A-day-by-day retrospect on day 1 , 2 and 3 from the  Leszno WGC and other activities this week till today.

SUNDAY JULY 27 2014;
The first day of this wonderful big event organized under the FAI-flag by the Polish gliding community at Leszno, straight  away set the standard for great racing over the next 2 weeks.
Though they had ” only”  2.30 AAT’s in 15 and 18 m and 2.45 in open class , cause of expected showers , the pilots raced over the track as future champions.
The window was chosen VERY well, there was some rain over the Leszno field, for the crews and TC’s,  but the pilots on track had so to see, no problems .

In 15 m. the UK pilots were still in their ” flow”  and Leigh won the day with Phil just behind him.
From 46 pilots they had the best speed combined with the flown kilometers; 335.5 and 333.7 m. in 2.33.
Speed from 131 and 130 km. /h.
Points between 824 and 481 for the first and last pilot of the day.

In 18 m. the UK pilots had a less good day than during practice. They, one way or another “lost”  each other and  finished as 18th and 26 from 46.
ALL pilots in this class finished!!!!
A mixed top in this class lead by Polish pilot Karol Staryzak who won with 352.1 km in time 2.32 [138.8 km./h]
John Coutts from NZ was runner up and finished exactly in 2.30 but flew 10 km. less with Roman Mracek on spot 3.
BUT,..Roman in the end got only 72 km for an airspace violation at Poznan, where I arrive on Friday evening.
Points between 815 for the winner and 58 for number 46, Roman.
What a horrible start for such a good pilot. But they know the rules and the consequences.

In open class Ronald [Termaat]  from Holland flew himself with big speed , 139.5 km./h over 389.5 km. in time 2.47,35 and won the day. Followed by the French Killian and Laurent and Laurens from SA,  behind them.
In the top 10 ,5 x a JS 1-C and 3x a Quintus M , a Nimbus 4M and ASH 31Mi.
Points between 917 and 389.

As shared by the organizers.

What happened more on Sunday July 27:

—–Several over 800 km. flights from Fuente and a few 1000 k flights one by  Guy who  flew his 8th 1000 for the Fuente-season  in the Quintus M.
The first 17 flights on the OLC were all for Fuente pilots.
—–In Stoelln/Rhinow the German women started their Nationals with a practice day.The field they are flying from is the oldest airfield in the world. Otto Lilienthal jumped of the hill there.

MONDAY JULY 28 2014:

Tasks; 15 m….3.15 AAT, 18 m…….3 hour AAT and open class…..3.15 AAT.

 Tow planes ready to go for day 2!
As shared by the SA team.

During briefing the winners were honored with their daily prizes and they seem all happy/pleased with it.

Leigh, Ronald and Karol
As shared by the organizers.

Day 2 turned out to be a difficult day…..  they talked about the heat, the showers , but also 2/3 m. average climbs and the tension” what will this day bring”? Some thought that the day would turn out better than predicted , so they left later.
In the end they had severe rain and a thunderstorm just after and for some during the finish.

Here is Matthew’s story, he says it all!!!;
” Disastrous second day...

Some mis-communication lead me to break from the pack around the middle of the task, and I had a low and slow point, but recovered quite nicely, expecting to be 20 minutes overtime with a lot of extra distance. Unfortunately the 20 minutes made all the difference, with a big storm directly overhead the airfield when I returned. Aussie base reported all clear on the other side of the rain with 20k to run and 2000ft over glide, so I switched to the CTAF and headed in, still without sight of the field. In the meantime the heavens opened up and the rain thickened and intensified completely covering the finish. I got to 800m of the 3k finish ring before bailing out because of zero visibility in the torrential rain, off the clock sink and uncontrollable turbulence. I turned around, still 1200ft over glide and tried to head a bit further north to come in from a different angle, but was dumped even harder and did another 180, clearing the heavy sink at 1000ft to fly as far as I could from the storm and turbulence before dropping it into a wheat field. Unfortunately lost an undercarriage door and a lot of pride to the crop (everywhere still has the crops in), but Mirek was kind enough to do the replacement before tomorrow’s flying.

The results were as the day…..changeable. A lot of expected TOPPERS are not yet flying at their standard, others are ” bloody good”. As those 2 Polish pilots but let’s look at it class by class.

15 m; Sebastian started at 14.15 which is looking at the times rather late. Together with him his mate Jacek went on track and Mac was with them, as well as the 2 French Jean Denis and Christophe and a few more.
They all must have stayed more or less together , as they landed about the same times, BUT in between  Sebastian flew the most kilometers; 442.9 in 3.20 so a speed of 132.5 km./h. in his Polish Diana over Polish soil. Could that go wrong???????
Sebastian in the Diana 2 had the first 1000 points for this comps. Mac had 940 and Jacek 875.
6 Outlandings, 3 real and 3 virtual by infringements.

Overall Sebastian leads with less than 100 points on Mac and about 120 on Leigh.

18 m; A great day for the Polish pilots with both Karol and Lucasz gaining the 1000 points in this class, flying 420 km. in 3.01 so a nice speed of 139.2 km./h!!!!
All pilots counted for…. so no outlandings no penalty points and no infringements.

Overall Karol is ,of course , on top of the list , winning 2 days, followed by Lucasz and Peter [Hartmann] from Austria.

Open class;a real FRENCH day as all 3 French pilots including the current world champion Laurent, flew in as the best.
485 km. for the 3 of them with a speed of  139 km./h. Laurent won in the Quintus M ,followed by Killian in the JS 1-c and Sylvain in the Quintus M.
Laurens was best of the rest followed by the 2 UK pilots Pete and Andy.
Good old Uli did well on 7 and good old Dick in the CONCORDIA was on spot 8.

Overall Killian leads after 2 days before Laurent with Laurens as great 3d. Ronald unfortunately dropped from 1 to 9 and equals that place with the , Broquevilles.
BUT IT IS NOT OVER YET, it just started!!!!!
3 Out landings, 2 real , one by infringement and 1 pilot got ZERO points as he missed the start line.

What happened more on Monday;

—–Got some lovely pictures from Anthonies mum Faye. Anthony aka, Fal, aka Tugger, is a dad now. He was one of our tuggies in the past in the Sportavia-time,  flying as as an airline pilot in Australia from Sidney now.
—–Very wet in Europe today. Guess Germany and Holland got the full load with extreme down pours up to over 150 ml. at places . The 150 ml. was here in Alphen and yes it was really wet here.
Amsterdam was like little Venice at some places.
Flooding-damage-bill ONLY in Holland and only for the houses; 10 million Euro!
—–still troubles to go to the disaster area, to find the last bodies from flight MH 17. It’s a shame they continue fighting there so nobody can do any kind of investigation.
—–it rained at the German Women Nationals.

TUESDAY JULY 29 2014;

Starting again with the winners from the day before.

As shared by the organizers.Like the way they do this!!!!

Tasks for this Tuesday; 2.15 AAT for 15 m. and for both 18 m. and open a 2.00 AAT.
So another so-so-day, a look-alike from the day before with showers in the afternoon. Tricky but interesting …..an other day on which points can be very expensive, as there is no excuse for mistakes.
A misty morning with early low cloud which is slowly burning off. They expected again a tropical airmass with the convergence line to the north. Also Cirrus again…. expected coming from the south. Pressure had dropped and there was a chance of storms when the temperature reached 30 deg.C.
Gliders are put in the grid early again , as it is a bit cooler then.

On days like this with a short task and unpredictable  weather,  the start time/game is important and you should get as pilot ALL weather info , and on top of that you should look as  pilot EXTRA with your own eyes how this weather develops.

The first hour the clouds developed perfect and happy pilots send messages from good lift ; 2/3 m. average. In open class one of the trackers was given to Dick, so everybody could follow the CONCORDIA.
In the end,no thunderstorm in  the- end- of -day , so only 3 out-landings in total and one violation.

15 m.; The French had another good day and finished nearly at the dot with 247 km. Mac is still in winning mood and was 3d.Good to see Stefano more in the top now.
Points between 195 for the out-lander Olivier from Belgium and 708 for Christophe the daily winner.
Overall scores after 3 days; Sebastian [2429] , Mac [2389] and Leigh [2365].

18 m.; Tom Claffey flew 257 km in 2.11 [speed 117.7 km/h.] and won the day  [673 points]! Karol had 10 points less and Robert [Schroeder] from Germany was only ONE point behind Karol. 2 Out-landings in this class and overall it looks after 3 days like this;
Karol [2478] Lucasz [2430] and Peter [ 2371] The UK pilots Mike and Russell are following and then on 6 young Aku from Finland. Good on him!!!

Tom Claffey as shared by the Aussies.

And HIS story.
Mixed 18M day. The forecast was for a fairly late start with strong risk of storms. Only a two hour AAT was set for 18M, 2.15hr for 15M. Once launched we went along the first leg looking at conditions, very weak and improving slowly. It seemed from the sky that the storms may not happen so we played the start game, wanting to fly with company. Anyway, our gaggle finally left 1hr-18mins after the gate opened! Good first leg with the Germans and others, then when they started a large deviation to fly around a big blue hole I went straight, risky move and Ben [Loxton] did the conservative thing and went with the group. As it happens it worked for me and I spent the next half of the flight largely alone. Ben had dropped back a bit but we were opposite direction not long after I left the last sector. I was in a great climb when a large gaggle passed by above and below me without stopping, I must have been in a bubble. I was able to almost get to the front of the gaggle with a good final glide while Ben got stuck with the weakening conditions behind. Great confidence boost to get a day win but I really would like a 1000 points some day. (In Uvalde the two days were penalized then devalued.) – Tom

open class; Andy Davis won the day with 264 km in 2.15 gaining the most points ; 703. Killian missed out on only 3 points on him and Laurent, Laurens and Uli  followed.
Killian still on top overall with 2602 points, followed by Laurent 2577 and Laurens 2528. Dick was only on spot 30, so having a tracker did n’t do the CONCORDIA much good.
The very long wings need more long distances. Hope they will come.
The first EB 29’s from Uli and Michael [Sommer] are overall on spot 7 and 8. The first 6 places are for the JS 1-C’s  and the Quintus M’s.

The CONCORDIA with Dick.
Courtesy Studio LTV Jacek Lewinsky, what a great picture!!!!

What happened more on Tuesday?

—-really bad and wet weather in the Alps. Still pretty good in Scandinavia and nearly a miracle that they have tasks in Poland. They are about the only ones where the weather is reasonable , in the middle of Europe.
—- the morning  briefing at 10.15 was in the presence of  Susanne [Schoedel] the FAI Secretary General who visits Poland for a few days.She participated first in the Red Bull Air Races , visited the World Gliding Aerobatic Championships and was then in Leszno, to also say hello to the glider pilots. Last WGC in Uvalde she still flew herself !!! A ” good ” lady for our sport!
—-Lasham had a good day with Dave Masson flying 570 [484 k. FAI]  in the LS6 WL.
—the women in Germany “tried” , but it did not work out. Another scrubbed day!
As Natasja our Dutch participant mentioned:
” Another cancelled flying day; third in row. Thunderstorms are haunting the area for days now. On the airfield ánd campsite we are fighting of the mosquitoes which are with thousands and weaponed with little stings that even goes through textile! Bastards! So this morning I marinated myself with Autan, Bugspray, Flyswatter and all other chemical stuff I could find in the shop.”
But she still has the right spirit: “ Let’s kick some ass. @ German National Championships Gliding Woman.” 

WEDNESDAY July 30 2014;

Yesterday’s winners

Tasks for today are “small” again; 2 hour AAT’s for all classes.

CU next Wednesday with news from Poland as I will travel to Leszno on Friday. Be there 2 FULL days and go back on Monday again, hopefully with some nice stories for you ,though I go this time as a REAL visitor, no laptop just looking at a WGC as a guest.No jobs.
Only making pictures , listening, and catching up with a lot of mates.

Cheers Ritz