS !!!! “lost” 2 points [998] in the Duo Discus from Narromine. 10 From 16  finished!!!
Here is Bruce’s story more to be found at Taylor’s Gliding Page . [on FB.]
—” Finally we have a competition day… It’s really not that bad, as we have only missed one day so far. It is just that the weather has been crappy for the past five days.
It started with bright sunshine and a crystal clear sky, and a water ballast seal trying to find its way out of the wing. By the time I got it back in place and filled the tanks we were almost late onto the launch grid. It is good fun waiting to launch, with all the overseas pilots wondering about how Benalla works. There is plenty of joking about; Eric Napoleon and Laurent Aboulin are flying a Duo Discus in the Open Class, which for the non-gliding folk is kind of like racing your Toyota Land Cruiser against the V-8 Supercars. But wait, between Eric and Laurent there are maybe 4 world championship gold medals, so there will not be too many mistakes made in that cockpit. Their rego is “VS”, which I thought might be Very Slow, Anita suggested Very Sexy, but at the end of the day it was actually Very Speedy!!
3 hour AAT, the first leg was fantastic, running along at cloudbase with no circling, then the thermals became difficult to work, and I found it hard to stay really high on the second leg until we were back close to the trough line. Then it was a blast again, until the sky filled in and the choice was straight on track or take a huge diversion around the west of the rain. Fortunately I took the diversion, as most of those who flew straight ahead didn’t come home. It took the shine off some high speeds, but home was a good place to be today.
I finished just 2 points ahead of Very Speedy. Better keep my mouth shut!—” 
Today they have a task from 526 km.’

David Jansen was the best in 18 m. class . He flew 394 km. with a speed of 129 km./h in the ASG 29, followed by Rolf Buelter from the Geelong Gliding Club in his LS 8/18 m.
David was more than 10 km. faster than the runner up.
Normally Rolf is here for the summer camp , his mates are here now without him and good to see he flew so well on the first day. He was one of the 18[ from 28] finishers!!!

TODAY; 466 km.

17 from 31 finished in 15 m. class.Who else than …..Matthew [Scutter]won day 1 in his Discus 2A, BUT…only after Miles [Gore Brown] missed the start-line and got penalty points for that.
Matthew  flew 420 km. in time 3.48, so a speed of 110 km./h.
Miles was 2d  with 113 km./h., Mac 3d.[105 km./h]
Fabulous to see Swaantje flying an ASW 20 in this class!!!! Chapeau!!!!
Here is his view, more to be read at Matthew Scutter’s Gliding [at FB] ;
“Day 1, Australian 15m Nationals, selection event for WGC2016 (Benalla)
Started by myself because I was worried about storms later in the day. The wind was howling through the Kilmore Gap creating a bit of a convergence which I turn on to head north, ran a long way north, then had to navigate some rain showers on the way home. Made a few errors and had to make 40km of deviation which wiped 10-15kph off my speed and lost me first for the day, but (un)fortunately first place missed the start line, so I got it after all. Sometimes you have to make your own luck, other times it’s just given to you.”
Today; 406 km.

The weather here was blue, but quickly clouds pop up every where! It looks like a good day for the pilots here and there, they started flying already early.
The day turned out good as pilots have finished their tasks already in Benalla and scores are to be found at www.soaringspot.com
Preliminary scores show nice speed as well, around 136 km./h. in open class, it looks Matthew did well again in 15 m. class with 128 km./h. but not everybody is scored yet!!!
In 18 m. it looks like a good day for Tom Claffey in his ASG 29 E, speed 131 km./h.

Benalla TODAY!!!!

———–

More diary stuff;
As said yesterday was the BLACK BETTY day.

Dundee with Black Betty.

Last year I already got an invitation by Richard Vincent, our former instructor to go with him through a beautiful area of unseen places here in this part of Australia. Loved it. As the sulky was in revision, we went with a little covered wagon , so Dundee was invited as well.

    

The sulky and the wagon.

    

Dundee feeding the horse and I am ready for a trip through unseen areas.

It was just so much fun, though I felt “like a milk shake” after nearly 3 hours. The views were amazing and I show a few pictures.

    

Amazing views from lagoons, creeks and plants
and
VERY OLD trees.

After the nearly 3 hour-ride, the horse got a shower and a few carrot’s and was brought back to it’s mate Clyde.

    

A very special day.

AND,..it did not finish then.After we had bubbles at Dundees and good cheese with Margie and Jeroen, another good Tocumwal-day finished with home- made- pea- soup!!

————-

Lunch today at the Pavillion, was with Tugger’s [Anthony, who has been a tuggy with us several years] parents who drove up from Deniliquin to see us.Lovely people.
I spoke with Anthony as well ,he just arrived home after a flight ,[ he flies as a captain with Jet Star,]  starting his day at 3 AM this morning.

     

George with Faye and Ken.

———

And to finish this Aussie-news from Channel 9:

A NSW farmer will lead a convoy of 120 trucks travelling 1860km north to deliver more than 150 trailers full of hay to drought-stricken farmers in Queensland. 
The hay is expected to assist more than 200 drought-affected properties.
A record 86 percent of Queensland is currently stricken by drought

Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/01/04/09/10/nsw-farmer-organises-convoy-of-120-trucks-to-deliver-donated-hay-to-drought-stricken-queensland#w7E4gvPFRfW2eyvD.99

There are still lot’s of GOOD people!!!!

Cheers Ritz

Friday morning;
As you might have seen I added some more pictures in the earlier blog as I found they belong to 2015.
The party pictures will be on tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, as I am too busy today.

Have a nice weekend.

Cheers Ritz

Beautiful Tocumwal with “just”  one of the creeks along the walking track I follow to town.

Sunday morning;January 3.
Slowly I will go back to my-more- normal-blog-style and be less personal.
This was the AUSTRALIAN diary and I loved writing it but with the Benalla comps it is easy to get back in the normal -blog-groove.

Before I do so I wish to remember our son and brother Dennis, who lost his life here close by , in a freak accident with the tug VH-ADP, today 28 years ago.
R.I.P.
NEVER FORGOTTEN!!!!

First of all,….THANK YOU for all the good wishes for the year 2016!!!
The last day of 2015 and the first one in 2016 were hot with up to 39 dgr. C. Very humid as well.
Then the change came and Benalla might be not having the weather they have hoped for, at least for the next couple of days.They start tomorrow with an official practice day .
Ingo is flying with Scot Percival in the ASH 25. The 4- times world champion calls himself ” just ballast”.
He drives up and down from Toc. to Benalla as it is “just” 77 km.
After flying in Benalla, he was at the SRGC part on the last day of the year and I promised you some pictures here they are.

   

Annie Wilson and I ready to go to the party….with bubbles. And….the ladies ready with some entree nibbles.

    

Joergen from Denmark with Annie and Dieter and members from the Geelong Gliding Club . And guests at Tocumwal with SRGC members Dieter Dundee and YH.

Dieter from Geelong who started his soaring in 1987/88 here in Tocumwal at Sportavia and now back here as a member of the Geelong ,Gliding Club, [he has been flying more here in the past] together with Mr. Ballast …Ingo Renner himself.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 2015 was globally seen the hottest year on record.
Australia was hot , but has been hotter before they claim, in 2013.
Due to the influence of EL NINO,the first half of 2016 will be have “above average temperatures” as well.
In some states as SA and NSW where we are, they had the hottest December in more than 100 years.
On January 6 they are going to release the official 2016 weather fore cast for Australia , for what it is worth.
They expect EL NINO to end in autumn 2016, when the temperatures and rainfall will go back to normal.

Globally seen , you notice the impact on TV or in the paper,with devastating flooding in parts of the USA and UK, a more luxury problem with lack of snow in the lower ski resorts in Europe , with all the results for holiday makers and ski-resort-staff and no -income and with scorcher -days here in Australia.
NOW it is over here, we had a GOOD drop of rain  yesterday and fabulous clouds before the storm arrived. Severe weather-warnings for places as Wangaratta and Yarrawonga.

   

I happened to be at the cemetery when I noticed fast growing cauliflower-clouds and storms to the E. and  S.

The last day of the OLC was topped by a [former] SRGC member Bernie Seizer in his PIK 20 flying 814 km. [750 FAI triangle] from Ararat.
“First 750Km flight.
With thick cirrus and weak lift in many places, this was a difficult flight. Made some big deviations to get around large areas of shadow and  had to fly many km’s into the sea air at Keith and  then back to lift. I didn’t think I was going to make it… had planned to land back at Horsham but managed a good climb just after dumping the water.”
Congratulations Bernie.

The 2d day of 2016, was a glorious one for former Tocumwal visitors Karin and Marcus; a fabulous 1.370 km. [1.102 km. FAI triangle] with a good speed of 144 km./h. in their ARCUS M flying from Kuruman. Congratulations!!
Not bad from dad Hans either, 1.245 km. in the DG 800 /18 m. flying some kind of yo-yo with legs from 390 and 323 km….from N to S of Kuruman.
And more congratulations for pilots flying in South Africa;
“Declared 800km FAI Triangle @ 149km/h new Dutch National Open Class record.” was the message from Dutch record-chaser, Max Leenders and Dirk Nieuwenhout flying from Douglas Backhouse in the Minbus 4 DM.

My Belgium friends , the Schmelzer’s are flying from Kiripotib, and had a “hard-labor-day” yesterday;757 km.
And some of my LASHAM friends have arrived in Bitterwasser for some good soaring.
Young Davide from Italy has started his soaring in BIWA as well.

The 2d 2016-day here , yesterday, looked not impressive, but turned out rather impressive before the storm arrived.It even was HOT , with an unexpected 38 dgr.at 5 PM.
This is what Swiss Chris [flying with Sportaviation] had to say:” What a day after the weak start.
One climb after tow , the rest flying straight along the trough line ,but unfortunately did not have the final height to close the circuit to the takeoff point (triangle would have been 340km)”.He flew 555.5 km.

“Rain and hail coming out of these.”

   

“Some water in the wings would have made it less bumpy and faster”   AND, ” What else do you want.”

170km/h and still 4.6m/s lift at 9400ft

Today, it  started to rain [2 PM] only a shower,no worries…. several pilots went “up”.

Cheers Ritz.