Open and 18 m. Nationals from Hobbs in New Mexico!
18-6/27-6 2019.

as shared by Soaring Society of America

They started last Tuesday after 2 practice day’s with some American icons in soaring as Dick Butler [Concordia] , Ray Gimmey, [ASG 32 MI] Ron Tabery  [ASW 22 BLE] in open and Doug Jacobs [ASH 31 MI]  and Gary Ittner [ASG 29] in 18 m.
Also in 18 m. class 2 top pilots from Canada Jerzy [Szemplinski]  and Dave [Springford] both in ASG 29.

Typical for Hobbs
as shared by Soaring Society of America

Steven Leonard who I got to know in Uvalde in 2012 wrote a nice wrap-up from day 1.He is also the task adviser.
“Day one at Hobbs complete. 4 hour turn area task to Levelland, Caprock Station, Jal, Seagraves and return. Turn area means you have to go “close” to each point. You had to get within 10 miles of Levelland, 20 miles of Caprock Station, 10 miles of Jal, and 10 miles of Seagraves. Fastest guy in Open Class flew 329 miles at an average speed of 79 MPH. I flew 279 miles at an average speed of 66 MPH, good enough for 8th place (so far)”
Open; Dick Butler in the CONCORDIA won this day 1 and he mentioned in an interview  that he started straight after the gate opened and was glad to be “home” again. Speed 79.89 miles p/h.
18 m. Jae Walker was the best in this class in his Ventus 3 with just behind him Jerzy and Rick Indrebo 3d. In points the first 8 were very close …between 8 [Ken Sorenson in Ventus 3 ] and Jae the points were 802 to 850 for Jae.

Day 2; June 19
Open…Assigned task from 263 miles. It turned out to be a great day. David Coggins won the day with a speed of 86 miles p/h.
Bad day for the CONCORDIA , Dick was 13th and dropped from 1 to 7. The story seems to be that he got low, more than once, had to fight to get up again with cost him at least an hour. BUT,…he was up again!!!Respect.
18m..Assigned task from 263 miles. The Ventus 3 and the JS 3 were the number 1 and 2. From ..yes Jae Walker again 2d win and Keith Essex.

Steven’s look at day 2 ;”Day 2, US Open Class Nationals in the books. Another challenging day for many. For me, all was going good until getting out of Littlefield, where the wheels fell off the wagon! I have never seen that much standing water in west Texas! Wow! Standing water, and blowing dust. Amazing. Then I missed the climb I needed to get home quickly, costing myself what seemed like at least 30-40 minutes. Oh, well. It was a fun day of flying!”
He was 10th for the day.

Day 3 ; June 20 …..95 F at 10 and 101 [38 gr. C.] during the day, pfff,….
Open.. 4 hour TAT; and again another daily winner ;this time in the JS 1B ,Steve Nichols with a speed of just over 100 miles/h.
Karin from Holland and married to Heinz Weissenbuehler, who flies with her in the ARCUS mentioned;
“Super day at Hobbs. 4 hr TAT – 370 miles at 92 miles. Total 5 hours between 11000 & 17000 ft. Today made effort to come to Hobbs worth it.”

The HW is the ARCUS from Heinz and Karin.
as shared by Soaring Society of America

18m..Jerzy won the day with 667 OLC km’s. and climbed up to 1 overall as well. speed 98.88 miles /h. 9148 km./h] His Canadian mate Dave flew in his ASG 29, 690 km with 125 km.h.
An awesome soaring day even for Hobbs in the USA.
Good speed and great distances.You can find a lot of the flights on the OLC on June 20.
[Take off field INDUSTRIAL]
Ken Sorensen flying the VENTUS 3 F, mentioned in his OLC reaction; 136.6 km./h.675 km. speed
“ Screaming good weather. 4 hr turn area task with 4 turn areas. clouds at 17k+. some streeting. Much of the cruising was done at 105-110 kts, which was probably too slow for the conditions. Winning speeds were 100 mph +/-. Pretty amazing when you’re passing up 6 kt thermals waiting for 8-10 kts. I had one that was showing 13 kts for a while”.

   

Some happy landings after a happy day.
As shared by Soaring Society of America

Day 4 and 5;;
Too much wind from the wrong direction made it unsafe for take-offs and landings today, so the task was cancelled. More wind expected tomorrow, so it’s been declared a rest day.
Steven mentioned;
“Friday and Saturday flying at Hobbs canceled due to winds being almost 90 degrees to the runway. Friday, was 20 gusting to 25, with higher forecast for Saturday. Sunday looks to be a north wind (under 10 MPH, though) day, so we should be back to flying on Sunday. The rest of the week looks like good soaring.”

Day 6; Task 4 here is Steven looking back at the day :
“We missed the mark a bit on the task call today. Primary looked like it might be a bit much, as none of the advisers were getting climb rates to heights expected (of course, someone did, so that person thinks we “totally f’ed up”. I am one of two advisers in the Open Class). Went to Task B and it turned out that the turn area task had either too little distance available, or too much time required. Suggestion was made to shorten the time on task, but the decision was made to stick with the “B” task as called. As a result, it sort of became a task of flying to the furthest points in the turn areas. Not what we intended. 🙁 Through quirks in the rules and scoring formulas, I ended up doing quite well“

So what happened. A turn-area- task was set as task B, from 3,5 hours.
Open; Steven was pretty happy with his flight so he should he was 3d for the day behind Dave [Mockler] and Jim Lee. Dave flew 266 miles in time 3.15.
4 x A JS 1C/21 m. in the top 4 at this stage.
DB was 4th and 5th overall now.

   

Action enough on day 6 ,task 4.
Soaring Society of America

18 m.; 2 pilots with 1000 points in this class .Rick Indrebo in his ASG 29 with 265 miles in time 3.25.and Sean Fidler in the same glider.
Jerzy is still number 1 overall but with only 17 points Jae Walker is close,very close.

Nice to share a task sheet from a USA competition.
In the end Leigh, Sam Zimmermans wife , who writes the daily reports, mentioned :
“Task Change in the air: Task B 3 1/2 hr. TAT. Gate opened at 13:45 posted by Leigh“

Day 7 ; Task 5…CONCORDIA -day!!Another Turn Area Task today;3.45.
The day started a little cooler but still mostly blue early in the day.
Open; you have to admire that gorgeous glider CONCORDIA and in a way Dick as well ,flying it with so much verve. He is such a gentleman!!!
By far the fastest today with 81 miles p/h. over 316 m. The runner up Ron in his ASW 22BLE had 78 m/h. over 298 m.

Nice pictures from the CONCORDIA and Steven’s Nimbus 3/25.5 m.
as shared by Soaring Society of America 

18m;  Very pleased to see John Seaborn is flying so great in his JS 3/18m, flying 321 miles.
Jerzy had a bit of an off-day being 14th for the day and loosing 120 points on this 1000 points day in this class. Which meant that he lost his first place overall.

 Busy at the field .
Soaring Society of America 

Day 8 task 6 with one more day to go tomorrow[Thursday June 27.] B task with 2,45 hour.
Stevens look at day 6;
‘”Day 6 at the US Open Class Nationals. Forecast was for an early starting, early ending day. Chance of showers all day, lift possibly all done by 5 PM. Task started off as a 3 hour TAT (concern over t-storms prompted this over assigned task). Launch started, and the gliders couldn’t climb up and get out of the way of the towplanes bringing the next bunch up, so the launch was stopped for a while. Then, BOOM! Like a switch, lift went from 2000 AGL to 10,000 AGl, cu popped, and suddenly the task at 3 hours looked like ti would become another geometry test for maxing out distance and maybe still being under time (max distance would be 295 miles!). The day had a few tricks up its sleeve, but overall, it was a pretty good, predictable run.”
open; Another name another pilot Jim Lee as winner in the JS 1C BUT, DB had the same amount of points ;935, so 2 winners for the day!!!!Dick started 5 minutes earlier. Jim is number 1 overall and DB climbed up from 4 to 3.
18 m;John is in the “right” flow. He won again!!! He is number ONE overall as well now with 5724 points. On contest day 4 he was still 3d. Jerzy is 2d but lost again some points as he was 7th for the day.
Tim Welles in Ventus 3 is 3d overall, with today and tomorrow to go.

      

Sunset over Hobbs on flying-day 6 and a bit later the message “All tied down, hoping the storm blows by us at the 18-Meter and Open Class Nationals in Hobbs, NM“

“RVs line up to protect their ships from the winds of a passing storm.” Hope it works out well.
Soaring Society of America

More next week.

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9th Polish Nationals in 15 m and club class…Ostrow Glide 2019.

as shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

In my last blog I already mentioned that they had a 3 hour AAT on task 1 in 15 m. ,a bit of a marginal day with 2.30 [only 11 from 20 finished] , 1 scrubbed day and 2 good days;
The good days showed 408 km. on June 17 with task 3, won by Christoph Matkowski in ASG 32MI; 120 km./h. 15 from 19 finished and those who did not finish had airspace violations.
The 2 Lucaszes , Lucasz Błaszczyk in Discus 2A and Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 were on spot 2 and 4 with Jacek Flis on 3 in Discus 2A.
4 hour AAT on June 18 [task 4] showed 473 km. in time 4.31 for Jacek who won the day. 12 From 20 finished.

On Wednesday [June 19] they had task 5 with even more kilometers to fly, now 504!!! Still in the good “flow” Jacek won again; 102 km./h. another 1000 points. Such a pity he had a penalty on task 2  by not”  recording the event marker” and on task 1  he was not yet in the “flow; 12th for the day missing out more than 300 points .
After 5 tasks and still a few to go Lucasz Grabowski leads overall with 4.498 points.

Lucasz and the Diana 2. as shared by Diana-2 New Generation

June 20 task 6; a smaller task ,2 hour AAT, flown by all 17 pilots, but nobody finished. Best was Lucasz in the Diana 2 who flew 227 km.Janus Centka did very well as number 3 for the day and climbs up from 6 to 4 overall. Good on him!!!

  

Daily winner Lucasz Grabowski, and before or after with some mates.
shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

On June 21 they did not fly.
On June 22  and in the end the VERY LAST DAY,[day 10 had no task] it was all or nothing for some and they got 343 km.on the menu. The very first starts were at 1 PM, but Lucasz decided to wait for half an hour. BUT, as Tomas Hornik [ASG 29] was his direct concurrent, he decided to go 1 minute after him. They arrived back together , Tomas a few seconds earlier, so the 15-m CHAMPION was Lucasz. Speed was 120.0 for 120.8 km./h.

NATIONAL POLISH CHAMPION 15 M:
1. Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 with 6.167 points.
2. Tomas Hornik in ASG 29 with 6.089 p.
3. Christoph Matkowski in ASG 32 MI with 5.851 p.
4. Janus Centka in ASG 29E with 5.683 p.
Adam Czeladzki was on spot 8 overall. He lost more than 250 points on the last day. He started as the last one in his class in the Duo Discus XLT  , dropping from 7 to 8.
7 Out of 10 valid days!!!

The Diana 2 with Lucasz on final glide.
As shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

 

In the POLISH CLUB class 25 pilots fought for the honors among them well known pilot Stanislaw Wujczak the only one I “know” in this class.
Task 3 was a good one with 347 km. Mirosław Izydorczak [St Jantar 3] won the day in his ASW 20. It seems you need an ASW 20 nowadays to win. Stan was 3d.
During the 4 hour AAT Stan was 4th with 368 km in time 5.01.

They had 2 day’s less in this class.Task 2 and 6 were scrubbed for them.
276 on the last day and with Mirosław Izydorczak coming in as number 2 he won the club class. He won 2 day’s and was runner up on another 2.
With 5 out of 10 valid tasks the overall scores were;
1. Mirosław Izydorczak in ASW 20 with 4.598 points.
2. Stanislaw Wujczak in St Jantar 3 with 4.532 p.
3. Marcin Szymura in St Jantar 3 with 4.473 p.

 

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AMSTELGLIDE at SOESTERBERG.

Courtesy Reinier Koning.
More of his 152 pictures at photo’s google .com under AmstelGlide 2019 zaterdag.

The gliding club from Amsterdam [AZVC] organized their annual 2 day-competition and they were damn lucky with the weather.
By the way we get, as they forecasted a heatwave here in Holland.
This was “our ” weather on Saturday at Soesterberg.

Day 1!!

As shared by Dinand one of the ZES [yes my club] participants.

AND…, there were a lot of participants. AND ,..they had to work for it, as they got nice long tasks, belonging to nice weather, but not as strong/long as expected.
So excitement all over!!!
16 pilots in club class  going for a 3.30 AAT….
269 k. min time 3.30 at the dot, was the best result for Simon van den Eijkel.

21 in the combi class having to fly a 4 hour AAT...
13 “made” it back and the best was Jeroen van Dijk in LS 3 with 371 km. in time 4.03.

17 in open class with also a 4 hour AAT…
only 6 finished so a real tough day. Best speed was 90 km./h over 361 km. by Sikko Vermeer. He always was good, still is good!!!!Peter Millenaar was runner up.

Daily winner Sikko in the middle with mate Mark Leeuwenburg who was 7th and the first “out-lander” after 304 km.
courtesy Reinier Koning.

Day 2 with temperatures up to 32 dgr.C. so hot and pretty blue. Later however clouds popped up everywhere.
Club had 157 km. Nick Faber in LS 4 was the best [92.78 km./h] on day 2 and as he was 6th on day 1 he moved to spot 4 overall.
Simon was 3d for the day and with the win the day before he won the AMSTELGLIDE in this class.[1.395]

Combi had 200 km. and local pilot Jeroen won again .[1.576 p.]  Rik [vd Boer] from Belgium was runner up [1.388] and with his 4th place the day before he was 3d overall. Smitje was number 3 in the Duo discus for the day , with as overall result ; runner up!![1.411]

open had 228 km. Sikko was 5th for the day loosing 37 points on Peter won the day ; so pretty clear he was the AMSTELGLIDE winner [1.564] Sikko had only FOUR points less! Marco Vermeer ,no not family, was 3d. [1.464]

Peter and Sikko
courtesy Janni [Peter’s proud mum].

 

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Some great flights

UK; “The forecast was promising today and Edward Downham from London Gliding Club launching at Dunstable certainly made the most of it with what could be a new UK triangle distance record!”
837 km in ASH 25EB 28 on June 21 the longest day in this part of the world.Well done!!!
Look for more at https://www.bgaladder.net/DailyScores/Enquiry
In Germany Peter Fischer flew that day nearly 1000 km. ;964 [669 FAI triangle]

Great weather in the UK also on a-normal-flying-Saturday June 22.
50 Gliders out at Lasham and 6 tuggies. GOOD DAY!!!!
Andy Aveling and Garry Coppin flew in the ARCUS 755 k. and Roy 655 in the ASG 29E. Martin Clark in JS 1 C 760 k.

as shared by British Gliding Team

Keiheuvel in Belgium had another top-day on Saturday as well;Young  Jeroen flew in the LS 8 760 km. and en route he took this picture.
His mate Tijl flew in the Ventus 3 702 km. and Tijl’s  dad Bert sr. 600k in the Ventus 2CT/18m.

courtesy Jeroen Jennen.

Finland was good!!!! Kristian Roine managed to fly 1000 km in his LS 8/18m. from one of my favorite fields Rayskala!!!! Great job!!!
1020 km Declared 3TP task…even better!!!!! Well done!!!

  

Selfie from Kristian…..Finland is really BEAUTIFUL!!
As shared by Kristian.

Ramy Yanetz flew a 1000 from Parowan [USA] .[ ASG 29 /18m.]

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That’s it for now. EUROPE suffers under a heat wave, we all feel a bit tired. All kind of records will be broken,…hottest ever month, hottest ever day’s etc. Yesterday we had officially 34.4 in Holland [38 in my garden] which was the hottest ever June 25 on record.

AND,…do not forget to fly safe!!! We lost in Europa over the last 2 weeks, several “mates” by accidents with gliders and small airplanes. BE CAREFUL.

Not long and the WGC will be flown for the small ships. Prievidza in Slovakia is the place to be.
July 7-20 2019.
www.egc2019.sk

Cheers Ritz

UPPSALA MASTERS 2019.

Continued and like at more places their weather was not really “helping”
The Britt’s say it so nicely:”a week of apocalyptic rain .”
They squeezed out day 3 on Friday with 1.30 and 1.45 AAT’s….better than nothing. Pffff….

As shared by the organizers with the text;
“After a cloudy morning, finally scattered clouds. Pilots now ready to give it a try.”

Open; 1.30 AAT… 182 km. was the distance flown by team Acketoft & Wendt [EB 29DR] followed by Wolfgang and Andy in ARCUS M with 171 km.The winners flew the task at the dot, Wolfgang/Andy needed 13 min. more. Antti was 3d.
11 From 13 finished.

Racing; 1.45 AAT…181 km. was flown by winner Aku, who I still know from my several Finland visits. Nice talented young man. He needed 1 more minute [as the set time] for his distance.
14 From 17 finished, among them Visa Matti, as number 14, so just in. Martti was just out but missed out on only 50 points.

   

A 500 k-day!!!
As shared by Uppsala Masters

AND THEN,…...the waiting for good weather was rewarded with 518 in open and 462 in racing class; AND,…all who started FINISHED on Saturday the last but one day!!!
open; 518.52 km… Another Acketoft & Wendt-day . Speed was 116km./h.,  7 k./h. faster than Boerje in the Ventus 3T who was as runner up. After all the “window’s” such a great long taskis a pleasure for pilots ,crew and organizers.

racing; 462.94 km… and 15 from 17 finished and the Finnish mates had a great day with 4 of them in the top 6. Olli Teronen [ARCUS E] was the daily winner with Aku on his heels.

And then it is Sunday ,which means last day of this Uppsala Masters. Day 5 out of 9 not too bad, in these difficult times. The 4 tuggies were ready to go ,so were the pilots.
open; 314 km….later changed in 1.45 AAT
They started with the knowledge that it was nearly impossible to go to spot 1 overall as Jim and his mate were nearly 400 points ahead. In the top 4 were still some possibilities as Boerje was just over 100 points ahead on the ASH 25/EB 28-team  and 138 on Antti.
All flew just over or under 200 km. but the the best were Wolfgang and Andy winning the last daily 548 points keeping them on spot 5 with 3.011 points.
Boerje was runner up and stayed on the silver spot overall. Jim and his mate lost a few points but nothing to worry about. Antti did well, very well . In his Ventus 2cxaFES he moved to the bronze spot, good on him.

Final results in this class;
1. Acketoft & Wendt from Sweden in EB 29DR with 3.574 points.
2. Börje Eriksson from Sweden in Ventus 3T with 3.269 p.
3. Antti Lehto from Finland in Ventus 2cxaFES with 3.082 p.

racing; 295 km.…later changed in a 1.45 AAT.
The overall top 5 was between 2.943 points and 3.122. Aku, Tapio and Olli from Finland on spot 1-2 and 4 and from Sweden Ronny and David on spot 3 and 5.
Olli, Tapio and Aku did what they had to do finishing on spot 1-2-4 with on 3 the LS 6 from Norwegian pilot Per Morten Løvsland . Still small changes as Aku lost his first spot to Tapio; only 14 points but they are all friends so no worries after a beer and a sauna “they live all happily “.
3 Finnish pilots in the top!!! Aku and Tapio both topped the overall scores each on 2 day’s this week, the last day is for Tapio.

Final results in this class;
1. Tapio Tourula from Finland in Ventus 2BX with 3.614 points.
2. Aku Jaakkola from Finland in Discus 2A with 3.600 p.
3. Olli Teronen from Finland in ARCUS E with 3.486 p.

Prize-giving-ceremony-pictures shared by Uppsala Masters

With other words,…the Fin’s did well!!

——————————

 Some great flights last week!!!

Whilst some countries had miserable weather others had ripper days.
June 11; indeed also with showers during the flight, Mathias Schunk in Quintus M. flew from  Königsdorf a distance of 1.296 km!! As good /great ,but from Unterwössen a superb flight in a KA 6 by Jan Lyczywek; 822 km.And best for that day; 1.164 km. from Wiener Neustadt by Markus Gusenleitner.
June 12; 1.326 km. in DG 600M /18m. from Niederoblarn in Austria  by Johannes Hausmann. And 2x a 1.150 km. one in Austria and 1 in Germany. 827 km. in Hornet from Kufstein is not bad either!!!
June 13; Another great Robert Pratt day flying from St Gaudens in France in ASG 29E/18m. ;1.286 km. And in an ASH 26 1.022 km. from Oeventrop in Germany.

On Monday,June 17, most had to go to work again, the skies “exploded”. You could fly from Holland to Russia, clouds everywhere AND,…between 9AM and 9PM. From Holland one of the young ones, Lars flew in the ASW 28 E/18m. a distance of 714 km. from Terlet, first to Veendam [NE] and then straight direction far East into Germany .One of the students from Delft, Sylvain,  flew from Terlet in an LS 6 653 km.
From Locktow in Germany another 1000 km. flight ‘with a Namibia -feeling” by Bernd Goretzki , who shares his soaring-time between Locktow in summer and Namibia in winter.[Ventus 2CM/18m]
Tijl started in Belgium at the Keiheuvel and flew in the Ventus 3E 794 km. and Neil Dijgers in his St Libelle flew 617 [500 km. triangle]
Jean Luc from St Hubert 830 in an ASG 29E.
Tomas Suchanek fle in Czech Rep 768 km and Uwe Thiel with a friend from Spain [ Cuenca Sotos] 838 k. in Nimbus 3DM.
Many between 500 and 900 km flights from all parts of Europe for those who were free/ ghad a day off.
Yesterday about the same hot and dry weather with a 1000 for Alexander in his EB 29 from Bayreuth.

 

 

Schempp-Hirth.

We all know they make great gliders and a new milestone was reached in building their ARCUS gliders; number 300.

“We are very proud to announce we’ve just delivered the serial number 300 Arcus this morning to our friend from Namibia from Bitterwasser. We wish them, their pilots and customers plenty of nice adventures in the air around the world with this beautiful sailplane!”
With from Schempp-Hirth, Tilo, Brigitte and Biko.
Have n’t seen Brigitte and Biko for ages but they have n’t changed!!

AND

To never forget Klaus either, I share their picture from him as well. Remember the many times we met at comps or at the factory and specially his visit with Ralf to Tocumwal and Leeton.

As shared by Schempp-Hirth

AND

Flying the then brand new NIMBUS 3D in Benalla by George and Dennis in 1987.

Turbulator-tape under the wings gave some problems but Klaus fixed it himself.

A family-affair with mum[me] and daughter Inge cleaning the glider, Dennis concentrating at the wing, George talking to Bruno [Gantenbrink ] and his brother Adrian and good old friend Tony Tabart .
Pictures from WGC in Benalla 1987.

Unfortunately some sad news reached me as well,as last Sunday a 62 year old pilot died after a brand new Ventus 3T crashed straight after it was up in the air. They say it was a test flight from the Hahnweide. The glider is beyond repair and it was the Ventus in which Tilo won the final FAI SGP in Spain last week.
Hope they find out quickly WHY.!!???Just terrible.

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CLUB CLASS NATIONALS IN THE USA from Sunflower!!
June 4-13.

As shared by 2019 US Club Class National Soaring Championship

Sunflower has not hosted a National competition since 1989 [in Open Class], but they invested, made important changes to the airport in Yoder and it seems everybody was happy with their host the Kansas Soaring Association.
“Yoder is the closest town to the Sunflower Gliderport. It was originally built as Hutchinson Naval Air Station in WWII, was home to the Kansas Air National Guard in the 50’s and 60‘s.”
Pilots had to deal with wind , blue day’s and overcast but also a great day and they still flew on 6 out of 10 day’s; 3 Assigned Tasks, 2 Area Tasks, and one Modified Assigned Task.
CD was Hugh Grandstaff and the competition manager Tony [Condon]
The 22 pilots had their first valid flying day on Friday June 7 after 3 cancelled day’s ,with Mike Westbrook in the Discus 2BW, winning the day. The task was a three hour TAT.
“Mike Westbrook raced around at almost 65 mph raw to win the day with Tom Holloran right on his heels. There is a big wad of pilots behind them with 100 points separating 3rd through 13th.”

as shared by Midwestern Soaring Association

June 8 was a prey for Mike again. A blue day very windy as well and 7 finished . The rest was “out” .
“Four gliders  landed in the vicinity of St John, KS. Three landed at the Stafford airport, two at the Roberts ag strip and one landed out between there and Sunflower. All of these are along Highway 50 so there was quite the parade of trailers up and down that corridor late in the day.”

June 10 was the next flying day a fun day of flying in the BLUE and Jacob Fairbairn, in H-201 Standard Libelle was the next winner. Tony [Condon] was 11th and Daniel Sazhin, the USA top junior had a bad run this competition with this day a 20thiest spot in his H-301 Libelle.
Not long and Szeged in Hungary is waiting.[JWGC 2019 July 28 August 10]

June 11 was flyable too and Mike was the best again , so 4 day’s in the pocket, 3 for him. Tony mentioned ;
“Had fun working the gaggle today. It was basically a Grand Prix task.”

June 12 , day 5, was for Danny Sorenson [Discus 2AW]who was already runner up , but beat Mike this day. A special day, with cloud streets, “we were post frontal with all indications pointing to an excellent soaring day. Hugh and the task advisers consulted with our weather experts and set a 226 mile Assigned Task. We were not aware that the longest Club Class Assigned Task was 227 miles from Hobbs, or we would’ve made it a little longer! ”
You surely remember that Hobbs was the place were Kees Musters became world champion.
Danny by the way, is the son from Ken Sorenson the CD of the 2012 WGC in Uvalde Texas.

June 13 last day and won by Tony in the St. Cirrus!! Good on him. An Assigned task from 75 miles.
His enthusiastic reaction later;
“I GOT FINAL GLIDE WITH A BALD EAGLE!”

Tony here, without bald eagle.
As shared by Tony and Photo by Paul Sodamann.

In the end there are winners and here they are.

1. Mike Westbrook 4.434 points.I must have seen him already in Rieti as he was in one of the first junior teams they send from the USA. I was the competition-editor there. I checked with Tony and he also ” has flown the last two Club World’s in Lithuania and Poland.” He is back in my mind now!!And indeed looking better at the picture,…. I remembered him.
2. Tom Holloran with 4.167 points. Sorry do not know anything about him.
3. Danny Sorenson with 4.164 and that IS  close!!! 3 Points!!!!He lost them on the last day when going home  the SW of Sunflower “was under complete shadow.” and he struggled.
Tony was 6th.

 

The winners.
Mike [Westwood]as the best and Danny [Sorenson] as number 3 and Tom [Holloran in LS 8[ as number 2 to the r.

and those special very nice trophies a bit “closer”.

Very special prizes
“Top three trophies are done thanks to KSA Treasurer Kirk Bittner. They turned out really nice with Railroad Spike Sailplanes spiraling around three stalks of wheat. ” They were awarded at the banquet.

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I was impressed by the words from Brian Spreckley, during the last FAI SGP Final,  where he spoke about a strategy of survival, …why we loose so many mates in gliding.
Keywords; maintain the margin,….stay on the safe side….TODAY IS NOT THE DAY.
On youtube.com you can find it.

CU next week and indeed have fun, great fun whilst gliding but stay on the safe side.
Next week more about the 9th 15m National Championship in Poland with 20 pilots. They started on June 13 and go till June 23 from Ostrow; OSTROW GLIDE 2019.
They had 2 average day’s  1 cancelled and 2 good day’s with a 4 hour AAT and 408 km.
Also news about the always interesting USA 18 m. and open class Nationals from Hobbs in New Mexico.

“Dry as a bone”
Shared by Soaring Society of America

After 2 practice days the 13 pilots in open and 30 in 18m. started yesterday with a win for good old Dick Butler in his CONCORDIA and Jae Walker in Ventus 3 just ahead of Jerzy in ASG 29.

Cheers Ritz

Uppsala Masters 2019.
6 June 2019 – 16 June 2019

No flying at Pentecost, but on Monday there were tasks again; day 3 with task 2 and very good looking weather.

open 3 hour AAT; Flown by 11 out of 14 pilots. And they did pretty well. Specially team Acketoft & Wendt in the  EB 29 DR, being more than 10 k. faster than the runner up Peter Cutting in ASG 29 E; 1000 and 848 points for 375 km in time 2.59 and 336 km. in time 3.09.

Racing 302 km; Swedish pilot David Gustavsson won the day with a speed of 90 km./h in the LS 8. Runner up Tapio Tourula from Finland was faster 93 km./h but he flew a Ventus 2 BX. [handicap 114]
12 From 18 finished and some of my Finnish mates had a “bad”  day. Visa- Mattiwas out after 45 km and Martti after 29k. , this time by violating the airspace.

Day 4 and task 3,.. only for open class and a small one 197 km. But in the end the day was scrubbed.

With the message!
“Tuesday canceled. 
Waiting for greek buffet with live music tonight at 7pm! (Not greek music, though...)”

Still a few day’s to go , so more in my next blog.

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Danish Nationals 2019 from ARNBORG.

   

As shared by Aarhus Svæveflyveklub

Know quite a few Danish pilots and then it is nice to look back at their comps between May 30 and June 9.
They had 5 classes and in each class a good number of pilots and 4 out of 11 days.
In standard class flew 13 pilots and the 4 days showed tasks from 209 km., 3.30 AAT and a 1000 points day , 372 set task and a 2 hour AAT , on which only 2 pilots finished.
Jan  Jørgensen [LS 8 neo] was one of the 2 and though it only gave him  338 points ,…. in the end he was the CHAMPION with 25 points more than the runner up Filip Bojanowski.[LS 8]

15 m had 9 pilots and 6 of them flew VENTUS. Tasks from 209, 3.30 AAT , set 360 km and a 2 hour AAT flown in this class by more than 2 pilots; 6.
Morten Bennick is the new CHAMPION, flying a VENTUS 2CT. Morten topped this overall score-list 3 day’s so very consistent. He won the 1000 points on the 3.30 AAT with 355 km. in time 3.45.

18 m. had 18 pilots from whom I met or know 4. AND,…one of  the pilots  I follow already for a long long time, won the 18m. class!!! Henrik Breidahl, he is and was an interesting pilot when he was very young and now. He  has a new JS 3 and he must be pleased with it as , as said,… he won.
A good mate Arne flew a JS 3 as well but he was some what unlucky.
On task 1 he and Peter Eriksen were 1 and 2 flying with a speed of 84 km./h over 257 km.
The next task was a 4 hour AAT won by Henrik with 467 km in time  4.58, so another pretty tough day. Stig Oye still going strong was 3d and flew 5 hours. Only 3 “in” and 11 “out”.
The next task was 408 km. and won by Chris Møller with Peter and Henrik following. Arne lost 500 points that day . 8 From 13 were out.
On the last day a 2 hour AAT with 8 finishers. Henrik won,Arne was out loosing another 300 points -plus.
Henrik had a total score of 2.912 points . Peter 2.760 as runner up . Stig was on spot 8 and Arne on 9.

This picture was shared by  Jonker Sailplanes with the text:
“Congratulations to Henrik Breidahl who wins the Danish 18m Nationals with his brand new JS3, “14”. In average to very weak and low weather conditions that called for changing gears constantly Henrik managed to be the only one who didn’t land out on any of the days. Henrik took delivery of his JS3 earlier this year never having flown a JS3 glider before. On his first flights Henrik expressed being pleasantly surprised with the JS3’s light and responsive handling and overall performance. Henrik is one of the danish top pilots who is often found in the top 10 at the Europeans and World Championships. Keep it up Henrik!”

Club class had 13 pilots among them Jan Andersen. I am used to see him in open class but now he flew an ASW 20 WL. AND,…He is the new CHAMPION, which I like, also a pilot I follow for a long, long time.
They had 4 tasks from 180 km., 3.30 AAT, set 311 km. and a 2 hour AAT on which he was 1 of the 3 finishers. The 3.30 AAT was won by Jan as well with 323 km. in time 3.35. On the first task he was runner up and on the set 311 km. he won again with a speed of 90 km./h.
He won club class [ 3.243 ]with more than 500 points on his runner up Morten Hoeck Pedersen.[2.712]

2 seater class had 10 teams and the winners were Hoelgaard/Andersen with 3.344 points. They flew an ARCUS and there were 6 of them in this class. T and M. Also 3 x a Duo Discus [T and XLT ]and a DG 1000 T.

I missed a few pilots mostly flying these comps, as Ib and Ole and his brother.

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42th  KIEWIT CUP in Belgium.

Is one of 3 comps flown from 3 airfields in Weelde [early in the season] Hasselt and Keiheuvel [ in August] .
The winner over 3 comps wins the Cup of Flanders.
Hasselt was host for 31 competitors in 3 classes last weekend.BUT,…the weather allowed only for one [out of 3] day of  valid flying on Sunday. They tried hard on Monday as well but the best pilots only reached 51 and 40 km.

Jeroen shared this picture from the weather on Monday.

In the open XPDR class  a 2 hour AAT was set and sharing-the -LS8-pilots from  Keiheuvel  Jeroen/Wim won the day  with Pieter Daems as runner up in Discus 2T. Jeroen flew on Sunday and covered 219 km. in time 2.07 and Pieter 191 km. in 2 hour at the dot!!!
In the Sport XPDR class  they had a 2 hour AAT and Frederic de Groote in St Libelle and Eddy de Coninck in Pegase were the best; 190 km in time 2.09 and 182 km. in time 2.10.

As far as I read the task setting for the one-day-of-flying was perfect.

In the weekend from August 24/25 I hope to be at the Keiheuvel for the next comps.

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A short blog today as for sure you noticed that I published one last Sunday , about the last day’s of the world final of the FAI SGP and the Dutch OMK.

To finish this great picture from some morning glory clouds rolling over Australia between Adelaide and Cairns.
Matthew from SkySight was interested to see how their forecast was for this area.
After he got some more info he mentioned ;” Found it – within 500m of when and where forecast.”
Matthew and Adam are both young guy’s I met when they were even younger. Great to see how their lives have been influenced by soaring at young age. Adam is an airline pilot now and flies from Japan, Matthew has his own SkySight- business.

Picture courtesy Rosy Helbig from an airliner on June 10 and shared in
Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

 

And,….when we are talking about weather this is a good clear picture as well

shared by many but courtesy  commons.wikimedia.org

Cheers Ritz

 

9th WORLD FINAL from FAI SGP from La Cerdanya.

As shared by the organizers.

After a rest day and 3 good race-day’s the show had to go on.?????
Race 4 was “marked” by many different penalty points from 8 to 266 seconds. Sebastian had none , was the fastest and won the day.
For the first time the  initial turn point after the start was direction West instead of East. It was all about Tilo and Sebastian, Tilo who pushed and pushed and Sebastian always higher than Tilo, who is quite experienced in this area.
From the organizers:”As the leaders came onto the control point, Sebastian kept his 100 to 200m attitude advantage, making it almost possible for Tilo to catch him as Sebastian used his energy advantage to pull further ahead.

As they reached the finish line, both pilots were only just above the minimum required altitude of 1,300m. They had to slow right down and squeeze over the line to avoid incurring any penalty points.”

With Tilo,[2]  Sebastian [1]  and Gintas.[3]

Race 5  was according to the organizers a challenging one ” Definitely windy and cold today with not such high ceiling currently, so we can notice a bit of tension among the pilots as it will be certainly bumpy in the cockpits and any mistake can make huge difference in the air as sink air areas could be powerful, as lifting air areas.”
In the end the day was a prey again for Tilo, it’s nearly the Tilo/Sebastian show. With 126.5 km./h. Tilo was the fastest with Sebastian close with 124.1 km./h.

With Tilo, Sebastian and Didier
as shared by the organizers.

Race 6 and the very last one!!!!
Who is going to win this final? Who keeps the nerves and jitters?
Looking at the scores till now it’s Tilo with 41, Sebastian with 33 and Didier with 23. The rest has NO chance. Sorry. 11 Points is the best you can get on the last day!!!
261 km. to go and Tilo was in the end, with 4  others, among them Gilles Navas, in the lead so a great position to win this 9th world final ,as they had the height and speed to come home.
Gilles came in  first as Tilo more or less stayed with Sebastian,as for him winning the race was unimportant, he wanted to win the world final and as Brian commented maybe showing how good his Ventus 3 is.
And ,…WHY NOT!? A total of 4 fly in this world final.
Sebastian reacted ;”Uuuhhhh. What a race. After tight finish second on the line. The winner today is AX Giles Navas. The rest was far behind. Congratulations Giles. Congratulation Tilo for the gold medal.”
It was waiting for penalties first  AND ouch Sebastian got a few….300 sec., for “Use of unauthorized radio frequency”  and then the scores were definite.
Gilles wins the day and get’s 11 points!![124.6 km./h]  Tilo was runner up with 8 [124.05 km./h] and Max Seis in JS 3 got 7 points.[123.9 km./h.]

GOLD MEDAL from 9th FAI SGP WORLD FINAL;
1. Tilo Holighaus in Ventus 3 T with 49 points, gold medal and WORLD CHAMPION.
2. Sebastian Kawa in JS 3 with 35 points and I read this his 31st medal!!!!!
3. Louis Bouderlique in JS 3 with 28 points.
All 3 TOPPERS!!!

THE GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE MEDALISTS.
As shared by the organizers.

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OMK at Terlet in Holland.

Courtesy Rens van Broekhuizen.

Such a pity. They tried hard!!! They were fully organized but,….as we know ,if the weather does n’t co-operate you can ‘t fly. From 5 day’s they flew 1 and it was a very short task as well, but they had a day!!!
combi class; 140 km. and 3 finished from 9. Enough km’s so a valid day with 378 points for winner Tim Kuijpers in ASW 20 , with this flight also the winner of the Open Military Championship.
The other 2 finishers Daan and Sylvain were automatically 2 and 3 with 368 and 322 points.

Finish Tim Kuijpers.
Courtesy Willemijn de Lange , as I told you already earlier she makes brilliant pictures.

2-seaters with 141 km. and a bit of a weird day for them. Most started at 4.30 PM. One team ,our friends Bas and Reitze choose to start at 5.30 PM. In the end they made the correct choice. They won the day and the comps with 180 points [62.69 km./h in Duo Discus XL] ] together with team Robert Jungblut, they started however at 4.52. [61.60 km./h] in Duo Discus T.
4 From 19 teams finished.

Finish Bas and Reitze
Courtesy Willemijn.

open class with 150 km.; in this class 10 from 14 finished. Best speed by Rick Boerma in Ventus 3 with 99.87 km./h. for 395 points. Rick was the winner of the comps with Menno Sappe [EB 28] and Bas Seijffert [Nimbus 4DT] as runner up and number 3.

Finish Rick Boerma in the “gorgeous” Ventus 3 T.
Courtesy Willemijn.

Club class with 104 km; Former owner from the Termiekbel and member of the successful club of Friesland , Sander Terpstra, won the day and the comps in LS 4. 2 More LS 4 ‘s followed;with Simon and Tudor. 8 From 17 finished.

Fish Sander.
Courtesy Willemijn.

A tough competition but I am sure they had fun. Maybe not when the severe storms with thunder and lightning and gusting winds up to 110 km.h. passed by.
The damage bill after 2 such storms this last week only here in Holland,  is tens of millions!!!

Caroline Douwes Termaat shared this picture and I totally agree with her words.
“Terlet, probably the most beautiful gliding place in the world ❤️”.

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Uppsala Masters in Sweden
6 June 2019 – 16 June 2019

46 Competitors in 2 classes and after 2 practice days the race to be the Uppsala Master started with a
2.30 AAT for open; First for the day was Jim Acketoft in an EB 29 DR., with 268 km. in time 2.30 and a speed of 106 km. /h. The only one over the 100 km./h mark.
Antti was runner up [ Ventus 2cxaFES] and Boerje 3d.[Ventus 3T.]
10 From 15 finished.

2 hours in racing; Finnish pilot Aku Jaakkola in a Discus 2A flew 232 km. in time 2.28. Ronny Lindell was in a Discus 2T a tad slower.
14 From 17 finished.

More next Wednesday.
To avoid TOO long blogs and to remain actual this extra Sunday-blog!

Cheers Ritz

 

 

We had last Sunday absolutely fabulous weather, the hottest EVER 2d of June. It was not only a tropical day, the first of this season with 30.1 dgr. at the official point and up to  33 elsewhere, but it also looked like a great soaring day with very high clouds. Bit windy though, but no…… not the long flights here, I expected.
In between the pilots from the Nationals left and the pilots for the Open Military Championship arrived at Terlet. The opening was on Sunday evening by General Major Theo Ten Haaf  and  61 competitors in 4 classes with their crew and some other guests listened to the opening briefing.

 

54 th OMK.
June 3-7.

Open Militaire Kampioenschappen Zweefvliegen

With adjutant Theo Janssen again as CD the comps unfortunately started with a scrubbed day  1, due to the weather.
Day 2 had tasks just under 200 for club and the other 3 classes just over, but how hard they tried it did n’t work out. Whilst the “clubbies “were up  they had to cancel all classes, as it did n’t look good. The club pilots who were airborne landed again.

Happy to go for the first flying day. But it was difficult to stay up as people at the ground could see.

    

and then they returned.

  

Open Militaire Kampioenschappen Zweefvliegen

For parts of Holland code yellow was out as warning for heavy thunderstorms, gusty wind up to 100 km./h.  and rain even hail. For this part of the country even code orange.That bad weather arrived here at 10 PM and it was wild!!!! Rain passed by horizontal with lot’s of leaves as due to drought trees drop their leaves as if it is autumn instead of spring/summer.
Huge damage bill again, but as far as I know no injured people.Lot’s of houses ,car’s and specially trees got the full load.

Day 3; the storm reached Terlet as well. Also a heavy one!!! No tasks yet and it does n’t look there will be, but there is always hope.

 

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9th WORLD FINAL of FAI SGP in La Cerdanya.

After a good practice day the pilots were ready to go for it. When I was in a car in Uvalde going together with Ralf and Tilo Holighaus to a nice party Tilo told us he loved GRAND PRIX Soaring.
It showed on day 1 , as he was the winner of the day and got himself 10 points.
Of course he flew their ” masterpiece”  the VENTUS 3T with a speed of 137.3 km./h..
Gintas Zube was runner up.
2 did not start [Gilles Navas and Jon Gatfield ] and 2 did not finish one of them Sebastian Kawa in a JS3. The other one Evgeny Zlobin from Russia flying a JS 1B. Both were close about 30 km.

FAI Sailplane Grand Prix

Race 2 had a late start. Brian the CD mentioned ” “if sun is shining we will try to make a race“. They had rain over night and the ground was very wet and in the morning there were a lot of upper clouds. The sky however looked beautiful in the afternoon and off they went into a challenging day.
They had enough sunny spots and a race was on. 188 km. was set and after an off-day Sebastian won the day so 10 points for him, after he went far N. and got a climb Didier missed and he was high enough to race ” home ” with lot’s of energy on final glide .
Didier from France had 8 , he reached 3200 m far N. and was way ahead in the beginning but in the end Sebastian “got him”!!
Polish pilot  Łukasz Wójcik had 7 points.

FAI Sailplane Grand Prix

Race 3 was 244 km. long and won by …..Tilo!!! Good on him. Runner up was Louis from France and Pete Temple from Australia was 3d.
“It seems to be a nice day here, only few high clouds in the sky, so it will not be the “best day ever” but still, after yesterday’s 188km race, everybody now understand more km does not mean more exciting race. Pilots are preparing their sailplanes to be ready on runway 25 and we expect to make first take off around 1:00pm local time (11:00am GMT]”

 

    

As shared by the organizers.

Day 4; official news
“Perfect timing! After 3 great races we have a day canceled due to expected strong thunderstoms on the race area. Pilots need also to rest as we are just in the mid-time of the championship with still some tricky weather with showers expected for the next day. If you missed the first races, glide direct to http://sgp.aero/…/9th-finals-sgp-la-cerdanya-video-playlist…and enjoy this resting day!”

So after 3 races Tilo leads with 23 points, followed by Didier with 16 and and Sebastian with 15 points.

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German pilot Lisa Scheller flew already 1000 km. flights from Bitterwasser in EB 28 and 29 , last December and January, NOW she flew her first European one in an LS 8 from Ohlstadt-Pömetsried last Monday. Just in time home before the thunderstorms.
Good on her.

 

More next week.
Short blog but you surely found out that I published one last Sunday. If not,…just continue reading. Enjoy.

 

Cheers Ritz

Dutch Nationals, to be precise the KLM Flight Academy National Championship soaring 2019.

When I left you on Wednesday morning at 10,  tasks were not yet set, but looking from my window it should be a pretty good day.
It was and what a day!!!
It’s not often that we fly over 500 km. at a national competition , though, through the 50 years,  I have been at a few comps, where they did.
And one, but that was an EGC in Rayskala , with on the first day a 1000 km, flown by many!!
You never forget those moments. So,….

Wednesday…Day 7 task 5; with blue skies and nice high white fluffy clouds!!!

Ready to go for a nice long day! Looking gooood!!!!!
Courtesy Martijn Alders.

open…541.65 km;AND,…. yes they did it,…Ronald [Termaat] was the best and with 120 km./h., he “got” the 1000 points. Runner up Rien Bastiaanse in the ASH 30 MI  and Joris Felsbourg in the same glider was 3d. All 7 pilots who started flew the 541 km!!! Good on them.

18 m…527.94 km; 13 from 15 finished in this class. Hans Biesters won the day ;1000 points. Ronald Kaay was runner up and Steven Raimond was 3d, all flew ASG 29.

combi…450.12 km; Great result for young Lizzy winning the day in the LS 8, her very first 1000 points!!!!  She started and finished together with Stephan Grunder who got 999 points. The other lady in this competition Annemiek was out after 439 km. and the 2 young “hotshots” from the Gelderse, both sons from top-national pilots,[Rien Bastiaanse and Tjeerd Reitsma]  in the Duo XL were out after 422 km. Such a pity and so “expensive”,  loosing 600 points and still so close at the goal.

club…351.97 km; “Smitje” Robin in his RS the St. Cirrus, won the day 1000 points for him. 14 Started 2 were out. Thies was 8th, lost 120 points but still leads with 300 points.

Robin as winner of the day seen by Arjan Vrieze. Another great picture!!

In the evening they had a BBQ and I guess only smiling faces!
That same day pilots declared 1000 km. Alfred Paul tried one from Terlet but had to start his engine at 8 still 958 km. [ASG 29E/18m] And from Veendam the ASH 25E flew 928 km.
As said a TOP day!!

Thursday day 8 NO task . The day was cancelled in the morning ,but we decided to travel to Terlet anyhow, to see our daughter Inge and her family, as granddaughter Indya was supposed to have DBO lessons. The weather was supposed to clear at noon, but only when we drove home at 5,  it was perfect weather for lessons , too late.
Interesting day anyhow ,as I saw the new LS 4 from our Dutch junior team. One of the St. Cirrus gliders has been sold and the LS 4 replaced it.

Friday day 9 task 6; And yes they flew again. It looked great in the morning but the afternoon showed over-development and pilots had to struggle to come home.
open..266 km; another daily win for Ronald in his JS 1C. His speed from 99 km./h showed that it was not easy. On the long-good- day, the day before it was 120 km./h. His direct opponent Mark was out after 230 km. but he is still runner up,…though with around 500 points less.
5 From 7 finished

18 m. class 245 km; It’s all about Steven and Sikko, both very experienced and both have been in my teams so I know them a bit. And,..both are top guy’s!!! The difference was ONE point. Sikko started and just behind Steven left and both arrived at the same time.
I am very proud on the performance of Rens [van Broekhuizen] who was in my Junior team in Husbos in 2005. He was 3d and flies now a Ventus 2CT. Overall he is 5th!!!!
Only 5 from 14 finished!!

Combi class 231 km; Great to see Erik [Borgmann, who was in my team in  Borlange at the WGC and finished as runner up!!] and his mate Joost [ Also a mate of my son Dennis] flying the ARCUS T to a daily win!!
8 From 14 finished!

Club class 211 km; and Frankie [Hiemstra] won again. Bad day for the till now -every-day-overall -winner Thies ,who outlanded after 189 km. loosing around 400 points, but he was 300 ahead.
11 From 16 finished.

So with 1 day to go  the championship “looks” to go between Ronald and Mark in open, Steven and Sikko in 18 m.
3 possibilities in the combi class where  scores are pretty close; Jeroen Verkuijl, Nick Hanenburg and Joost / Erik.
In club also 3 possibilities; Thies who had such a big lead is now only 13 points ahead of Roelof Corporaal in Pegase 101A and around 60 on Patrick van Breemen Schneider.
Everything can happen!!

Saturday day 10 task 7 , WOW,  that’s pretty good for a Dutch National Competition. 7 Good flying day’s.
They were allowed to find out their own way on this last day, a hot one up to 28 dgr. C. Tomorrow 33!!!
We left via Malden for Terlet again and were part of the launches and finishes, both in many way’s spectacular.
The weather did not develop as expected ,….
open;  3 hour AAT..later 2.15. with late starts around 3 PM.  All pilots finished ,Rien in the ASH 30 MI as the first one in this class,  in front of a full terrace, with oh’s and ah’s because of the spectacular character of some finishes. Ronald was runner up and Mark last in this class so a bigger difference between the 2 in the overall scores.
Straight after the flight Ronald posed in front of the Thermiekbel surrounded by his daughter Anouk and my granddaughter Indya. It will be our Dennis 50thiest birthday on July 3 so a picture from one of his friends with the new generation felt appropriate to me.

  

Indya, Ronald the new open class CHAMPION and Anouk.

18m. 3 hour AAT; changed in 2.15; Victor Wetzinga in the ASG 29E was the daily prize winner. Sikko was 3d , Hadriaan 3d and Steven 4th .This was in a different order the final score between these pilots.Nothing changed.

combi class 3 hour AAT; changed in 2 hour; Stefan Grunder was the daily winner with 208 km. in time 2.04. Jeroen was runner up with Lizzy as 3d.

Club class 3.30 AAT;changed in 2.15. the “little ones” started and had a nice day in front of them. Interesting as well as differences were small in this class!!!Thies who won 3 days and was 1 overall after task 6 lost grip on his soaring with and outlanding on the one but last day and a last daily spot on the final day. The story is that when his wife had to go home to work again things changed for him. I don’t know if that’s true, but somewhere it went wrong as a for me unknown young man with an open smile won the Dutch title; Roelof Corporaal. Member of the FAC the club from Friesland in the N of Holland.
The joy was immense for him and his club members.

A very happy Roelof

   

Pouring beers for his mates from the FAC and a brand-new pop-up-design after his win on a white t shirt by Sander Terpsta.

So here are the final scores from this well organized [CD Ton did a great job , but admitted that great weather had nothing to do with him] ;
Open class;
1. Ronald Termaat in JS 1C with 6.268 points a real CHAMPION.
2. Mark Wering in JS 1C 5.528 p.
3. Rien Bastiaanse in ASH 31MI with 5.268.
Pretty big differences!!

18 m. class;
1. Steven Raimond in ASG 29 ES with 6.131 points and Dutch National Champion.
2. Sikko Vermeer in ASG 26 ES with a few points less 6.036 p.
3. Hadriaan van Nes in JS 1Btj with 5.639.

Combi class;
1. Jeroen Verkuijl in LS 8 with 5.789 points.
2. Nick Hanenburg in Discus 2A with 5.572 p.
3. Erik Borgmann and Joost Wolff in the ARCUS T. with 5.533.

Club class;
1. Roelof Corporaal in Pegase 101A with 5.718 points and for the first time DUTCH NATIONAL CHAMPION.
2. Thies Bruins in ASW 20 20WL with 5.535 p,.
3. Patrick van Breemen Schneider in DG 300 WL with 5.532.
So after being ahead with over 300 points Thies just[3 points],  finished as number 2. I felt sorry for him, but Roelof flew very well and was mostly runner up anyhow on the 6 day’s Thies leaded.

Not the last day for tuggies Daan and  Bertje, [Sjoerd has to leave on Monday] . As always they did a great job!!! But on Monday so tomorrow starts the OMK the Open Military Championship, so more towing bur also the winch will be active.

courtesy Willemijn de Lange

and a last picture from Arjan

No words needed.

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2019 HAHNWEIDE.

Started the day on Wednesday with the message;
“While the weather doesn’t look very nice currently, our meteorologist Jupp is a bit more optimistic. However, the weather window will probably not be large enough for all 5 classes and the airfield is a bit wet… The Pilots of 2-seater and open class are allowed to rest a bit more. :-)”
First starts after 12 and day 3 from 5 in 18m. 15 m. and standard class was about to begin.
18 m…241.26 km;15 m…211.40 km;club…196.59 km;
BUT,……..They waited patiently and some showed on pictures how wet it was!!! This one is from Matthew with the message :“Hailing on the grid. 3.20pm. 200k task. Yawn.”

In the end the day was cancelled.

 

Thursday they got the weather we had here on Wednesday, hence nice long tasks at the Hahnweide.
Day 6 flying task 3;
18m. class 428.35 km; with Andy Davis flying around with 128.56 km./h. the day meant for all except for one,…coming home, though some a bit too low.999 points for Andy. On the other hand some started too high as well.
Mario Kiessling was runner up and got 7 points less. Boerje Eriksson had 982 p.. So an interesting day.
Andy flew the JS 1c and behind him were 6 Ventus 3 T’s.

15 m. 356.61 km.; and 1000 points for Ulf Ringertz from Sweden in his Ventus 2CX. All 14 finished and  UK pilot Timothy Scott was runner up.
Stefanie who won the day earlier had a difficult start :” She had to land again because of a technical problem on the glider. In the end, she crossed the start line at 2:15 p.m., about 1:45 h after the Sweden Ulf Ringertz. At this time Ulf was already on his way to the 2th turning point”

2-seaters 434.84 km.;the Germans did well with Martin Theisinger winning before Holger and Sebastian all in ARCUS M.

Open class 489.22 km. ; with a speed of 123 km./h. Felipe  Levin [EB 29R] won the day with French pilot Christophe Delort as runner up in ASH 25MI. Then again Germany with Uli Schwenk [ETA]  and France with Sylvain Gerbaud.[JS 1C/21 m.]2 From 15 were out .

St. class 336.86 km ; and AGAIN it was Matthew Scutter from Australia. He must”read” his ‘”OWN” meteo very well and takes according the correct decisions. As you know he is the founder of SkySight.
All 19 finished with speed between 94.88 km./h and 128.98 km.h. for Matthew.

Day 7 flying day 4 in all classes;
265 km. in 18m.; with Mario as winner . Speed 120 km./h. 5 Ventus 3 T gliders in the top 5!!

2 hour AAT in 15 m; and David Bauder flew 218 km. in time 2.04 with which he won the day.

2 hour AAT for the 2-seaters; the TOP 7 was all ARCUS M. Norbert Sommer won with 230 km in time 2.05.

268 km. in open class; and a NIMBUS 4T won the day with in it Max Kollmar.

2 hour AAT in St. class; 223 k. was flown by 2 German pilots Christoph Kahler and Michael Wisbacher in Discus 2B and LS 8 NEO. Matthew was 4th and not amused with the “leeches” as he called his at least 6 followers. Trying to get rid of them influenced his own soaring.

Day 8 and last day!!! AND they flew!!! AND,..it was a great day!!!
18 m..4.30 AAT; and it was Mario again who won the day with 562 km. and a speed of 124.06 km./h!!! 27 started and one was out. Boerje was runner up.

15 m. 412.89 km.and Swiss pilot Uli Messmer won the daily prize with a speed of 110.42 km./h Runner up was Steffen Schwarzer and David was 3d.All 14 finished.

2-seaters had a 4 hour AAT; It’s all between Norbert and Martin and Martin won the last day.16 started and finished.6 did not fly.

open 4 hour AAT; another JIM-DAY!!!!534 km with a speed of 128.17 km./h !! Sylvain and Felipe followed. 15 started and finished.

st. class with 402 km. and the combination weather {SkySight] and Matthew is a winning combination no wonder so many tried to hook on his tail. 1.11km./h was the winning time. Followed by 2 German and 4 UK pilots.
Matthew wrote;
“ A nice week of flying in Hahnweide with only a couple of major errors and rewarded with a good result (4,226 out of a possible 4,246 points). Daily convergence influences gave me an advantage with studious use of SkySight, and the strong streeting conditions with light winds gave me a good advantage in the Discus 2, even though we were limited to 50kg/sqm.

It was nice to do some training here as well with the British Junior Team (for which I am the team captain in Hungary this year) and after a weeks flying together I am sure they will be strong contenders. Thanks to Sophie for crewing, and Hahnweide for running a great competition as always.

2 -seaters;
1. Team Norbert Sommer in ARCUS M with 4.275 points.
2. Team Martin Theisinger in ARCUS M with 4.164 p.
3. Team Sebastian Beule in ARCUS M with 4.132.
Also in this class small margins.

open class;
1. Felipe Levin in EB 29R with 4.166 points.
2. Uli Schwenk with Aussie Keith  is their vintage ETA with 3.934 p.
3. Synvain Gerbaud [France] in JS 1C /21 m. with 3.901.

Standard class;
1. Matthew Scutter [Australia] in Discus 2AX with 4.226 points!!!!
2. Franz Poch in Discus 2T with 3.733 p.
3. Peter Carter {UK} in LS 8 with 3.522 p.

 

Another Hahnweide competition is over looking ahead already at next year.
All pictures courtesy HAHNWEIDE ORGANISATION.

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UK Club class Nationals.

Cold and wet at Aston Down on day 2 with a new briefing at the grid.
courtesy  Cotswold Competitions 2019

With 32 participants younger and older, they started last Saturday with task 1 and only ONE pilot , Steve Barter, managed to finish the 249 km. task with a speed of 79 km./h. in a Discus CS.
“Heroes” as Ge Dale , Tim Milner, Ayala Truelove and Tom Arscott were out early, some nearly reached the goal. One of them Alison Mulder, who learned to fly gliders with us in Tocumwal, years ago. Great to see she flies in an LS 4 now and only missed out on 3 km. that first day.

No task on the Sunday.

Task 2 ..187 km. on Monday was a prey for Tim Milner, yes also he flew with us in Toc, as tuggie even for 2 seasons.
Tom Arscott was runner up and G Dale was 3d. Only 8 finished and Steve was 13th.

Task 3 ..128 km; weird short day with nice speed as daily winner Jake Brattle won in his ASW 20 with 121.59 km./h. Nearly all finished. Jake is one of the juniors who will fly in Hungary at the JWGC  at Szeged from the 28th July 2019 to 10th August 2019. Finn Sleigh another junior was runner up.[121.03 km./h]
” Behind the showers, the weather was very nice with the task (128km) being done in just 1 hour, 1 minute and 30 seconds by the fastest pilot.”

courtesy BGA.

The organizers ;”A notable mention to Rich Hood who completed the task at 117.35kph without turning more than 90 degrees other than to round Hereford Cathedral and Tetbury. Good efforts all round.” He was 4th in an ASW 20ax.

Wednesday was cancelled.
Thursday‘s message was ;”Competition Day 6 has been scrubbed because of the weather again. The cloudbase isn’t high enough to launch the grid and there’s quite a brisk wind. At least it’s nice and warm and there’s some blue sky and sun around. There’s no planned entertainment for this evening so please enjoy the peace.”
Friday was cancelled as well. “All tasks are cancelled for today so the day is scrubbed. The cloudbase never reached more than 1,800′ above site and thermals were weak if any.”

This morning on the very last day the message was ;
“Good morning! Please do not grid. We have a briefing and prize-giving at 12:00 so it would be appreciated if as many people attended as possible.”

With 4 out of 9 day’s the weather gods were not kind to this comps.
Yesterday a small task was set from 190 km and enough flew the task to make it a valid day though nobody finished. Tim Milner won and was only 10k out.; 645 points for him which was just NOT enough to make him the champion as Tim Fletcher had only 20 less.

So the NATIONAL CLUB CLASS CHAMPION IS;
1. Tim Fletcher in St Libelle with 2.250 points.
2. Tim Milner in Ls 3 with 2.229 p.
3. John Roberts in ASW 19b with 2.048 p.

As shared by Cotswold Competitions 2019
Many more pictures to be seen there.

 

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The WORLD FINAL of the  GRAND PRIX in LA CERDANYA [June 1-8] started yesterday with an official training day ….Flying in the Pyrenees………….they  worked hard there in the days before to set it all up.;
www.sgp.aero/finals2019

The 200 km-training day was won by Louis Bouderlique in JS 3 before Thomas Gostner in Ventus 3T.
On the first day, today, a task was set from 258 km.
There are 19 top pilots from all over the world.

More next Wednesday.

By the way this was BLOG NUMBER 1.111. Interesting number!
June 1 is Ingo’s birthday. Happy birthday Ingo!!!
His club shared the next message:”
Happy Birthday to the gentleman of our skies! With over 37000 hrs in gliders, you have and continue too inspire glider pilots from all over the world.
A true legend and great ambassador of our sport.
Happy Birthday Ingo

Tocumwal Soaring Centre

Cheers Ritz