35th FAI WGC in Hosin started with the last week !!!!

As you can see on the picture from TOP PHOTOGRAPHER Maria Szemplinska shared by Rick some really needed a rest day !!!

MONDAY August 6, day 9 task 8 .

Hosin from above. Courtesy Arne.

On a rest day there is enough to do ,….going to a castle ,….. to Prague or building a [ team]-hut with mates for crew pilots and …..for a GLIDER.

S.A. team always looks happy.
As shared by Arne.

In between the girls had fun as well, Katrin changed her hat for a USA hat.
““International Accord” Katrin Senne (flying IG in the 18m Class on the German Team) is an admirer of the US Team uniforms, so she traded hats..”
As shared by TEAM USA.

  
And team Holland is ready for the last week!!! With Jeroen,[15]  Peter [11] , Hadriaan [6]  and Ronald.]7]
Courtesy Frans Guise.

First launches postponed but at 12 the “flying circus”  started again.
“The conditions are going to be… Interesting…” – Met man
And the official short news :” NO CU CLOUDS TODAY, WE HAVE 4/8 OF CIRRUS CLOUDS FROM SW, BUT TASK AREA STAYS CLEAR.”

Open ; 422 km…..later changed in B task from 323 km;Gate opened at 14.00;
A SLOW day, after all the huge speed , we are used to, from the last day’s. Felipe continued his great performances at Hosin and won the day with 109,75 km./h.
Ricardo in the JS 1C is really doing well. My good friend Leo[nardo ] , his dad would have been so proud!!!
Also Michael flew 109 km./h.,  those were the 3 daily best!!
It seems that an Austrian  EB 29 R and an Hungaryan JS 1C ” touched”  in the air at 20 km. S. from the field , but both pilots were quickly back at the field in their gliders !!!!
“Unfortunately there was a connection of two gliders earlier in the afternoon but thankfully both pilots and the gliders appear to be miraculously OK – they flew back to the airfield and landed safely. Some t.l.c. (tender loving care) some polish and buffing and they will more than likely be able to fly again tomorrow.
Apparently in Hungary yesterday there was a mid-air collision which was mentioned at this morning’s briefing – there the pilot used his parachute and his glider was upside down in a field. How important – LOOK OUT, LOOK OUT, LOOK OUT. The message is spread time and time again.”

18 m.;430 km….B-task.. 326 km. Gate opened at 13.22.
An INTERNATIONAL top 5 with Oscar from S.A. winning the day with a speed of 108 km./h.[1000p]  Followed by , Arne from Denmark in more or less the same time.[999 p] Then Jeroen from Holland ;107 km./h. 994 p. same as Katrin !!! And the number 5 is Oscar’s brother Laurens !
Except for Jeroen [14.20] they all started together at 14.13
So 5 JS 3’s in the daily top!!! 2 “Out-landings”.
S.A.team;” the team effort today has paid off for Katrin (who said it is a man’s world? – well done Katrin) moving into 2nd place overall, Oscar moving up into 7th position and Laurens up to 11th. ”

Laurens in the air in LG …As shared by Arne.

20 m.; 402 km.… B Task..321 km. Gate opened at 13.34.
97 km./h was the speed by daily winners Juha and Antti from Finland! And another great performance in the TWINSHARK by Steafano and his mate; runner up with 94 km./h.
3 Out in this class.

With Oscar winning 18 m. Antti and Juha winning 20 m and Felipe winning open class.
Picture by Gagula Darko

And to finish the day

As shared by TEAM UK.

Website: team.gliding.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/britishglidingteam
Twitter: twitter.com/GBGlidingTeam
Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/BritishGlidingTeam
Instagram: www.instagram.com/britishglidingteam

Power ladies and already SO Long in our gliding world; GREAT picture from Carol , TC from S. A . to the L with Andy’s [Davis]  wife Pamy and crew to the r. They have all met as well in Swalu, the place from the Helli Lasch Challenge were winners of WGC’s are invited too.
‘Every second year, the best of South Africa’s glider pilots gather with the current World Gliding Champions for two weeks in the heart of the Kalahari, doing what they love doing…. gliding!”
If I remember well,  Katrin and Arne were there as well last year.

TUESDAY ;August 7 ,day 10 , task 9.

Official morning tweet from the organizers:
“Good morning. Today will be blue. We expect medium length Racing Tasks today.”
The day before they flew ALL day in the blue no cu’s at all, so today seems the same.Not always easy though dry thermals can be as strong as wet ones!!!!
The S. A. News;
“A clear blue sky this morning with lower temperatures and a gentle breeze. This evening we will be having the International Evening – this will comprise all of the various teams providing a variety of different foods and/or drinks that are typical of their country, so possibly pasta from Italy, wine from France. The S.African have wine, springbokkies & melktertjies drinks to serve and with possibly something to nibble on with the drinks.
The metman says it will be very hot with temps in the 32 – 33 deg mark, possibly better than yesterday, but quite likely to be blue up to 1600 – 1700 m. with only some cumulus in the mountains perhaps up to 2000 – 2200 m. There could be some showers to the south in the evening.
Yesterday there was a midair collision, but thankfully both pilots and their gliders were moreorless OK and they were commended for their actions after the incident. They both flew back and landed safely at Hosin.
The Organisation will accept zero tolerance for reports of safety incidents, and as a result the pilot of HAB will receive 0 points for yesterday’s flight.
The Safety Committee spokesperson, Andy Davis, again spoke about a number of incidents yesterday in the Open class. He again highlighted the need for pilots to have more respect and to give pilots more space, especially when joining other gliders in an existing thermal. He said pilots were often pulling up too sharply, joining too close, joining too fast, or going straight through the gaggle – this was all totally unacceptable and all of these actions would endanger the lives of others. One needed to join at a tangent from the side and slot in. He asked pilots to remember that everyone had wives/husbands/children who no one wanted to be left as a widow/widower. Look out, look out, look out.”
i can only agree. LOOK OUT….FLY SAFE!!!!!
For years I say; a competition is GOOD, winning is even BETTER ,but going home safe is the BEST.

Just during and after start Carol mentioned;”The high cirrus thickened over the airfield during tow and several gaggles of circling gliders could be clearly seen at not the highest of altitudes and now that all the gliders have been launched there are two gaggles of the Open class circling slowly above and close to the airfield. Off to the SE the high cirrus is clearly evident as well. “
Looks like a very interesting day!
It turned out not …..TOO BLUE!!!

As shared by Team USA around 3.30 PM.
AND
The Message from the organizers;
“THE WEATHER TURNED OUT TO BE MUCH BETTER THAN EXPECTED. WE HAVE 4/8 OF CUMULUS CLOUDS OVER THE HOSIN RECENTLY. OGN SHOWS PILOTS CLIMBING TO MORE THAT 1800M AGL AT THE MOMENT AND AS THE TASKS WERE SHORTEN TO ONLY 270 KM WE EXPECTED FIRST ARRIVALS AROUND 5PM.”

Back to flying and again later starts now at 12.15 and B tasks.:

Open 364 km.; Later changed in B task with 302 km;gate open at 14.00….Same start, about the same finish, speed 141.75/08 and difference in points SEVEN, that’s the day in a nut shell for Michael and Felipe.
Ricky had another great day and was 3d;139,66 km./h.
Aussie Scott did not fly, and after the “touch in the air” Sebastian Eder EB  [call sign FJ] was out as well

18 m. 360 km.; Later changed in B task with 270 km; gate open at 13.22> 2 did not fly, 2 were out , the rest finished and the best was French pilot Jean-Denis Barrois with a speed of 139,35 km./h!!! Butch was runner up , Wolfgang 3d and the Goudriaans followed with Katrin.
The difference in the overall top is Christophe with 7.623 points and  Katrin with 7.617 points.

20 m. 317 km.;Later changed in B task with 267 km; gate open at 13.34 …Kawa team did it again with a speed of 127,94 km./h. About the same as the Swiss team, who were runner up.

“A devalued day for all the classes since they flew the task in under 3 hours. ” Carol.
Everybody back in time for the International EVENING!!!!
And I heard it was yummy, late and just GOOD!!!!!
All scores at www.soaringspot.com 

—————-

—-Tijl back from Klippeneck!!!”
What a week :
Very timely, for the 50th anniversary edition of its competition, Klippeneck turned into “Bitterwasser auf der Alb.”
Just an all around incredible experience.”

Winning 7 day’s out of 7 is MAGIC!!!!! Well done Tijl,congratulations.

So Tijl again on a picture from my file. No clue who made it. Sorry!!

——–Bailleau;
With the expectation of thunderstorms they had small tasks in Bailleau last Tuesday day 8 task 7; 1.45 and 2 hour AAT’s. They had a rest day as well on Sunday and after the well deserved rest straight away a long task  from 535 km. won by the french ARCUS. All 27 pilots finished .
In the speed class 370 km. and a Belgian day as 5 from the first 10 places were for them. 3 From 35 were out!
Tuesday had tasks but they were cancelled due to expected storms.
I heard that the weather change arrived and the temperatures were 10 dgr. lower. That’s what we expect now too.

—-CIM in Rieti;
It’looks like a Giorgio Galetto show in 18 m. Like Tijl won every day in Klippeneck, it seems Giorgio is trying to do the same winning all 4 day’s.
In open Alexander Mueller is the best. but Still a few day’s to go.
Couple of day’s ago they had very bad weather at the finishes.
Clara mentioned:
“Very difficult landings today with strong south west wind and heavy rain from 5pm to 6pm, not preview. But meteo was as expected with good conditions and quite right task. As two pilots wrote to the Contest Director: “Dear Aldo, the task has been really exciting and interesting. Good job!”
So no worries.

   
Bad weather at Rieti as shared by Clara.

—–Sikko is one of our technicians at Terlet but also a great pilot. He was already in my team in Finland during the EGC in 1988.Last weekend he flew in his glider to Stendhal to attend the VGC rally!! The weekend before he flew to Jena , visiting the club camp from the AcVZ, going up and down with a detour via Lusse , a total of 2.500 km.

    
Flying up and down in his ASG 29E/18 m.
What a life!!! As shared by Sikko!

——–Dutch Junior Nationals
Always important, as that’s “our future generation” .
They , the 21 young ones, could not start on Friday for day 1 due to a bush fire close to  Venlo . Chinook helicopters had to have room to “work” VERY understandable.
But Sunday started well with a 314 km task. For some that was the very first 300 km.!!!
Great coaches/ scouts helping them out in the air. What about Steven Raimond[former European champion]  and his wife Marion.
Sjaak the very fresh WGC champion from Ostrow with in the back Tim [Kuijpers] current European champion and former JWGC champion, helped out as well. What do you want more as a junior???

Sjaak and Tim helping/advising the young mates!!

216 km. on the next day with 2 outlandings and yesterday a 3 hour AAT with Rob Looisen as one of the coaches. Fantastic to see that our top pilots who once started as juniors spend their time to help out.
Best distance was in an LS 8 287 km. with 93 km./h.

—-Club class Nationals in the UK from Dunstable;
4 day’s till now also there they have fabulous soaring summer.
Task 1 was won by Iain Macarthur, so further with task 2, 319 km. a prey for Ge Dale with 104 km./h in his Libelle 201 bwl . Tim Milner was runner up and all 41 finished!!
Task 3 was a 4 hour AAT and again Ge had the fastest flight; 376 km in the “little” Libelle in time 4 .04.
Tim in the St Cirrus was number 3 now.
Yesterday a 280 racing task.And some of the younger and older favorites in the top 4;Jake Brattle in DG101G ELAN with 94.98 km./h!
Runner up Tom Arscott with 93 km and Ge with 92 km./h and Tim with 91 km./h.
This is the overall top 4 as well after 4 day’s but in another order; 1 Ge. 2. Jake .3.Tom, 4. Tim.

Off to Eindhoven now,  to bring my guest  to the station. Cu on Sunday with the latest!!!
Today in HOSIN.; 3 HOUR AAT’S

Cheers Ritz

Wednesday;August 1, day 4, task 4.

Felipe in WB and Michael in EB,  2 German top pilots, ready to go for day 4.
As shared by team Germany.

I gave you already some morning news in my last blog, on Wednesday, so we continue with what happened that day.
AND,…you can still follow the briefings LIVE; https://www.facebook.com/wgc2018cz/videos/2215404022012771/
What happened on this “bloody” hot day, not only there in Hosin, [32 dgr.C] but also here in the SE of Holland with 33 dgr.C.
First some news from team S A as they are there. This news is written by Carol and she is a lovely and very competent lady in the “men’s world. Met her already years ago when there were only 3 female TC’s. She allowed me to use her news.
“So launching was again delayed from 11.30 to 11.45, then to midday, and then finally first launching was at 12.15. There are clouds developing all around, and there is also stronger wind than was predicted. The radial-engined Smelaks are not as strong as the others and launching from runway 06 was somewhat disturbing to watch the combination headling quite low over forested area after take-off.
The start gate has opened already for the 18m. class at 13.26, for the 20m. class it will open at 13.40 and for the Open class it will open at 14.06. ”
Weatherman Jan predicted 2 day’s ago, when he mentioned that every day would be flyable, for Thursday a small front passing by, what if it would come earlier???Maybe late[r]  on Wednesday??
Anyhow they all started with the A task…. Found big blue holes, found lift in it as well and later another air mass a bit hazy and later at places rain.

open; 470 km; gate opened at 14.06…. some started straight away , a lot  around 14.14 ,so did Michael and Felipe. They are just “magic” !!! With 1000 and 999 points for a speed of 139.43 and/31, they added even more points to their overall scores. Unbelievable!!!
Felt sorry for Aussie mate Scot, he was so close in the Quintus but it stopped for him after 403 km.
Great job from Ricardo [Brigliadori] from Italy on spot 3 in the JS 1C.138,46 km./h and …several more ….19….flew over 130 km./h!!!!

18 m. ;485 km. gate opened at 13.26. A great day for my Aussie mates Butch [135.16 km./h] and Woolley [134.08 km./h] ! John won the 1000 points in the JS 3 and Adam 988 in the Ventus 3. They have been able to compare the gliders now!!! For sure we once will hear about it.
2 Guy’s who’s flying I estimate high , are Matthias Sturm and Mike Young. They were out after 440 km.
Great job from Katrin Senne, being on spot 7 for the day.
She mentioned :”What a day! Great thermals, rain showers, spread outs, big blue holes end at the end the final glide thermal with 7,0 m/s integrated. Cool!”
Russell Cheetham , the current WGC champion, JUST made it home after 4 hours and 36 minutes.  The last to come “home” on spot 32. He started rather late as did Mike , both at 13.58.
The winner  by the way, Butch, did “it” in 3.35!!
And a HAPPY Adam;
“ Check out the final climb, from near the ground to the moon! I was eager to start early today after advice pre-launch from Mac, also from what I learnt earlier & I wanted to trust myself. Glad we did, as unforcast showers cut off the late starters & we got lucky. Thanks to Wolfgang [ Janowitsch ]who drove the show when it got tricky at the last, then Mario [Kiessling]who charged on at the right moment. The last climb was magic, 10.5kts bottom to top to come home fast – sometimes you just get lucky!!”
Wolfgang was 4th and Mario 5th. In between on 3 former hang glider pilot Tomas Suchanek.

20 m. ;442 km. gate opened at 13.40. With a speed 3 km. faster than all the rest, Sebastian and his mate flew with 127.12 km./h ” home”. The UK ARCUS T [124.89 km./h]  team did well just finishing before the Finish ARCUS M team. [123.50 km./h.]
Also Heinz and Karin from the USA on spot 5 did a great job.
Matthew and Allan were happy to be home.
As Matthew mentioned ;”Couldn’t string a glide and a climb together to save our lives today, but when it turned to worms and unexpectedly stormed up we made some good calls and survived unscathed. Moved up another place.”
He just made it home on as he mentioned “a tricky day”.!!

The official evening news ; “UNLIKE THE LAST FEW DAYS WE CHANGED DIRECTION OF TASKS TODAY. ALL CLASSES FLEW TO NORTH EAST WITH THE FAREST POINT IN CZECH/ POLISH BORDER. MOREOVER IT WAS AN EDUCATIONAL FLIGHT OF CZECH GEOGRAPHY, UNTIL TODAY WE FLEW ON EAST SOUTH AND WEST FROM US MAINLY, BUT NORTH EAST DIRECTION STOOD UNDISCOVERED. AS THE FORECAST FOR THIS DIRECTION WAS REALLY GOOD TODAY WITH NO PROBABILITY OF SHOWERS WE DECIDED TO SHOW TO OUR FOREIGN FRIENDS ANOTHER PART OF OUR COUNTRY.ON OUTBOUND LEGS WAS A GOOD WEATHER BUT UNEXPECTED TROUGH WITH STORMS APPEARED AROUND MIDDLE OF INBOUND LEG, SO PILOTS HAD TO GET THROUGH. AND THAT WAS THE CRUCIAL PART OF THE TASK. THE PILOTS WHO WERE ABLE TO CATCH A REASONABLE LIFT BEHIND CAME HOME WITH SPEEDS ALMOST 140 KPH AGAIN.”
“This happened as well;

As shared by Matthew .
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding

And the S A news ;
Here you are day 4 in a nut-shell:
“Around 6 p.m. the gliders were coming in in their droves with often as many as 8 – 10 on finals for both the concrete runway as well as the grass runway. Oscar says there was all sorts of weather at the eastern part of the task around the 3rd & 4th turnpoints with rain, blue holes, and all sorts (I will not repeat the exact wording!!). It would appear that setting off on task shortly after the gate opening was definitely the right decision even if everyone else then followed. For some it appears that they had to start their engines.”
Oscar was 6th and Laurens 8th. And as said Katrin 7th.

This is Carol the TC from S A. talking to Eric the TC of France.
Just to show you who writes the daily news I can share.
As shared by the organizers.

And then it is EVENING.

THE GALLERY OF TRIIN JAGOMÄGI FROM ESTONIAN TEAM shows a fabulous series of pictures.
As shared by the organizers.

Thursday; August 2 ,day 5, task 5.

Two methods of getting airborne
Great picture shared by the organizers.

Mind you they had some long and 5 very good practice days, before as well. On the day they did not fly they had the opening!!
But this is a WGC  so life goes on with  AAT’s for day 5  and task 5 , shows 3 x a 3 hour AAT.
Mind you not all top competition pilots are top AAT pilots.
Some more news first; Here is Carol after briefing;
‘Another blue sky morning with little to no wind. Gridding has again been on 06 runway, and the tasks are 3 hr. AATs for all classes (Open class 289.6km/585.4 km; 18m. class 262.3 km/551.5 km; & 20m. class 249.6 km/506.0 km), so perhaps the task setter is not too sure exactly what the weather is going to do and making it the pilots’decision as to where they fly!! They are expecting the front in the east to dissipate, as well as the front off to the west. There could be showers and storms to the west of the country. The wind is still weak NE’ly, and by 6 p.m. there will probably be no lift, but it could be good earlier up to 2200m. and higher, with more instability & climbing cumulus. “

open ; 3 hour AAT…gate opened at 13.17 ….New name as daily winner,…from Hungary,….Richard Bartolf flying a JS 1C. [431 km. in time 3.04 so 140.20 km./h] And,…the 2 Czech Petr’s missed out on ONE point; both 999. [140.16 and 140.12 km./h]
Then ,…9 points less for Michael [470 km. in time 3.22.] and 28 for Felipe.
Another great day in Hosin-Paradise!!!
The Dutch and UK boy’s started early at 13.19 , the winners around 13.24/25.
One outlanding after 361 km.

18 m. ; 3 hour AAT…gate opened at 12.37; A UK -day and again even faster than open class. Russell [JS 3]and Mike [VENTUS 3] were in a hurry , started 3 minutes after the gate opened …learning from the day before,….and flew 451 km. in time 3.11/12 so a speed of 141.85 km./h and 140.87 km./h.
Mario did well in his VENTUS 3 and after 5 day’s he tops the overall list!!! Arne was 4th and KATRIN 5th and,..she is 3d overall now!!!Top job!!!
But a week to go and scores are VERY CLOSE!!!!

20 m. ; 3 hour AAT….gate opened at 12.51; Hurray for the UK !!!! Again a daily winner this time team Jones /Coppin. Nearly all started after 13.00, so did they 13.15. They flew 404 km in time 3.05 so a speed of 130.57 km./h. A tad faster than the Lithuanian team missing out on ONE point.

A good idea , those AAT’s, with storms here, there and everywhere.
Nice to see the live video from TEAM UK during the finishes certainly with their dry comments.
I expected maybe a rest day,  but they announced the plans already for

FRIDAY; August  3, day 6, task 6.

Serious looking faces from team France at the morning briefing.

French team listening at the briefing.
As shared by  Pôle France Planeur

Some S. A. News this morning;
“Some rain last evening has damped the airfield and temperatures for the moment are a little cooler which is a pleasant change.
We have racing tasks today for all classes with a first launch expected at 11 a.m. and again off runway 06. Open class has 516.7 km. , 18m. class 541.1 km. and 20m. class 455.2 km.
This evening is going to be the Czech party in the hangar and the team captains were asked to attend a short meeting last evening to establish if Saturday or Sunday should be a rest day. The decision has been made that Sunday will be a rest day, so guess the pilots will not be imbibing too much of the Czech drinks this evening!”

“First launch was finally postponed to 11.45 and again took just under 1 hr. 20 mins. The clouds that were supposed to possibly overdevelop in the west, in fact were exploding to the east with large blow-off and even to the north of the 1st track there are some quite big developing clouds, with some blow-off as well.” By Carol.

the weather at launch time. pictures courtesy  Caroline and Dutch team.

Big tasks again;
open 516 km; gate opened at 13.33; Another new face on the daily spot 1 not somebody we don’t know; Ricardo Brigliadori!! He started straight away at 13.36 and was “home” at 17.18,39 so a speed of 139,32 km./h!!!.
12 Minutes later than Ricardo, the German EB-boy’s, Michael and Filipe, started and managed to be just a tad slower to be on spot 2 and 3. [138.85 and 84] both 993 points!!!
Petr Tichy “holds on”as well he was 4th!!! And Dutch mate Hadriaan 5th. Mind you the first 14 flew between 131 and 139 km./h. Slowest speed today 115 km./h.

Daily winner Ricardo, as shared by Gagula Darko

18 m. 541 km;gate opened at 12.55; I guess Adam has the feeling he is in a dream. He won 1 day in the OSTROW WGC and now one in the HOSIN WGC.  He surely is doing a great job and the many hours he spend on soaring are paying off as well the believe in the VENTUS 3. Adam flew with a speed of 141,36 km./h. quite faster  2 km./h ,than the runners up Marion and Mike both also in Ventus 3.
Adam’s opinion about the VENTUS 3 is written very clear in  Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
Here is his FB comment;
“Thank you for the day win John Buchanan, without your help it wouldn’t have happened. Thank you too to my team captain, Terry Cubley for providing forever helpful & encouraging words. I got lucky on the start when I couldn’t get to altitude, John was in wave & couldn’t pass up his good opportunity – especially as at the time, 45 competitors thought it was going to be a distance day as the showers rolled in at the start line.

I started after the main gaggle, but not by choice. What I did notice though was when I was finally climbing up for the start, on the other side it was all sunny & pumping conditions – so the above thought went out of my mind. I didn’t get greedy though & set off straight away once at base.

One outlanding in total and in this class after 440 km.

20 m. 455 km; gate opened at 13.08; TEAM-KAWA -day again , starting quickly after the opening of the gate at 13.12, he and his mate raced in the ASG 32 MI to another podium spot; 131,88 km./h.
Good day as well for team Finland, UK and Belgium!!

A difficult and tricky day was the expectation, but it all went well. It is a great bunch of pilots over there!!One more day to go and they have a rest day!!! Czech EVENING now !!

SATURDAY; August 4 day 7 and task 7.

Some official news first;CZECH EVENING STARTED FROM 19:30 WITH INTRODUCTION OF ORGANIZING STAFF, TOW PILOTS, FAI OFFICIALS. THEN THE PARTY STARTED WITH SERVING CZECH MEALS AND BEERS. THE APPLES – GIRLS BAND – PLAYED GREAT MUSIC AND PLENTY OF PILOTS WERE DANCING IN FRONT OF STAGE ALMOST UNTIL MIDNIGHT.
Must have been a good night.

The APPLES as shared by the organizers.

BUT work has to be done again. One more day in the “office” and then an OFFICIAL REST DAY after 7 day’s of full -on flying.
3.30 AAT’s for all classes. Later changed in 3 hour AAT’s. Launches started later than normal at 12.45.

Open; Gate opened at 14.32; Good S.A. day, as Uys won in his JS 1C, flying 465.85 km. in time 3.11 so a great speed of 146.11 km./h. Great speed by many. Pilots 1-11 flew over 140 km./h!!!!
Pilots 12-27 flew over 130 km./h!!! One outlanding after 382.84 km. A pity.
Overall scores after 7 day’s; 1. Michael 6.383 points. 2. Filipe 6.303 and 3. Petr [Tichy] 6.174.
All other pilots have less than 6000 points!!

18 m.; Gate opened at 13.54. With 457.62 km in time 3.01 Christophe set a HIGH standard for the day!!! Speed 151.42 km./h. beating the open class time from Uys!!!
Arne and Katrin started and finished together and were runners up;147 km./h.
Though Matthias Sturm did well [ spot 5] with an early start at 13.59, his mate Mario finished  with a later start at 14.23 on spot 28. He lost before the rest day his first overall spot.
Now it looks like this with still a week to go;1. Christophe with 6.172 points. 2. Mario with 6.090 and 3. Katrin with 6.074.
3 More pilots are in the 6000 points -range.

20 m.; gate opened at 14.07 and the HPH 304 TwinShark flew with Stefano and his mate to a great daily win;411 km. in 3 hours at the dot!!!136,53 km/h.
Antti and Juha were just a tad slower 999 points for 442km. in time 3.14 so a speed of 136,47 km./h.
5 Teams in the 6000 points-range; 1. Matkowski & Kawa 6.351. 2. UK team Coppin/Jones 6.203. 3.Emmanuelidis & Jeanmotte from Belgium 6.075. 4. Sorri & Lehto 6.062 5. Barnes & Scutter with 6.010 points.

The official wrap from Saturday;”The weather before launches did not look very promising today. There was completely blue sky and the reports from the sniffer were not as optimistic. However launches finally started at 12:45 and the task time was reduced to three hours for all classes. As it showed up later, when pilots managed to climb up in blue thermals and get on the track, everything suddenly became much better. Again pilots got to experience one of the best possible gliding weather Czech Republic has to offer and the best speed today was above 150 kph! The thunderstorm which developed to the west of the airfield waited for everybody to land before moving further NE. Tomorrow there is forecast of showers and thunderstorms so pilots will have a chance to enjoy their well deserved rest day. “

 SUNDAY ; August 5 OFFICIAL REST DAY!!!!
More in my next blog! Looking forward to that last week!!!!!
One of the WGC -tweets yesterday;
” JS3 and Ventus 3 proved to be the future of 18M class as they are occupying the first 18 spots in total results.“

—————–

——-Klippeneck showed 5 daily wins in a row for Tijl Schmelzer!!!! VERY SPECIAL !!!On day 5 , dad was runner up!!! Great such a family holiday!!! And day 6 , you guess it already was for Tijl too ;336 km with a speed of 138.16 km./h so “NOT a piece of cake” , though for him it is so, it seems.
Yesterday was the last day and though he could have taken a day off Tijl still flew; AND,…won the last day too, so 7 out of 7 days !!!! Pretty AMAZING!!!3 Hour AAT, 392 km. in time 3.01 so a speed of 129.95 km./h.
Overall scores 6.087 . Runner up 5.256 points.
Well done Tijl!!!!!

——-CIM in Rieti; after 2 good days  with in 18 m./open a 487 km task and a 2.10 AAT, both won by Giorgio, the news on Friday morning from Clara was ;” No task today for all classes.The risk of long, heavy storms over RIETI is too high. ”
55 Pilots from different Nationalities as Aku Jaakkola from Finland in 15 m. winning day 2, 13 teams in 20 m. among them the FRENCH Bouderliques in ARCUS M.
In 18 m/open also Alexander Mueller, Bruno Gantenbrink and Alvaro De Orleans.

——-The Club class NATIONALS in the UK started yesterday [ till the 12th] with 42 pilots from Dunstable with good weather and a 348 km. racing task.
Ian Macarthur won day 1 in the LS 4

——Frank Versteegh, former RED BULL Air Racer, shared some pictures from Holland from above. One  on August 1 in 2018  and one on on September 3 in  2015!!!
Look at what happened, scary!!!!!

WET in 2015 , dry in 2018, same place!!! Holland Oosterbeek, Rosandepolder.
Courtesy Frank MH Versteegh.

CU Next Wednesday
Cheers Ritz

35th WGC in HOSIN.
Monday July 30; day 2 ,task 2;

“I always think it’s very special, all these different countries having a great time together on a few square meters when you think of all the issues going on in the world.” by Caroline Termaat-Douwes.
I could n’t agree more!!!

Some news first; bit cloudy morning , blue later,hot, maybe complicated again, let’s wait and see. The meteo , Jan Horak, was very optimistic about this WGC;” we will fly every day“!!! AGAIN ,…let’s wait and see.
Official news ;”This morning we started again with overcast left from yet another dissipating front. Briefing was at 10:00 . The weather started to improve faster today compared to yesterday and the high clouds have already cleared from the airport. We expect first launches around 12:00. Two tasks are prepared for today. Task A is racing about 350 km due to showers and thunderstorms we expect around Hosín in later afternoon. In case the weather would suddenly improve we have task B ready, racing with distance over 400km for all classes”.
First starts at 12.15. Well look at what happened!!!!!!
AND, because of the distance and the speed still no 1000 -points- day yet, only in the practice period!!!
open; 350 km.; gate opened at 14.04… 12 minutes later Michael [Sommer] left on track, and mind you,….. he was back after 2 hours and 10 minutes; speed 161.32 km./h !!!!!! I met Michael several times, when he lived in Australia and frequently flew with us. I know he was fast, but this even astonished me.Great job Michael !!!
In the slip stream  but, as good a pilot ,Felipe [Levin] started at the same time and finished 2 minutes later ;159.30 km./h!!!!!
Number 3 Dutch pilot Hadriaan [van Nes] in a JS 1 C, was a tad slower ;154,66 km./h and then a whole bunch followed. Crazy!! looking at the first 29 pilots speed was between 127,37 and 161,32 km./h !!!

18 m ; 357 km.; gate opened at 13.24…NOT faster than open class this time , but good speed by the French boy’s, Christophe [Cousseau] and Jean-Denis [ Barrois], both in JS 3.” Bloody fast toy!!”
10 minutes after the gate opened they raced away and in 2.30/33 they were back.
45 pilots nearly back at the same time and speed between 118 km./h for the “slowest” and 142.20 by Christophe.
WOW !!!!!!

AND as I had no picture of the French team in my last blog , I share them NOW.

The French team with TC Eric Napoleon to the left.
Courtesy Eric.

20 m.; 349 km.; gate opened at 13.38… All pilots left after 2 PM and maybe,… inspired by Rasmus who took the title home from Ostrow to Denmark…, his mates Nielsen/Jorgensen in the ARCUS T won the day; speed 134.24  km./h.. same as Team Poland both share equal points [841] and Germany followed  with 133.22 on the clock!!!!

I liked the official news on the end of the day;”WITH GREY AND BROKEN SKY AT THE TIME OF OPENING THE START GATES  WE WERE NOT SURE IF THE TASK SETTING FOR TODAY WAS RIGHT. EVERYBODY ON GROUND WATCHED TRACKING AND HAD DOUBTS ABOUT THE CALCULATED SPEEDS. WE HAD GREY SKY AROUND HOSIN WHOLE DAY, WITH ALMOST NO USEABLE CLOUDS. BUT PILOTS ARRIVED WITH AMAZING SPEEDS”
Tomas Rendla the CD, mentioned :”Better than Texas”??? He should know as as far as I remember Tomas flew there himself.
It seems the tasks JUST fitted the weather, as it deteriorated quickly later in the day. But,…no worries ALL were back !!!

Back ” home” ready for a cool drink.
The web cam!

Tuesday July 31 last day of July, day 3, task 3:

Not totally blue!!
As shared by Team Belgium.

Some news first: nice long tasks for “big ships”. HOT and HUMID day!!!! First launch not at 11 but at 11.45.All gliders up in about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Good job!!
Team USA showed a video from one of their 2 seaters in the air showing that the combination 161 km./h and the weather from the day before was pretty weird and unexpected. Interesting! Maybe even “insane”.
Team Hosin added about the 161 km./h. ;“Outright unbelievable on this cloudy day.”
And,…finally a 1000 points day in all classes!!!

Official news: ” We expect a blue day with long tasks into the higher terrain areas.”
And later ;;”We are lucky with the weather today again. We waked up to clear sky and meteorologists expect this day to be the hottest of the year. Briefing was at 10:00 as usual. Don’t forget you can watch briefings live on our facebook page and see all of them uploaded here. There are just about one to two octads of cumulus clouds around the airfield now but thermals are strong.”
And after the flights:”Today it was extremely hot. Temperature was nearly 36°, humidity above 30%, almost no shade due to just few clouds and very weak wind. However that is nothing our competitors should complain about. For them it meant strong updrafts up to flight level 95 which is the maximum altitude pilots are allowed to fly during the competition. Even though there were less thermals around Hosín there was enough of them in the area of the task.”
OSTIV Congress continues subjects of Aeroelasticity, Performance and further Meteorology research on Atmospheric Waves and Convection. Please be invited on evening lecture on Flutter.

Starts in progress as shown by the web cam.

Open;  522 km; gate opened at 13.35…Most started before 2PM for this pretty long distance. Zdislaw Bednarczuk in the JS 1C was the daily winner [136.65] just ahead of Michael [135.99] and Felipe [135,93 km./h] !And another Philippe this time from France was number 4.
Another HUGE bunch of ” fibre”, dropped down at Hosin as in between 17.37 and 18.05 a total of 19 open class gliders finished. A few out-landings as well. A few flew over 400 km!!!
At the last TP from open there was a shower, that might be the explanation!!!

18 m.;  512 km.; gate opened at 12.55….second day in a row , a daily prize for Christophe, with a speed of 134,95 km./h in the JS 3. That’s about as fast as the “open-boy’s” . Laurens was runner up with 134.72 km./h. …difference in points ;3!He must have lost his brother somewhere as they both started but Oscar was back 23 minutes later.

20 m.;  453 km.; gate opened at 13.09…124.79 was the best speed and flown by Allan and Matthew from Downunder!!! They all started before 2PM and ALL finished; the slowest pilots still had 107 km./h.
Team Cronjaeger & Sidler from Switzerland was runner up.
The Polish team was 3d!

Here is Matthew;   Matthew Scutter’s Gliding

“It’s been a busy few days at Hosin with the 35th Multiclass World Gliding Championships, but finally we have some newsworthy results to share. We had an average first two days with small errors placing us well down the results. The common factor was that we often broke ahead of the gaggle just as we were coming into a tricky area where we would suffer alone.
Today we were surprised to see everyone start almost half an hour ahead of when we wanted to. We got ourselves together and went with them a bit behind, and in the strong conditions our Australian nature seems to give us an edge and we caught the early starters in the first hundred kms. The key difference today was hitting the skids and waiting for a few pilots to catch us up so we had some friends for a blue gap before the leg along the mountains. Our luck was exceptional as we had Laurant Aboulin and Sebastian Kawa join us (both current World Champions), and we flew with them through the tricky patches and on to home. Sebastian did as Sebastian does and slipped ahead at the end but not by enough so we are celebrating our very first day wins at a World Championships.”

So another mass land back at Hosin airport today!!! ALL classes arrived around the same time frame.

Wednesday August 1, day 4, task 4!

Some news first and the tasks,…. the rest is for next Sunday.
One comment by TEAM USA more specific team ARC,Heinz and Karin,  about the day before.
“Tough day for Team ARC. Towed off into wrong sector, then tried to figure out what caused the jet like roaring sound….By time teammate 70 confirmed our gear door was hanging down 45 degree, we had few choices; land and fix it and loose contact with our class ( this is a big grid & not a quick land/fix/relaunch situation), or suck it up and fly with our barn doors open.

With Chief steward Robert in the middle, the meteo man Jan to the left and “in green” Tomas the CD.
As shared by the organizers.

Tasks for today
open; 470 km.
18 m.; 485 km.
20 m.; 442 km.

————–

—-In between they fly at KLIPPENECK  [Germany] with 85 competitors in 5 classes. They started at July 27 and continue till August 2.
Belgian Tijl Schmelzer [ ASG 29] flies here instead of Hosin where his brother is. AND he does well…already 3 day’s NUMBER ONE in 18 m. class !!!
Tijl flew on day 1 , 373 km. with speed of 133 km./h…… on day 2 , 503 km with a speed of 140 km./h!!![ 15 km. FASTER than the runner up!!] and on day 3 a distance of 603 km. with 134 km./h on the clock!!!
His dad Bert sr. [Ventus 2XT] was a bit slower but still fast enough; 122 km./h.

——AND in Bailleau in France with 70 competitors in 3 classes between July 31 [first flying day on July 31] and August 10. Yesterday was their first day with just under and 50 k above  300 km. tasks.
today; 385, for the long- flight -pilots, 283 for the speed -racers and 188 for the “new ones”.
Results for both comps at www.soaringspot.com

——  Benvenuti alla CIM 2018! Welcome to CIM 2018! [Coppa Internazionale del Mediterraneo]  in Rieti . It’s  on as well, between August 1 and 13.
40 Participants,less than other years,  as a few are just back from Ostrow , others are still in Hosin!!!

Opening briefing by Aldo in Rieti
As shared by Clara.

—-It’s raining 1000 km flights again. Europe has in many parts had the dry -est and hottest July!!! Last Monday another 12 x a 1000 km. from Germany  [best was 1.212.94 km…..declared 860 FAI triangle….from the Wasserkuppe in an ASG 32 EL!!!] and 2x Switzerland and great flights from France as well.
What about 619 km in an ASK 13 from Grenoble ???by Stephan Houdier!!!
Yesterday another 1.100 km. by former WGC champion Jan Rothhardt in VENTUS CM /17.6 m. from Jena Schöngleina .

Cu soon …get a guest this upcoming week, but try to write on Sunday and Wednesday.
Cheers Ritz

HOSIN IS READY !!!!

They only had a short while to be organised, as the WGC moved rather late from Pribam to Hosin, because of what I read ” irreconcilable differences with the owners and operators of the Pribram airfield“.
But at Hosin, all looks spic and span!!! The 95 competitors from 27 countries are ready as well.
Not everywhere at the glider area are water systems to fill up, that’s something you just can’t do a month or 2 ahead.
Talking about the 10 minute designated start times gave lot’s of mutter as in Ostrow , during the first TC meeting, as well as unhappy faces.Hope they don’t use the system!!!

   
Pictures shared on Google pictures by the organizers.
Google Photos. 

official practice day 1; with 618 km ;20 flew in open and Felipe Levin [former JWGC champion in 2009 AND 2011]is in the right groove winning today with a speed of 128 km./h. 2 Czech pilots flew 10 km. slower BUT finished the task the rest NOT.
18 m; 609 km. and 24 flew the task. Wolfgang was the winner with a speed of 119 km./h and 7 finished the task. Top 3 all Ventus 3. Adam was 3d . As said before he flies a brand new glider from 2 Dutch pilots.
“Thanks Jaap & Olfert in advance for allowing me to compete at the top level in their 2wk old V.”
20 m; 531 km and 12 from 19 teams flew only 5 finished.
Practice is to get to know the local area and the organisation has to check out their procedures.

official practice day 2; with 469 for open ,446 for 18 m. and the 2 seaters had 398 to go.
Most have survived scrutineering so the focus is full on now for soaring.
Nice day weather-wise ,cloud base a bit lower and showers around Hosin, but some “love ” showers to fly along.

weather for official practice day 2
Belgian Gliding Team

open class; 469 km. and AGAIN the German pilots Michael and Felipe did well in their EB’s;141 km./h.
18 m. class; 446 km. and another winning day for Adam, loving his borrowed Ventus 3;130 km./h. About the same speed for Dutch pilot Peter Millenaar [VENTUS 3T]and South African pilots  Laurens and Oscar Goudriaan.[JS 3]
Adam;”Never give up, that’s the key, you never know what you can achieve. I considered abandoning task before the 1st TP because of the many poor decisions I made, from what could’ve been a great run; thankfully I told myself it’s a long way to go & anything can happen, ultimately – day winner!”  Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

20 m. class;398 km. Austrian success for team Peter Hartmann/Derold; 106 km./h in ARCUS T.

Official practice day 3 AND the last one… after a foggy opening of the day again racing tasks for
open 443 km. won by Dutch pilot Hadriaan van Nes [ JS 1C] with a speed of 136.90 km./h
18 m;410 km. won by Butch [John Buchanan JS 3] and again….. 18 m faster than open;138.29 km./h.
20 m; 399 km. ;2 ASG 32 MI in the top for Belgium and Poland[Sebastian] speed; 125.79/72 for 1000 and 999 points.

official last practice day as seen and shared by Pete Alexander TC from Team USA.

SOME EXTRA INFO;
Welcome party 27 July 2018 20:00
Airshow 28 July 2018 13:30-15:30
Opening ceremony 28 July 2018 15:30-17:00
First official briefing 29 July 2018 10:00
Contest flying period 29 July to 11 August 2018

Chief Steward Robert DANEWID (SWE)
Stewards Enrique LIPPI (ARG)
Jury President Rick SHEPPE (USA)
Jury Members Jaroslav VACH (CZE)
Peter RYDER (GER)

Competition Director Tomas RENDLA
Operations Director Ludek KLUGER

18 m. is very interesting as 3 new types are trying to get everybody’s attention; There is 1 Diana 3, there are 12 x  JS 3 and  14 x   VENTUS 3. On top of that gliders we know already as JS 1 [4 x] and Ventus 2.[3x]
ASG 29 still going strong with 12 owners.
It’s going to be REAL interesting!!
OPEN has the EB 29 [7x] in variations . Also 18 x JS 1C and 2x a QUINTUS and 3x an ASH 25 [EB] and one Antares.
2-Seaters‘; 13 x ARCUS M or T,  4 x ASG 32 MI, and one HPH 304 TwinShark flown by team Italy.

The opening was on Saturday in Ceske Budejoviceafter .A welcome- invitation by the organizers, the evening before ,was good to even more inspire the great and social spirit and all teams  looked happy and ready. Here are a few during the opening which was short and to the point.

Baldrick , UK crew and maybe “setting the fox to watch the geese” ????? and Rick , from the USA, the president of the jury.
Opening from the 35th WGC in HOSIN as shared by the
Soaring Society of South Africa

But when I checked these pictures seem to be courtesy to team USA.

TIME TO START;
Sunday July 29 day 1 task 1;
Some news first; They postponed the first launches several times and they went from A to B-C-tasks ,  but at 1.15 PM the 18 m. was launched. THE WGC for BIG ships has started.
Glider 70 , with Robert from the USA, unfortunately had to come back for a re-start.
Big tow planes ” Cmelaks”  over there, don’t dare to call the pilots in it “tuggies”.
Gates opened at 14.38 [18 m],  for the 20 m class at 14.55 and for open around 15.25.???
GOOD that the airport is HUGE!!!!
open ; 434 km ; changed in 311 km.;
Michael Sommer won …BUT,…with a slower speed than Lucasz in 18 m. ;129.41 km./h
The first 5 on the scores-list are between 762 [Michael]and 702 [Andy] !!! 3 EB’s in the top 3.
Pretty close finishes , so not much lost for most on day 1. Only one out from 31.

18 m.; 312 km ;
they finished first and they all came in one GO, one big bunch of white “plastic”!!! The speed was so high over the 312 km. from daily winner Vladmir Voltin [ASG 29E] ; 141,22 km./h , that the daily points devaluated!!!!Lucasz from Poland in the Diana 3, was runner up; 140.72 km./h.
Number 25 from Swiss Jurg Haas flew with 130 km./h. and all 24  in between finished at about the same time.
From 45 the first 40 pilots miss out on around 150 points. So a great day for ALL in this class ,except for glider 70 who had to return and then was out after 123 km. A pity.

20 m.; 294 km ;
18 teams…. 1 out ….all others finished. Good day for team Aboulin/Untersee who won the day with a speed of 128.37 km./h. for 718 points. The first 12 are within 68 points. Not too much gained,….. not too much lost!!!
Tomorrow is another day!!!

All scores preliminary at this early stage.
Next blog on Wednesday.

——————–

——Another 16 x a 1000 km plus in Europe, fabulous weather last Thursday, specially in the Bayreuth area where 3 were flown last Thursday.
1372 flights were added to the OLC that day.

————-

——And to finish….ONE more time OSRTOW because of that special last day. Ostrow will be not remembered by the rain or only 7 out of 14 day’s  , but by the exceptional last day!!!!

Number 1 Sjaak and 4 Dmitriy , for long time good competition mates, also to me. Very kind guy’s.
As shared by Lilian, who wrote me after I asked her how she felt about the last day
“Exciting, very exciting with all those close scores when the last day started!!! We knew the Aussie and Japanese pilot were fast and noticed whilst hooking on the glider after return that one of the Polish gliders was back as well. We had no clue what that meant. We used “F5” to find out what was happening and quickly heard that Matthew and Mac were the daily winners but that Sjaak was not bad either. After Sjaak  uploaded his flight with only a few pilots to go, it was clear he was on spot 1 and ,Dutch mate ,Frank was there as the first to congratulate him.”
SO,…we had another Dutch world champion after the several JWGC champions from the last years [Tim Kuijpers in 2011, Peter Millenaar in 2013 and.. Peter is in Hosin now …and Sjoerd van Empelen 2017 and current JWGC champion]  and more in the past Kees Musters in Hobbs [1983] and brother Baer twice in France [1978] and the USA.[1991]
We can be proud, very proud!!!
Sjaak mentioned in an interview on video about the last day, with the text ” Sjaak Selen from Netherlands always wanted to be a Champion” ,that “he set his mind to the day it self, did not think of the overall ranking and kept his focus on the task.”
On the day’s with less good weather he said he “kept focused by looking at tasks, walking around and doing some sight seeing .”
He was proud to take the CUP home, one his brother Baer had already twice at home too.
A FAMILY AFFAIR!!!!
By the way Sjaak and Mac know each other already since 1989 when both flew the JWGC at CAMBRAI.

————–

Cheers Ritz, when I have time, I try to publish twice a week on Sunday and Wednesday during the WGC. This way I avoid TOO long blogs.
AND,…to finish this blog a great picture shared by Soaring Society of South Africa

It’s shared by them …I heard later that the courtesy goes to  US Soaring Teams

FAREWELL OSTROW !

The FAI Flag has left Poland to “travel”  to France now.

Former JWGC champion Matthew keeps a bog as you know.
It ,indeed was a very interesting last day, here is his story, a day on which he got 999 points and his mate Mac 1000.
“And that’s a wrap – the Standard Class worlds are over, and we went out with a bang. Weather looked great with cu over the field at 1500m+ at 10am. I think most people overlooked the incoming cirrus which was only marginally visible on the visible satellite bands but clearer on the infrared bands. Thick haze in the air prevented seeing it coming on the horizon as well. The forecast indicated it would affect the western edge of the task for later starts, so I wanted to get away as early as possible. Mak and Ray started with me as the gate opened, trying to make it look as much like a fake start as possible (not quite at cloudbase, wandering around the line), and no one followed. It turned out to be the right call, we were only minimally impacted by the reduced convection and had a solid speed ~10kph faster than the gaggle starting 40 minutes later. This earned myself 999 points for the day and lifted Mak from 5th to 2nd overall. Ray was not far behind in 4th for the day. Overall my placing was poor due to the outlanding on day 3 with an equipment failure and poor management of that, but generally I think I was flying well and the glider was performing well (for sale!)

————–

HELLO HOSIN!

As shared by team USA. and team Belgium.

Looking ahead at the 35th FAI WGC in HOSIN, where we find the bigger ships. Look at this toy!!!
Shared by US Soaring Teams

“PWR is an ASH 25 EB28. It sports a lengthy wingspan of almost 92 feet. It is self launch capable and has a max glide ratio over 60:1“

The comps start already end of this week on the 28th. Those who want to compete in both,” race” from Poland to Czech Rep.,as do my Aussie mates Adam and Matthew.
Several UK pilots have arrived already  and Garry shared this picture; In one go you see the Finnish, French, German, UK, Hungarian, Italian , Japanese, Lithuanian  and Dutch teams

“Well I guess this is the start of the World Championships.”was Garry’s comment.

The Belgium team noticed the names as well so here is their picture, so you know who is flying. There are 94 gliders in total.

Belgian Gliding Team

Last Monday they  started with the 3d unofficial training day with good set tasks.
“July 23 Training Day Tasks: all Racing Tasks. Open 403 km, 18m 418 km, 20m 373 km. ”
Not all flew and those who flew mainly outlanded, real or virtual.
Michael Sommer and Felipe Levin finished with 135 and and 122 km./h. in open class as well as Petr Tichy from Czech Rep, all flying EB and in the 20 m. Juha [Sorri] and Antti [Lehto] . Must give them all a good feeling.
Tuesday an ever bigger task ;650 for open, 621 for 18 m and 615 for the 2- seaters. Morethan 60 pilots went “up”.Pictures say more than words.
Andy Davis from the UK won with a speed of 131 km./h. in open .In 18 m it was Roan Mracek with 135 km./h. SO faster than open class in his Ventus 3!!!The first 7 places were for 4x Ventus 3 and 3x JS 3. Will be interesting to see how this WGC will be going with these new types and the new Diana.
2 Seaters ;125 km./h for team Aboulin/Audensee.

       
Pictures shared by Baldrick and US Soaring Teams .[ Last picture courtesy Pete Alexander.]

Lot’s of friends are there as well , so looking ahead at what’s happening! Will keep you informed.

TODAY; First official practice day!!!
618 in open class,609 in 18 m and 530 in 20 m.
FREE GRID RWY 24

GRID ORDER
OPEN CLASS – ROWS 15-24
20M CLASS – ROWS 10-14
18M CLASS – ROWS 1-9

GRID TIME 8:00 -10:30
BRIEFING 10:00

FIRST LAUNCH EXPECTED AT 11:00

Today’s weather! Not bad is it ?
Shared by Belgian Gliding Team which is nearly complete now. Pierre and Arnaud flew from Bayreuth to Hosin.

Very interesting , as said, to see at this WGC the differences between the brand new top gliders; Ventus 3 and JS 3 and Diana 3!!!!!!
I noticed that Argentinian pilot Damian Goldenzweig picked up a VENTUS 3 as well,  just before the comps start;

Damian surrounded by Benjamin to the l and Tilo to the r. Good luck and safe flights Damian.

—————–

—–In between they had a competition here in Holland called ” De Zomerwedstrijden” and they honored their name as the weather was ” summerly ” with 7 out of 7 days! Good organized as well by Paul and Ger.
Tasks in 2 classes mixed open and club. Good tasks and good speed for those who fly for fun or are on the way to the next WGC in 2024??
Tasks in open just under or over 300 km.and best speed 123 in Duo Discus XLT on task 5 and 130 in ASG 29 E over 245 km.
Or 135km./h. one day earlier over 292 km. in a NIMBUS 4T.
In club between 200 and nearly 300 km. Best speed 111km/h. in LS 4 on day 4 over 265,92 km.

The open class toppers      AND     the summer skies.
1. Team Batenburg in Duo Discus XLT. 2. Team Venema in Duo Discus WL. 3. Hans  Biesters in ASG 29 E
As shared by a proud Alexander Venema.
CONGRATULATIONS.

————–

Told you already we have great weather. Code orange today for the heat as we have our 25th heat wave in history and by now the hottest summer ever since 1901 when they started to keep stats!!!
Today 33 dgr/C …..Tomorrow 34 up to 37 !!! Not normal, but we have to deal with it also in the future.
Heat in Holland feels different than in Australia.
Heat is great for soaring as well.
Pretty unusual, ….yes it happened but not often,…but we have a 1000 again which started in Holland;850  FAI triangle by Steven Raimond, extended to 1.021. Extending is something he normally does n’t do, but as he said “I make an exception for a 1000”!!!! Good on him!!!!
Many more 1000 km. flights in hot Europe; 15 in total yesterday, from Holland, Germany, France, Luxembourg and Czech Rep. One in an ASH 26 E.
Great flights as; 843 in LS 1f, 762 in ASW 15 and 889 in LS 6 /18m.

Bas Seijffert from Holland declared and  flew a new Dutch record over a 750 km.  FAI triangle yesterday and got his 750 certificate.. He added a few km. and with a total of 851 he was number  47, on the OLC-list .
Max Leenders flew a new record over a declared 300 km out and 300 km. return;600 km. with 116 on the clock.

More next Wednesday!!!! Hope you liked “THE FINISH” of OSTROW as well [published last Sunday]
Cheers Ritz

“Trusting in your own ability was the key” ; Adam about his win on flying day 5!!

Adam in the Ventus 3 as shared by Schempp-Hirth

Wednesday July 18 6th flying day on day 11 ?;NO unfortunately NOT!!!
Some news first;
After the Polish night and the afternoon reading by Uys from Jonker Sailplanes , there was hope for flying but the rain was pretty steady and planning to spoil the fun from the organizers and pilots.
Later Jonker shared news about Arne;
“While the JS team in Ostrow is waiting for better weather, our Scandinavian agent Arne J. Boye-Møller has taken to the skies twice the last couple of days with the JS3 and broken two danish out-and-return records – respectively the 300km with 129kph and the 500km ditto with 127kph. Arne reports that even though conditions were not homogeneous for the 500km flight from his home club Herning Svæveflyveklub to Itzehoe just north of Hamburg in Germany, it was fun and exciting. The Sourthern part of the Jutland peninsula is often strongly influenced by sea-breezes and the northern part of Germany has a 100km stretch of wet and low areas usually causing lower temperatures and altitudes. That the weather totally overdeveloped at the end of the day helped cleaning the wings in-flight. But a great challenge!”

It’s weird,  but parts of Europe have the best, hottest and driest summer in ages. Even the North of Scandinavia has up to 29 dgr. C. Lapland had 32!!!!!!
Lot’s of people suffer and grass and trees heavily. It looks like autumn with all leaves on the ground.
We have to be even careful with water here in Holland. Feels like I am home in Australia , THAT feels good!
In France Gilles [ Navas] flew and FAI 1000 km triangle on this day in an 18 m. ,ASG 29 E. Good on him. Also in Germany not far from Poland a 1000 in a QUINTUS M. from  Dahlemer Binz

Thursday July 19 6th flying day on day 12? NO still rain. Feel SO sorry for the pilots and organizers.

“Nothing more to say that we have another day of rest. Hope to have some better news tomorrow. ”

In between competitors for the next WGC are arriving in Europe, collecting gliders , trailers and car’s for those who come from far!!! Hope they will have good soaring weather.

From July 28 till August 12 2018, Russell Cheetham , Kililian Walbrou and team  Duboc /Aboulin will try to defend their titles in open 18 m and 20 m.

Friday July 20 6th day on day 13;
Some news first; THEY CAN FLY!!!!!! Finally and great for ALL.
9.45 Briefing and everybody will be eager and motivated!!!Hopefully 2 more flying days for this by rain so bothered competition.
Today blue skies and DRY!!!!All racing tasks go to the SE with blue circumstances but later cu’s up to 1500 m.
At 12.48 club could go en route , 13.12 for 15 m and 13.44 for standard. At 2 and after they all departed.
the last leg was difficult again;

Standard….330 km.;a 1000 points -day but speed for ALL UNDER 100 km./h. so not to easy!!
A well known daily winner , I noticed him on a video, nice young and very talented young man; Romanian Norbert Alin Scarlat. He flew with 94.87 km./h over the track.Just a tad faster than Pavel who got  a 2p penalty for a just too low finish. Sjaak was 3d good on him.11 were “OUT”.
15 m…. 360 km.; Good day for German pilot Jan Omsels who won the 1000 points for a speed of 104,31 km./h.
7 Flew over 100 km./h and 7 were “out”.
Club…..302 km.;Argentinian pilot Xavier Gaude won the one but last day’s and 1000 points. Good on him! In an LS 4 and speed 89,16 km./h.
8 From 48 were out.

What does this all mean for the overall scores when the last day starts!?
Standard class ;Sjaak is still on spot 1 with 5.420 points. Then 6 pilots who are between 148 [ Norbert] and 76 points [Mateusz Siodłoczek from Poland] behind Sjaak. Several Polish pilots are in the top, they will do their utmost best to win their home country!!
15 m; 5 pilots still in the race for the title;  on top Jan Omsels from Germany , then 2 Polish pilots and 2 French pilots. That will be a real “fight” as they ALL want to win and could win.
club;in this class for sure 5 title favorites ;2 Polish, 1 Danish and 1 Czech and Dutch pilot; points between 4.696 [Tim] and 4.856 [Tomasz.]
A very EXCITING last day, who keeps the nerves???

As shared by the organizers

Saturday July 21 LAST day, day 7 from 14;
Some news first; LONGER tasks for the last day. I Guess the weather from now on will be TOP there!!! What can you do???
Early starts at  10.45 Everything was moved forward with 30 minutes!
Great clouds and lift up to 1.700 m. over the field at 10 AM and later in the SE up to 2300 m.
Club class gate opened at 11.33, 15 m. at 11.59 and standard at 12.33 !!!!
Tactical games could start.

“Attention competitors!
Last grid order: Club,15m, Std RWY 29, Grid time 10:30; Briefing 9:30, First launches 10:45.”

Matthew shared this picture with the message :“Not sure they need a sniffer today… 1700m cu at 10am”
Finally it’s there the REAL Polish summer weather. HURRAH!!!! Organizers AND Pilots will be over the moon.

Standard…..431,68 km;

Mac and Matthew at the last briefing. End of the last day; daily winners!!!!
As shared by Schempp-Hirth

With VERY EARLY starts, in fact  straight after the opening of the “gate” at 12.34, Mac and Matthew both mainly flying in Australia, used these Aussie -weather-circumstances for a great race  and they won the day!!!!1000 and 999 points!!!
Great job from Mac who “raced” from 5 to 2 overall, his 2d WGC runner up spot, this time a REAL COUP !!! Nail biting job for Mac, as Sjaak was still not back, but he left more than 20 minutes later!!!
Sjaak was 7th for the day but that was still enough to be the new WORLD CHAMPION…… HURRAH!!!!!!!
After brother Baer ,who was WORLD CHAMPION in Chateauraux in 1978 AND Uvalde in 1991 [I was his TC then] there is another WGC champion in the family!!!!! Congratulations!!!!!
Great job as well for my friend Mac who moved up from 5 to 2!!!! Well done Mac!!!!!
Mateusz Siodłoczek , who was 2d is now 3d!!!!

FINAL SCORES;
1. Sjaak Selen in Discus 2A from the Netherlands ;6.309 and WORLD CHAMPION.
2. Mac Ichikawa in LS 8 from Japan; 6.288 and RUNNER up or VICE WORLD CHAMPION.
3. Mateusz Siodłoczek in Discus 2A from Poland ;6.235
In the top 10 as well for WGC certificates; 4. Dmitriy Timoshenko from Russia  ….5. Łukasz Błaszczyk  from Poland ….6. Norbert Alin Scarlat the new upcoming talent from Romania who wanted so badly to be in the top 10 and yes he did…. 7. Poul Kim Larsen from Denmark …8.  Richard Swanstrom from Sweden …9.Jim Lee from the USA …10 Dennis Huybreckx from Belgium.

A Happy Sjaak and his crew, partner and DUTCH WWGC glider pilot, Lilian. AND good old Baer Selen visited to congratulate his little brother. He knows the feeling!!!!
Congratulations to both.
As shared by  Wereld Kampioenschappen Zweefvliegen

15 m….505,52 km;
SO,……..would Sebastian be “lucky”  and extra motivated with the fact that he had to come back with a technical problem and started 15 minutes after the rest ?
He and Lucasz started at 12.41 and raced with 124 km./h over the track to come back and see and know they won the day!!Jan started much earlier at 12.08 and arrived back with 108 km./h.,  so not a real good day for him.
He dropped from 1 to 4 !!!
But ,as always I can nearly say ,SEBASTIAN IS THE NEW WORLD CHAMPION. His mate Lucasz runner up.
Christophe Ruche had a good day , being 7th for the day and he moved up from 5 to 3.
The  numbers 4 to 10 for the certificates!
4.Jan Omsels from Germany…5 Max Seiss from France…6 and 7 2 Finnish mates Kristian Roine and Harry Hirvola..8. Adam Woolley from Australia  ..9. Attie Jonker from South Africa …10.Daan Spuyt from Belgium GOOD ON HIM!!Daan was 4th for the day and jumped from 11 into the top 10.
Final scores;
1. Sebastian Kawa in ASG 29 from Poland;6.047.WORLD CHAMPION and I lost track of how many!!!!
2. Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 from Poland ;5.961.
3. Christophe Ruch from France in JS 3; 5. 837.

Happy after the last flight!
As shared by 35th FAI World Gliding Championships Ostrow, Poland

club….403,34 km.;
Another coup in this class. Long ago I met Brigitte from Denmark in Tocumwal. I told her I knew a nice young very talented glider pilot from her country, Rasmus,  who I met a several comps. ” He will get FAR” I said and she said ” he is my son!!!” He got far , look what happened now???

Rasmus, who has a family now, [wife and 2 young children], won the day with 107 km./h, BUT there were more rivals in the field. Tomasz and Jakub were on spot 1 and 2 overall and in their own country they did very well.Then there was Jaroslav from Czech Rep who had all possibilities.
Jaroslav was the daily runner up .  Rasmus jumped from 3 to 1, Jaroslav from 4 to 3 and Tomasz from 1 to 2.

New Danish WORLD CHAMPION.
As shared by the organizers.

THE CHAMPIONS  in CLUB, STANDARD and 15 m;

Here are all heroes who kept us busy together on one shot.

THANK YOU POLAND…. THANK YOU OSTROW …..THANK YOU ORGANIZERS…THANK YOU ALL PILOTS AND CREWS!!!!
As shared by the organizers.

AND
Where would we be without HELPERS!!!! AS always unmissable !!!!

35th FAI World Gliding Championships Ostrow, Poland

THE TEAM CUP was won by POLAND with 937.17 points. Runner up SWEDEN  with 888.77 points . Germany was 3d with 881,71.
4. Czech Rep..5. Australia..6.Russian Fed…7.France..8.Denmark..9.UK…10 Belgium.

An interesting WGC,the 10 minute start-rule is maybe NOT what the pilots need, a pity from the weather , otherwise it would have even been more exciting!!!
JOB WELL DONE OSTROW ORGANISATION!!!They have for years a lot of experience in organizing comps.
Cheers Ritz CU next Wednesday.

TO FINISH a proud moment for me as Dutch gliding enthusiast.

Wereld Kampioenschappen Zweefvliegen

35th FAI WGC for small ships at OSTROW;

Zielona Żyrafa – fotografia

THURSDAY JULY 12:
Some news first; The 5th day , with one day scrubbed and one day cancelled, brings us TASK 4.
AAT’s again. Not too big.  I saw on the European weather-news , that a small low still was annoying soaring in Poland.
After visiting castles and “therme ” , out landing fields and not to forget looking at the WORLD SOCCER games the show starts again with the 3d flyable day!!!! Though looking at the meteo I doubted it.
Team USA mentioned;”Looks like an iffy day here in Poland. T-Storms with hail are predicted this afternoon.”
After postponing and change of task to B task, the day had to be cancelled after trying hard, it’s a WGC you know!!!

Castles …………and BBQ with team UK and Germany looking at the soccer game UK-Croatia.
As shared by Liisa from Finland and team Germany.

Standard…2.15 AAT; partly scrubbed in the air
15 m…2 hour AAT; cancelled
club….2.30 AAT; first to be launched and that happened after 12. But the skies were dark!!! Some gliders returned to the field , others were low over the field.
Then St. Class was launched , but,……only half of the class, they must have seen ,it was ALL IN VAIN.
The organizers cancelled during launch/ in the air!
ANOTHER DAY, CANCELLED for all 3 classes.
3 Pictures shared by my Belgian mates, so you see the situation.

Ready to go,….or….maybe better not?

Friday ….July 13;
Some news first: Friday the thirteens!!!!!! For those who are superstitious ,not a good day, but the weather god’s might not believe in that and create finally some soaring weather.They did not, as I could see on the meteo.
So,…no briefing, no task so NO flying. Such a pity.

The Dutch team shared this picture with the “low” circling around Ostrow and Poland.

SATURDAY JULY 14 ….3d flying day on day 7:
Some news first; Yes the 14th of July so a very busy day in France where they remember the beginning of the French Revolution. I remember traffic jam from hours!!!BLACK SATURDAY !!!
BUT , that’s not interesting for Poland, interesting there is, that the day started with some careful sun shine ,a pretty tough wind and off course a lot of humidity after all the rain.
In the past the organizers always said; ” no long tasks after a lot of rain”. But maybe it is different in Poland. Though,….?
After postponing a few times the B task was handed out at the field for FLYING DAY 3!!!
For the first time ,they had designated start times to avoid gaggles , but looking at the finishes,  they just increased by it.
The S A team had a correct and easy to follow interpretation about the new 10min start interval rule ;
“This means there is a start interval every 10min and your start time is recorded as the start time of the interval, regardless of when you actually started within the 10min window (e.g. if your actual start time is 14h09min and the interval gate opened at 14h00 then your start time is recorded as 14h00 and you lose 9min).”
Adam worded it well;”An exciting end to the day after an exciting start, I think 37 racing gliders went through the start line together! I started 300′ below & a 1km behind the winning front runners & just couldn’t pick it back up with all the others around me. I used all my skills & abilities to keep things moving as best I could.
In the end after most pilots had finished, and after drizzle, there was a thunderstorm OVER the field with wind blowing up tents.
Quite some chances in the overall scores !!!
International Evening as well!!!

What happened?
standard…..345 km. changed in to B task 317 km;
Outlandings ; 36 from 47 finished. Winners too; young Romanian Norbert Alin Scarlat in the Discus 2A; speed 108.35 km./h. Dutch pilot Sjaak was 12th but keeps his overall -number- one-spot. Norbert is number 3 and in between Polish pilot Mateusz Siodłoczek, who was runner up for the day.

Saturdays TOPPER as shared by the organizers.

Matthew’s glider in a good field:
“And just like that the dream dies again. Very high winds made for strong streeting and the low nearby made it so unstable they slowly all cooked to storms.My new FLARM inexplicably stopped getting GPS signal and unsuccessfully trying to debug it saw me fall off the gaggle. Now just a bit behind the gaggle, the street we were on started to go from sucking to dumping and I didn’t make it cleanly around the turn before the heavy rain started. Managed to soar the rain front for a little bit but the cool outflow cut off the low level convection and I never got out of it. Found a very nice field (most crops still in and has been raining for 3 days), now awaiting retrieve for another try tomorrow”
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding

15 m…383 km; changed into B task 324 km;
Polish pilots Sebastian and Lucasz knew how to deal with the circumstances and raced over the 324 km with a speed of 133 km./h.!!!
But many more did as the first 32 flew over 100 km./h.
The first 20 flew between 120 and 132 km./h so with the equal starts, a big bunch of finishers.
32 Started AT THE SAME time;14.35!!!!!
36 Started 35 finished!!!
German Jan still leads overall, before 2 French and 2 Polish pilots and the scores are VERY close!!!!
2.550 for Jan and 2.532 for Sebastian on spot 4.

club…306 km; changed in to B task 268 km.;
2 Polish pilots both in SZD 55 Tomasz and Jakub won in this class and only 2 out-landers!!!!Less good day for the 2 Czech pilots loosing their overall spot 1 and 2 to Thomasz and Jakub. Good 3d overall Danish Rasmus.But only with 2 points difference with number 4 Lithuanian Andrej.

SATURDAY JULY 15 ;4th flying day on day 8 with an early start after the INTERNATIONAL Night.

“Attention competitors! Grid order: <-Club, Std, 15m, RWY 29, Grid time 10:30, Briefing 9:30, expected launches 10:45“

Some news first; The International event was “loved” by all as far as I can read. After a hectic day of flying and storms at arrival, mainly the ground crew must have worked hard, to organize all. GOOD on them!!!
A blue day and weak thermals. Again the 10 minute interval, to the dismay of nearly all pilots!!!
Around 2PM faces cleared, as clouds popped up in the East ,where they were from the direction West first, with the B task..

Standard….373 km;  changed in 296 km.
A great day for my Finnish mates; Juha Sorri [Discus 2b] won the 1000 points for this Sunday.
Sjaak was 17th and missed out on the lead by 5 points , as Mateusz Siodłoczek from Poland is at this stage number 1 overall.
44 started and 41 finished. A bad day for Louis Bouderlique  and Vitorio Pinni ; only 30 points, after 23 km!!!Louis dropped over the last day’s overall from 3 to 23 to 41!!! Such a pity for the current world champion!
Norbert just made it back but lost 400 points.

Outlandings in Poland can be fun. Love the pictures shared by the organizers.

Great fun with an uninvited but welcome guest.

15 m…384 km; Changed in 311 km.
Sebastian and Lucasz did it again!!!Starting together and finishing together for 920/922 points.
All 36 starters finished as well.

As shared by the organizers.

Club….338 km; changed in  231 km.
A 775- points -day won by German Wolli Beyer, [Libelle H301]  nowadays also NATIONAL coach of the German teams taking over from Uli Gmelin!!
Good day for the Dutch as well on spot 2 Tim in H304CZ and 4 Frank in St Cirrus .
On 3 Andrej in the ASW 20.
Ge Dale [UK] was 5th and on this day , New Zealand announced that Ge will be back in winter at Omarama.

With task 4 in each class the WGC is VALID NOW!!!!

MONDAY JULY 16; 5th flying day on day 9;Ready for the last week!!!!

as shared by the oganizers

Some news first:
The “bloody through is coming back“!!!!! was what I read first. Not good!!!
So I hoped for the last week, that the BEST Polish weather would be back, but it is not there but, it is here [32 dgr. C and great clouds], and  in France where they flew 7 out of 7 days during the club class nationals [see below] and in the Scandinavian countries, as well as in the UK [great 18m and 20 m NATIONALS flying every day 9 out of 9 day’s] .
Weather not too bad according to the official meteo as the forecast was for a base of 1000 m up to 2000 later. For 1.5 m to 3 m. lift , but also thunderstorms in the East and they might reach Ostrow!!!!
Safety ABOVE all, so B tasks. Still it was difficult to come back, after they first had better circumstances than predicted.
The SA team mentioned ;”Launching on championship day 5 has started. BIG storm approaching the airfield from the north-east. Its predicted to hit us at about 4pm. Guess where the last turnpoint is located for the day.”
Clearly,…..the difficulty was to come back home. Lot’s had to fly far out from track , some just returned home abandoning the task.

An unbelievable picture shared by the organizers from Anna Klopocka.
Zielona Żyrafa – fotografia

standard….397 km; changed in B task from 305 km; they were the lucky ones with the weather and lot’s came back in time!!!Even a 1000 points-day in this class with as winner AGAIN….Norbert Alin Scarlat. See picture above on July 14!!A pity he lost the 400 points yesterday!!
The Pommies did well as runner up [David Bromley] and number 3!![Howard Jones] and 2 Aussies Ray Stewart and Matthew Scutter as well. As you can read further they helped Adam to his first win in 15 m.
Sjaak was in and back on spot 1 overall.
Overall scores after 5 day’s are VERY close;
1.Sjaak with 4.464 points 2. Poul Kim Larsen from Denmark with 4.437 and 3 . Dmitriy Timoshenko from Russia with 4.413 points .

15 m…418 km; changed in B task from 318 km; It seems they had the toughest flight back home. But Aussie-Adam was first on the scores list.
About an hour later Radek Krejcirik was in as well. The ONLY 2 FINISHERS !!!!Both good juniors as well in the not so far away past.
Uys ,Attie, Sebastian  and UK pilot Tim Scott were close very close;missing out on less than 10 km.
As the SA team wrote; “Sadly for most it was just too far to get home. The jet engines roared to life 9km before the finish line, so a technical outlanding for Attie & Uys. ”
AND, pretty unusual,…..but very human,… Sebastian was out,…only 10 k. He can laugh about it; he only lost 51 points on the number 1.

“Guessing this storm will be here soon, another exciting end do the day coming up I suppose.”.! By Adam

Radek and Adam with a well deserved BEER and … a Sebastian-selfie, with a big smile, out but only 10 k [as shared by Sebastian]

ADAM;”The smiles say it all, unbelievable! Will remember this for many many moons. This day couldn’t have happened without Scutter & Rays help, truly instrumental in my 1st day win at a WGC – so thank you! Congratulations to Radek too on his shear determination in getting home, brilliant. Won’t be off cloud 9 for some time ”
By Adam  Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures 

Overall scores after 5 day’s are VERY close
1. “Sebastian [Poland] with 4.095 points , 2. Jan from Germany 4.074 and 3. Lucasz from Poland 4.037.!!!!!
Hopefully still a few days to go.

club…360 km; changed in B task from 280 km.; When I looked at 5.30 …..already 7 out-landings in this class. They had to fly far from track and lift became weaker and weaker.
At 5.36 PM 4 pilots were IN.
2 Former juniors ….Tim Kuijpers from Holland at 1 [moving up from 7 to 4 and 5 points behind Rasmus] and Rasmus Ørskov from Denmark on 4.
Tim was on the list of out landings as well, but that was not totally correct or wrong. He flew through the finish circle first and landed then about 3 k out, I guess in the or just out of the circle.
In between Tamas Ferenc in an LS 3 and Tomasz Rubaj [ASW 20] from Poland.
Only 4 finishers!!!!!
Quite a few were less than 10 km.out.
Overall scores after 5 day’s;
1. Tomasz Rubaj with 3931 points.2. Jakub Barszcz with 3867 and 3. Jaroslav Tomaňa with 3815 points.

Tim with his mates!
as shared by Wereld Kampioenschappen Zweefvliegen

The official news at 5.30 PM;“We are reporting outlandings. Many outlandings”
At 7 PM there were 50!!!
The organizers shared these pictures!!

Interesting landing between the hardworking farmers.

and
one of all daily winners, all of them very good juniors in the not too long past!!!! Excellent!!!!!

Heroes!!!

TUESDAY…JULY 17; RESTDAY…..
I share the SA news;
“The rain is back, so no flying today. This afternoon Uys will give a presentation on how they do flight testing at JS and then it is the Polish evening with local food and drink prepared by the organisation. With a good chance of more rain tomorrow there may be a bit of Polish vodka consumed tonight to lift the spirits.”
Official news;”There will be a rest day for all competitors . No task. No briefing. No live transmission. ”

—————

What happened more last week;
—-Adrian Henry became the new French champion in club class after flying 7 day’s out of 7 , with 2.142 km in total and 6.127 points. Best however with 6263 points was UK pilot Tim Arscott, but he could only be WINNER.
Benjamin Neglais, after a 10 years break in competition soaring,  did well as runner up with 6.098. Both flew St Cirrus with Maughmer winglets!!!
47 Participants , 4 were HC coming from the UK; Brian and Gill Spreckley, Tim Milner and the winning Tim.

As shared by AEROCLUB Issoudun….no wheel??????

AND

Great picture!!!
Shared by Aeroclub Issoudun

—————

—–54 pilots participated in Husbos in the 18 m and 2 seater class NATIONALS with excellent weather and great tasks !!!
36 Pilots in 18 m.and 17 teams in the 20 m. class.!!!!!
Gary Coppin in an ARCUS, was the CLEAR winner and National CHAMPION; 7.075 points.He won 4 from 9 tasks.
Runner up JG Arnold did well in a Duo Discus with 6.456 points.
On soaringspot the scores for 18 m were very unclear, so I checked with Roy what exactly was going on.
I straight away got an answer, which I will share as those results are important for many and now you can see them too.
“Lots of issues with scoring. In brief the latest version of SeeYou in conjunction with LX logger files was picking up lots of false engine runs from the jet equipped gliders (JS1, JS3, Ventus 2j), so lots of ‘land-outs’ scored. The only resolution was to shift scores back to an old version of See You, not compatible with Soaring Spot. Here are the full results:
http://comps.theglidingcentre.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1238&Itemid=1343

“So Pete Harvey the winner after great team flying practice with Andy Davis ready for the forthcoming Worlds.
Nine out of nine contest days and good days too. The last day 2000+m cloudbase and 3-5m climbs so very high speeds.”
Thanks Roy for the correct scores.He is travelling now to Czech Rep. “to crew for Steve Jones and Garry Coppin in 20m class. Garry with Andy Aveling easily won the 20m Class ,so Garry has proved he is far more than a ‘passenger’ when flying with Steve.”
Good luck for all of them!!!
Final scores in short;
1. Pete Harvey in JS 1 with  7.523 points.
2. Phil Jones in Ventus 3 with 7.470 points.
3. Andy Davis in JS 1 with 7.399 points.

——————

—–Soccer world championship in Russia; Final between Croatia and France, but personally I liked the games played by Belgium and the UK for bronze better with exciting soccer  won by Belgium.
France won the tournament. Sometimes a bit defensive /boring soccer, but you can win with it and that’s what it is all about.

—–Wimbledon; What games!!!!! Excellent was the word for the half final Nadal/ Djocovic and quarter final; Federer/Anderson .Less brilliant but still interesting the 2 great ” serve bombers” Anderson/Isner against each other .
In the end Novak , who played in total 15 hours ,won as Kevin Anderson [ he played 20 hours!!!]was “not home” in game 1 and 2 . In Game 3 he was his good self again, but 332 games over the tournament has NEVER been done before and in the 2 first sets that was visible.

—-Tour de France, first week; Cycling on high level with lot’s of possibilities for who will win in the end , less dominant cyclists, though Dumoulin and Froome will always be favorites. Another 2 weeks to go.This week MOUNTAINS!!!!

ENOUGH,…….next week or maybe SUNDAY more!!!
Cheers Ritz

To finish this great picture by Arne Martin Güettler from Norway;

“Passing by the peak. There were several mountain climbers making their way to the top this day too.”

OSTROW WIELKOPOLSKI  !!!!!

THEY HAVE STARTED!!!!As I told you already a while ago, I am not writing daily bulletins anymore ,too complicated ,that’s for those who are THERE, but of course I try to keep and eye on everything.
Here is the official site and the result site;

https://wgc2018.pl

www.soaringspot.com

As shared by TEAM USA.
“The pilots meeting was held in an old Soviet-era hangar on the field. Scrutineering has started and the first official practice day had EXCELLENT weather up to 3000 m.”
First out-landings as well, BUT on the day before…

It’s ALL HAPPENING!!!!!

Practice day 1; 404 with 126 km./h. km in standard class ,in mostly blue conditions. Great day!!
Official news;” We’ve got more than 100 pilots at the airfield. During the briefing they had an opportunity to taste delicious coffee by Woseba. Today’s grid was sponsored by Ignaszak – Autoryzowany Dealer VW Audi Skoda, who lent us a car for event needs. Thank you!”
Andy Lutz from Austria won in 15 m. by flying 363 km from the set 430.90. No finishers in 15 m. class
The Dutchies, Tim and Frank  in Club had a great result , both 1000 points for a speed of 109 km./h. over 358 km.Both  are strong pilots …Tim was already European Champion, Frank Dutch National Champion, so pilots to keep an eye on!!!
Practice day 2;around 300 km. again. 317 for standard and a good practice day for the Swedes, Richard Swanstrom and Jan-Ola Nordh, as they won! In 15 m class it was Max Seiss from France who won the day with 332 km and in Club Rasmus Ørskov from Denmark in ASW 20w.

Something different, a GREY glider,  though not TOO different as Blanik’s are grey as well. But looking good , have a look. Sebastian arrived with this Polish GP 15 JET at the WGC spot. On FB I read a comment by Swiss Chris;“15m but the aspect ratio is 29! Wing area only 7.7m2 (ASW27 9m2) but its empty weight is 60kg less.”

Gracious “toy”.  As shared by one of the Lucasses; this time Grabowski.
“The glider however won’t be competing in the event itself, at this early stage in development and testing process. It will perform demo self-launches and flights between competitions” – says GP Gliders representative.

Practice day 3; Great day for the UK in St class Howard Jones was the winner just ahead of Louis from France [116.20 for 116,18 km./h.]  CLOSE!!!!!. In 15 m. it was Polish pilot Lucasz [Diana 2w] and his mate Sebastian [ASG 29w]and in club AGAIN Rasmus from Denmark. Good on them!!!
Saturday opening and then the real thing started!!!!

Opening on Saturday with in the morning a safety briefing for all competitors at 10.00AM. Then before the briefing  “Professor Krzysztof Kubryński will present the new polish glider Diana-3. The glider will be delivered by Avionic company ”

PR picture as shared by the organizers on the official site.

Before briefing enough interest in the new polish Diana 3 !!
As shared by the organizers.

AND
“WGC2018 are officialy open“

Team Belgium and team France .
As shared by Belgian Gliding Team  and   Pôle France Planeur

   
team South Africa  and Team The Netherlands
As shared by South African Gliding Team
and Wereld Kampioenschappen Zweefvliegen

team USA as shared by  US Soaring Teams

Enough PRE-NEWS, we start now with
Day 1 ….daily news first; Tasks 3 x AAT. and a new airspace file !!!And ….a first and exact- on -time -first- launch at 11.20 LT!!!The weather was fore-casted to be less good than the day’s before with possibility of over-development maybe even in to CB’s , slightly lower temperatures and lift deteriorating  after 5 PM. It ended up an EXCELLENT day with huge speed and lift between 2.5 and later in the day 4 m./s
Before start the South African team shared their opinion.
“Interesting observation on the grid today showing the evolution of glider design through the years. The very first glider on the grid today is a Glasflugel Libelle and the very last glider on the grid a Jonker Sailplanes JS3.”

Not too bad skies by the way!!

The little but oh so good Libelle.
As shared by Team SA.

Day 1…standard; 2.30 AAT… ALL 47 pilots finished and ALL flew with a speed of over 100km./h!!!!!!!
There is always one the best,even with the smallest margin,  this time “good old ” Russian mate Dmitriy Timoshenko in a Discus A ;355 km in time 2.39 so 133.85 km./h. ,…..and very good as well, Dutch pilot Sjaak Selen ….yes younger brother from….as runner up.; 345 km. in 2.35 so 133.31 km./h. That’s close!!!
Number 3 was young, Norbert Scarlet from Romania. He works for Glide Omarama, where he flew the last 2 seasons. Good on him.
9 Times Discus in the top 10.
Day 1…15 m ; 2.30 AAT..One outlanding and also here HUGE SPEED.
Winner from day 1 Uys Jonker [S.A] in the JS 3; 358 km. in time 2.35 so a speed from 138,39 km./h!!!
Runner up Sebastian in ASG 29 [136 km./h] and the VENTUS 3 with Andy Lutz from Austria was 3.[135 km./h]
4 From the  6 top-spots are for JS 3’s.
Day 1…club ; 2.30 AAT..The first 6 places were for East European pilots; Jaroslav Tomaňa from Czech Rep in St Cirrus, won with 286 km. in time 2. so a speed of 107 km./h.39.
Runner up from Poland Tomasz Rubaj.[SZD 55]
On 7 spot Rasmus from Denmark who won 2 day’s in the official practice week.

Jonker Sailplanes was OF COURSE happy with the day-1-result , shared a great video,…but was also very honest;
“The JS3 SA team, Uys and Attie, was fortunate to be in a small fast gaggle, towed by multiple world champion Sebastian Kawa. According to Uys, Sebastian gave the rest a lesson in flying. “It was awesome to watch such talent.”
Is he in his way to the next title?? Got lost how many he has.

Day 1 is over, disappointment for some, happiness for others , lot’s of day’s to go;no worries !!!
Maybe a bit too short tasks today?

Day 2…Daily News first; first start at 11.15 sharp…CU’s in the air…club, standard and 15 m….AAT’s again , but longer!Some mentioned 3/4 m.s. Another pretty conservative weather forecast.Scattered rain and a chance of thunderstorms BUT, stronger thermals and a higher cloud base!!
The weather turned out MUCH better again.

   
Glider 74 , a St. Cirrus, from Frank is ready to go …….AND ………look at the skies as seen by
as shared by the Dutch team.                                  Kristian Roine from Finland.

Day 2..standard; 3.30 AAT… great day for the French…great speed 133 km./h…lot’s of kilometers 467 ..and flying together brought them, Louis Bouderlique and  Guillaume Girard, to 1000 and 994 points.
Matthew Scutter …Aussie Aussi Ausie ,oi oi oi.. was on spot 3 with 470 km in 3.33.
And on 4 ,Sjaak from Holland , who likes this type of weather and is on spot 1 overall now. But he knows there are many more day’s  to come.
The first 20 daily pilots are all within 100 points; between 901 and 1000. The first 10 spot’s are for the Discus and LS 8.
Day 2…15 m. ; 3.30 AAT…Also in this class the French , both in JS 3, did well on spot 2 and 3 with Christophe Ruch and Maximilian Seis. They flew 504 km. in time 3.42/43. so a speed of 135 km./h.
Good , better but BEST was Jan Omsels [Ventus 2ax] from Germany . He got the 1000 points 496 km. in time 3.36 so 137 km./h.
On spot 4 Sebastian and Lucasz from Poland.
On the last spot 37, Andy Lutz from Austria, a place he does n’t belong.
Day 2…Club ; 3.30 AAT… A Pegase 101A won the day with in it Darius Liaugaudas from Lithuania; 405 km in time 3.34 ;speed 113 km./h!!.
Frederic Hoyeau and Eric Bernard both from FRANCE [extra good day for the French in all classes!!!]and both in LS 4 were equally on spot 2  .The UK pilot Ge Dale had a great first leg with 135 km./h and for 80 km.  no turning .
Another day done!!!
Darius “moves” in a wheel chair so his first spot is EXTRA SPECIAL.

Winner in club class Darius with a bag full of coffee.
As shared by the organizers.

Day 3 …Daily news first: The weather is less good, so a tougher day. A small front is passing by with local rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Another type of flying, WHEN they fly!! 2.30 AAT’s for all.
The USA team is still optimistic.
“A change of pace as we grid on Runway 11 today. It is noticeably cooler this morning with high cirrus moving in but still some low cu forming near the airfield.”
Ready for launch at the grid  meant waiting… feeling tail- wind….postponing …waiting…. AND …in the rain!!!
As Adam mentioned : “Weather for ducks, still forever hopeful though.”
EVERYBODY stayed optimistic and hoping.

As shared by the Dutch team

Dutch team captain Ben with his son Frank, club class pilot and Sjaak , standard class, having a “meeting” in the car.

Day 3 …standard; 2.30 AAT.… Cancelled !
Day 3…15 m; 2.30 AAT… Scrubbed !
Day 3…club; 2.30 AAT… Neutralisiert!
NO TASK TODAY !!!!

As shared by the organizers.

After 2 day’s the overall scores are :
Standard;
1.Sjaak Selen [Holland ] 1.828…..2. Dmitriy Timoshenko [Russia] 1.787…3. Louis Bouderlique France] 1.744. All 3 fly DISCUS 2A.
15 m.:
1. Jan Omsels ,Ventus 2ax  [Germany] 1.795…2. Christophe Ruche,  JS 3 [France] 1.779….3. Max Seiss ,JS 3 [France] 1.771.
Club;
1. Jaroslav Tomaňa, St Cirrus [Czech Rep] 1.827….2. Ivan Novak , St Cirrus [Czech Rep] 1.773….3. Andrej Lebedev,  ASW 20 [Lithuania] 1.772. !!
More next week.

TODAY, Wednesday July 11, IS CANCELLED!!!!

———————

——- EUROGLIDE;
After the first 2 good to very good day’s the weather changed ; some had RAIN [wish we had some here for my VERY dry garden!!] so the speed was a bit “on hold” on day 3 and 4. Some were still in the Czech Rep. some nearly on the 3d TP in the far South of Germany above Zurich.But the fun is as BIG everywhere and for some the “bad luck” as well.
Pictures say it all.

As shared by Annemarie ,from  Krnov, Czech Republic    and     Volker……. he will be back in 2020.

On day 4 last Thursday, the ” Early birds ” were on the last leg number 4. As said huge differences between the different gliders  .
But thunderstorms were annoying though the place to wait it out, Stillberghof was for team TP one of the early birds ,not annoying at all. But you always want to continue!!!!

The Magistic EB 28  in the rain.
As shared by one of the pilots,Dirk

FRIDAY AFTERNOON; the “early” birds are home !!!! 88 km to go……, waiting 22 km to go…. it will happen today ….YES it happened; Glider  UFO with Max/Wolfert and Marc is HOME after 2350 km in 5 day’s!!!!!!
They are the first finishers.
They left with pretty good weather on Monday at noon, had a ball on Tuesday thunderstorms and heavy rain on Thursday and Friday afternoon they were home. Good on them.
Picture from the last kilometers…final glide to Terlet after “seeing” Venlo.
And,…LZ is in as well !!!!Luka Znidarsic from Slovenia,in a Ventus 2cxa FES  ,…..he will be back next year!!!

As shared by Frans Guise

the first finishers.

Volkert, Max and Marc with bubbles from Sander at Terlet. And Luca at Venlo with nice cold beer.
In a few weeks when everybody is back and the handicaps are applied, there will be a special evening some kind of reunion, to hand over the prizes.BUT the first prize is there for all…the fun they have had. It turns out for many a real addiction.
Picture courtesy Sander Terpstra from the THERMIEKBEL and picture from Venlo shared by Luka Artelj.

Last Saturday another 6 teams arrived home.Others still en route, a few “landed” at a field were they could follow the opening-briefing from the German Aerobatic Glider Nationals .
Some make it a real holiday and stay longer than necessary,why not???
AND,…don’t forget the drivers, racing behind the gliders. They drove between 2500 and over 3000 km.!!!
Chapeau!!!
Now it’s 2 years waiting again!!!!! Be strong boy’s and girls,……. time flies!!!!!

————-

——RAF; I looked at the BBC yesterday, for more than 2 hours to see the celebrations of ONE HUNDRED YEAR RAF Amazing, lot’s of tradition, history and emotions. A new RAF flag was presented and I never saw the UK queen so “smiley”, she really enjoyed herself specially with the extraordinary FLY PAST from over 100 aero-planes.
Starting with Chinooks  and finishing with the AMAZING Red Arrows. In between 7 “oldies”  like the Dakota, Hurricanes, Lancaster, Spitfires,  but also the brand-new F 35 , only arriving in the UK this June and now for the very first time presented in the air to the queen and the UK people.
Several Chinook’s wrote 100 in the air.
Of course the Dutch are still grateful to the allies ,who freed us in 1945 ,among them UK pilots as well.

——-Thailand; The world held their breath when 12 young soccer players were missing with their trainer in caves in Thailand. The news captivated the entire world. Yesterday they were freed and scuba divers and other helpers from all over the world contributed to this fabulous rescue.
Heroes,..that’s what they are!!!!!

Enough cheers Ritz

.

——-Final day’s from the French Nationals in open class;

Ready for day 5. VERY BLUE!!!
As shared by Arne.

Montluçon-Guéret in  France were they flew these open class Nationals, had another 312 km. day last Wednesday and the same winner as the day before; Laurens [Goudriaan] . It looks he has found his “French rhythm” .
As Laurens is not French ,the daily prize was for French female pilot Anne Ducarouge  [JS 1 C 18m Evo ]  just ahead of  Stéphane Aboulin in an ASH 25, both 88 km./h.

Anne as daily winner after task 4.
as shared by Pôle France Planeur

Task 5 on Thursday was a bit bigger; 422 km. Another HC pilot, this time Peter [Eriksen}  from Denmark, won the 1000 points. French pilots Francis Svobodny and Laurent Aboulin were runners up but remarkable slower [96,55 km./h for 89 and 86 km./h] . In points a bigger difference; 888 and 881. Reason. Peter “found the convergence”!!!!
Laurens was the first on the list of out-landers in his 18m. JS 3.[481points for the day] .So his “found rytm” was uset again.

day 5 winner, Francis as shared by Pôle France Planeur

Task 6 and the last but one day, with a 3 hour AAT and the French showed they know the circumstances in their own country pretty well.Philippe [  de Péchy ] won the 1000 points; 346 km. in exact 3 hours, Denis [Guerin] the 924 and Sylvain [Gerbaud] the 891,… equal points with Arne.
The scores were very close.By winning this day Philippe passed Denis, who was first every day till now. And by …..exactly 50 points.On spot 3 Francis Svobodny, but in between 2 HC Danish pilots Arne and Peter.
BUT ,…still ONE day to go, so a lot was still possible!!!. They all would go for “the win!!!”

Happie chappies Arne and day 6 winner Philippe!!
as shared by Arne.

Task 7 was the cherry on the cake with a set 445.96 km. task.
What happened? Laurent Aboulin WON!!!  Speed ; 105 km./h in the ARCUS T. Overall he was 7th.
Stephane Aboulin was runner up [ 5th overall] and Philippe was 3d that says it all, he is the NEW FRENCH OPEN CLASS CHAMPION in a  21 m. JS 1 C. [6.534]
Denis [6.443]  in the same glider was 5th for the day but remains vice champion!!!
And Francis stayed on 3 for the French Nationals[5.934] !!! In between HC pilot Peter [6.116]Good on him.
A last word from Arne;
“A great competition ended with old and new friends. I spoiled my overall 3rd place and 1.st place in the 18 class by pushing too hard on a otherwise strong day as we pushed over the forests to the north where it suddenly got very weak. The jet worked just fine and took me to the nearest 2m/s to 2.300m…. My mistake and nothing else. But what great training for the Worlds in 3 weeks.”

Well done, great comps, congrat’s to ALL.

The champion ,vice champion and number 3 and HC pilot Peter Eriksen .
As shared by Philippe .

—————-

——Final day’s from the Spanish Nationals;
Another small task in La Cerdanya on Wednesday. 2 hour AAT for open, 1.45 AAT for 15 m. and a set task from 122 km. for club. At least they flew!!!
Robert Pratt won in open class 256 km in time 2.02. Lukasz Wojcik in the Diana 3 was runner up. Total points in this class after 4 tasks 2693  for Robert,… that say’s enough about the weather.
They did not fly on the next 2 day’s , a pity as Spain normally ALWAYS has good weather.
In 15 m there are 4 pilots with over 2000 points after 5 tasks and in club the overall score after 5 day’s was 1.236 points.
Open had one reasonable good last day with 302 km. won by Serge Leclercq in the Nimbus 4DM. This made him the new Spanish champion in Open Class with 3.402 points.
Robert who is French had 3.555 points so he was the winner.
In the end 5 out of 8 day’s as the last day [Saturday] had better weather and showed a 1.45 AAT for club, 280 km for 15 m and 335 for open.
4 From 12 finished in open, some pretty close after 287 km .

In Club Frederic Crespo Nomen won in an ASK 21; 1,236 points.
In 15 m. Jorge Arias Riera is the new champion with 2.914 points. Italian pilot Aldo Cernezzi [DG 600] was runner up with 2.856 just a tad better , 10 points, as the vice champion Aldo Rodriguez [ASW 20]

—————-

———USA;|
43 from the 50 flights on page 1 from the world wide OLC on June 26, were for pilots flying in the USA.
From Parowan 5 over 1000 km flights one in an LS 6!!! One in an ASH 26 E from 942 km. The pilot , Russ Owens,  attempted and set a 1.040 km flight but, “it was getting too late to attempt final turnpoint.”
Best speed by Keith Essex with 150 km./h  over 1.183,71

Paul Remde who flew at that moment in Nephi in Utah ,where the 2018 Sports Class Nationals took place shared the next news:
“We flew further East into the “Martian landscape” than I’ve ever been before. it was spectacularly beautiful, but we were glad to be at between 15,000 and 17,000 feet for most of that long leg of the flight. The cumulus clouds looked great and were reliable indicators of where to find thermals. We flew about 392 miles (630 km) and our contest task speed was 85 mph (my best). The fastest pilot and glider flew 105 mph! We continue to have a blast in one of the world’s best soaring locations. 2 more flying days to go.”

Great picture shared by Paul Remde.

24 Pilots participated in Nephi , a desert area, with mostly great conditions and they started their day 1 on June 19 with Gary Ittner [ Discus 2A] as winner; 415 km. with a speed of 93,88 km./h.
Day 2 was BLUE with light wind and Bill Gawthrop in the JS 1 C/18 m. dealt best with the circumstances; 428,78 km. with a speed of 91,38 km./h.
Day 3 was for David Leonard in the 15m ASG 29; 599 km. with a speed of 136,92 km./h.
Day 4 was described by Bruno from glider B4, in his daily bulletin , as ;”Today proved that Nephi is a pure mountain site when the lift doesn’t go up very high and its blue.  We had moderate winds from the northwest so we knew we would be able to use the western faces of the mountains to get around course.”
Another winner on day 4…… Bruno Vassel in the ASW 27 with call sign B4. Not only a good writer but a good pilot too.
Day 5 according to Bruno was “ windy, blue, clouds, fun, scary, low and high all in ONE flight.” AND ,…again another daily winner , this time young  Daniel Sazhin with an LS 3/ 15m !!!! He flew 563 km. with a speed of 102 km./h.
After 5 days there was a difference from TWO points between Gary and Daniel; 4636 and 4634 !!!
Sunday was a restday!!
Day 6;Monday June 25 started with another good day as Bruno mentioned;”with booming thermals going well up into the flight levels. ” The new week started also with another winner; Michael Marshall. Not a very good day for Gary as being 4th for the day moved him from 1 to 2, whilst Daniel with his daily runner-up-spot, was now ONE overall.
Daniel flew 428 km. with a speed of 121,83 km./h. In that LS 3!!
Day 7; Tuesday , June 26…you guessed it already another winner this time John Cochrane, in the ASH 31 MI. Gary dropped from 2 to 4 by being 19th for the day. Daniel was again runner up and still 1 overall.  He flew with a speed of 144 km./h over 645 km.
David had a good run and moved up from 4 to 2 !! Bill Gawthrop flew 809 km. that day with a speed of 145 km./h ”
His OLC comment for the day; “fast day over the desert. Good strong cu”
Day 8; With only 2 day’s to go !!!!
Bruno mentioned;”The day was predicted to have clouds and good lift in the northeast quadrant of our tasking area of the high Uinta Mountains.  The winds would be higher but manageable out of the south.  Many pilots were concerned about the aggressive task call, but our weather man stood by the models and said there would be good lift up high, a convergence line on our third leg going down south over mars landscape, and a good tailwind headed home.

     

Day 9; Thursday LAST day of the USA Sports Class Nationals!!!BUT NO CONTEST DAY cancelled on the grid.
So Daniel won in his [borrowed… from the Aero Club Albatross] LS 3, Gary was runner up and though David had a less good last day , being 15th he was 3d, so congratulations to them and THANK you to Bruno who finished overall as number 5 , for his fabulous wrap up’s from the day’s. Loved them!!!!!! I noticed more about Bruno. “Mr. Organization Extraordinaire…. Bruno Vassel” is what they mention him. Busy guy!!!

Daniel surrounded by Gary and David. “Youth ” in the middle”
As shared by the SSA.

Bruno Vassel who really has a nice style of writing and “the party is over  ” but the dinner party is on.
As shared by the SSA
all pictures courtesy Leigh [Zimmermann].

————–

——-Not far from where live, is the popular and lovely place Balen in Belgium. The Keiheuvel is the well known flying spot for power planes and gliders.

SUPERB weather! The Keiheuvel in Belgium as seen by Eddy.

On Thursday they had superb weather and Tijl [yes Schmelzer] and Wim Akkermans flew a 1000 from there in the Ventus 2ct/18m  and ASG 29 E/18 m. GREAT JOB guy’s!!! Also over 600 and 700 flights. St Hubert , more the Frecnh airfield in Belgium had great weather too with flights over 600 km .In Belgium it is even more difficult to fly a 1000 due to complicated for bidden zones, even more difficult than from Holland. So compliments!!!!
They flew partly, “on steam” to Germany and raced there over a 358 km.leg  and some shorter ones, over 1000 km!!!
From Terlet in Holland Jeroen [Koole] flew in a Nimbus 4DT 853 km.
Jeppe mentioned;”600km flight from the southwest to the northeast of Holland. 
Best cumulus day of 2018 by far!”
We had a great summer week with up and just over 30 dgr. C. Not bad!!!

——–EUROGLIDE 2018;
started with a briefing for all on Sunday evening. On Monday they could leave “like tigers out of a cage”  where they had to stay for 2 years!!!MORE than ready they all were!!!

Venlo…briefing room…
As shared by Max,Leo and Bart.

AND THEN,….it was Monday morning, after 2 years of waiting they left around noon, [ between 12.41 and 13 .50, with blue skies around 29 dgr. C and a tough N Easterly wind, for 2,354.46 km . But fabulous weather for some as they reached TP 1, South  of Rostock in the NE of Germany..

Ready to go as seen by Patrick Hoeve, who is part of TEAM DL.

There are 13 teams in pure gliders from 4 different countries. Each team has between 1 to 8 people.
Another group are the gliders with low turbo’s. There are 18 mostly Duo Discus’.
Another group with high turbo’s, as Nimbus 3/4 and ASH 25 and Ventus. Baer Selen, double world champion flies in this class with an  ASW-28/18E.
The last group are  the selflauncher-teams;29 In this group.
All gliders have their own  handicap.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!!! I know they are going to have a ball!!!!!
Day 1 was for the best pilot’s a visit to TP 1 so around 500 k. Day 2 was longer and qua weather even better. Some were at 2500 m with up to 6 m. p.s. lift in the Southern part of Germany on the way to Ostrava in the Czech Rep!!Over 750 for some even more .
The OLC say’s; Max  and Bart from the Amsterdamse in the ARCUS  909 KM !!!! Thom from Venlo/Eindhoven;894 km. in the ANTARES, Vincent from my club de ZES flew 765 in the DG 800S/18 m. and the Duo Discus from the Gelderse with Maurice and Mark;745 km.
Could they be back today?????? After they left on Monday at noon for 2.354 km.???????!!!!!!!

You can read the daily reports on www.euroglide.nl

Friends from Eindhoven “en route” and what do you want more “accommodation and glider on ONE spot.
as shared by Frouwke and Huib Zwart.

—————

———The 35th FAI WGC in Ostrow in Poland starts with unofficial practice days today!! The USA was early and made their camp ready for the pilots who arrived over the weekend. A lot of pilot’s drove through Europe either with their own glider from their own country or with a borrowed car and trailer with “glider inside”.
It’s all happening soon. It’s too complicated to write from home , so “only” updates from important things.
More teams were early as the Argentinian, USA and Danish pilots  flew already before the weekend.

As shared by the WGC organizers.

——- WGC’s;
Whilst Laurens flies here and there in Europe,as good practice, [ he was 7th in France ] , Oscar has arrived in Hosin, their 35 th WGC for the flapped gliders is in about 3 weeks.
Jonker Sailplanes mentioned:
“The European chapter of WGC2018 started. Attie and Bossie arrived first at Hosin, and started offloading the JS3s going to Poland. Tomorrow the Hosin-Ostrow leg starts.”

Aussie team Adam and Dylan have arrived in Germany and got the Ventus 3 for Adam, which he flies at both comps so in Ostrow and in Hosin. Adam was very grateful to Benjamin [Negalis] working for Schempp-Hirth who prepared the glider!!!!

‘The journey is still continuing, effectively without rest. Dylan & I found ourselves picking up the company Ventus & are now enroute to Ostrow! 

This trip & timing couldn’t have happened without a huge thanks to Jitka & Petr of CZE, who drove to MUC last night to deliver the car after I missed my connections. Forever grateful, how good is the gliding community?!

——————-

And to finish… I could finally read my digital GLIDING INTERNATIONAL again. All kinds of good news as always.
—Bruce Taylor shares his Cross country techniques with the readers. ” Gliding efficiently is as much an art form as it is a science”!very interesting.
–“Sebastian Kawa explores the Pyrenees”…..The next G.P. final , organised for June 2019 from the Aeroclub
La Cerdanya is in the Eastern Pyrenees. Good reading.
Sebastian starts with :”Gliding Grand Prix have become the most sophisticated form of any gliding competition.”
–the 40thiest GPS anniversary , but the under tone …..unit’s and software program’s are becoming too expensive.
–explaining how winglet’s really work..”They are not as new as you might think”.
–lot’s of other news we all should know….enjoy the JULY-AUGUST ISSUE of Gliding International!

More next week, hot here, feels as if I am in Australia, which is GOOD.
Unofficial training , with fabulous weather, is over now in Ostrow…. it’s about to begin……. the 35th WGC.
HUGE EVENT for our Glider World.

As shared by the organizers.
cheers Ritz

Last Thursday, our astronomical summer started and we had on this side of the world the longest day.
Last Wednesday we had 28 dgr.C.,  a day later only 18.!!!But fabulous clouds and a strong wind from the NW bringing in some “polair” air  and through the years I found out, that’s  great for soaring; in the evening I looked for long goal flights but, though it was the longest day …for thermals it was not long enough here in Holland due to overcast.
John Williams however, flying from Kinross in Scotland flew 829 km. with some wave just under 3000 m. MSL.[Antares 20]BUT,…..a some more pilots “used” the air and flew far…
What about Andy [Aveling] and Garry [Coppin] flying their ARCUS T over 1.135 km. from Lasham and Roy [Pentecost] in the ASG 29 E, also from Lasham 750 km.
Daan [Spruyt] from Belgium  with 795 km. in the ASW 27 and then NOT using our European air ,but USA clouds just over 1000 km for Keith Essex [ASG 32 MI] from Minden [151 km./h] and John Good flying from Montrose with a mate in the ARCUS M; 147 km./h..

Later I found out that more UK pilots did well. They use their own NATIONAL LADDER to share their flights;
“British Gliding Team members topped the scores on Thursday 21st – Russell Cheetham’s awesome 1003k at 107kph for 6562 points, and on Friday 22nd – Liz Sparrow flying 613k in her Standard Cirrus at 87kph for 5905 points closely followed by Finn Sleigh and the Libelle at 82kph for 5819. Epic days, epic flights!”

——————

VARESE….Italian SGP;

Interesting start,….shared by the organizers.

It was a cloudy morning last Wednesday in Varese when I left you and a lovely evening with a BBQ.
What happened that day?
race 4; It turned out a French day with Diedier [Hauss] and Gilles [Navas] on top for the 10 and 8 points. Peter was 3d and still leads after 4 days with 34 points.
All finished in one big gaggle/bunch; the first 8 between 117 km./h as best and 113 km/h.
” It was a real race all the time ” is what Didier mentioned with a big smile straight after the flight, when Margo [Acquaderni and A[eroclub] C[lub] A[dele] O[ rsi] President]] interviewed him “we were very tight all the time. How I managed to win in the end I don’t know , I made a better final glide, began more direct and earlier”
Gilles is for the first time in Varese. He found the flight difficult, he struggled quite a lot. Just before the finish he had “2.7 m “and was able to catch the rest.On the last 4 km,he passed Peter with higher speed, but was not able to catch Didier.

Looks good!!!!!
As shared by the organizers.

Race 5; “Weather situation is quite weak, we need 27 C° to get thermals but if the temperatures rises to much there is a very high risk of thunderstorms, that’s why the task setter has decided to give 193,3 km task in the pedemont again.Takes off at 13:30”
“After a wonderful BBQ we are here again ready to start day 5 !
A thunderstorm passed last night and the airmass looks still quite humid.”
Messages from Thursday morning, so another day in Varese-paradise.
I was waiting for Mike [Young] to step up the podium and that happened today!!Winner with 10 points, in the VENTUS 3G  with a speed of 104.8 km./h. Just a tad faster as Peter with 104.6; the difference for such a small margin is 2 points.
Mike was upfront all the way and “felt”  the racers behind him. He kept pushing and pushing but then,…had to find a thermal at 750 m. He praised the VENTUS 3, ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, as even on low height it helps you out. He saw the others coming closer and closer but  just made it in first on the correct finish height.From 15 Tilo was 13th [ including 43 sec penalty for finishing a bit too low] , so not such a good day for him.

Day 5 winners, Mike, Peter and Gilles
As shared by the organizers.

Race ; CANCELLED.

as shared by the organizers

Windy day  in Varese !But they tried HARD !!!!
One but last race! On top Peter with 42 points followed by Thomas with 34 and a max of 21 points in 2 day’s to gain.

“At the briefing the meteo man showed that the wind situation for the flight is very nice, even if a bit different from usual.
The wind on the ground has increased from the East and makes take off very difficult at the moment.”

The organizers shared this map/picture to show the wind.

Gliders at the back of the grid/grass, ready for the launch at 1 PM..
As shared by the organizers.

“Ready to take off the wind started blowing from the wrong side again, so the director decided to cancel the day.”

Last day race 6;

as shared by the organizers.

Last race for the Varese QGP.
“After the strong north easterly wind that forbid yesterday take off, today we expect good weather for the final shot that will be played by our competitors.“

Great looking last day in Varese.
As shared by the organizers.

Race 6 started at 1.35 PM.
You would not expect big changes in the top. But spot 3 changed “hands” .
How come ?
Gilles won the last day….11 points in the pocket!!!!! AND…he went up from 20 to 31 points, meaning 3d place!!!
Gilles found the first leg , direction East,difficult, Peter even more difficult , he got in deep shit, got low , made some strategical mistakes but got the gaggle again and finished 5th for the day.
After 6 races Peter was the clear winner with 42 points. Well done!!!
Runner up for the last day and the SGP….Thomas with 42 points. Mike who had 20 points, as had Gilles, got 7 for the last day, just not enough to be on the podium.27 points and Didier had 28!!!
So,………Peter and Thomas can book a trip to Cerdanya for the 9th world final in Spain.[1 Jun-8 Jun, 2019]

The Varese toppers/heroes,  both pilots and organizers.
Shared by the organizers.

In 2 weeks 12 pilots fly to be the best in the next QSGP in  Germany in Musbach among them 1 Polish and 1 French pilot and Laurens [Goudriaan from South Africa] in a JS 3.

—————-

Swiss Nationals. 7/8 day’s out of 9 !!!
The Swiss Nationals were flown between June 16 and 24 , with 39 competitors in 2 classes, mixed 15 m and mixed open.
They had pretty good weather and the mixed open pilots flew every day with strong [368 and 410 km.]  tasks.
17 in this class and on day 1 only 5 of them flew the 315km. set task and that straight away had an impact. Gabriel Rossier [ ASH 31 Mi/21m] won the day and was the best on 3 other day’s as well.” In ” at day 1 as well; Thomas Sütterlin in ASH 25 EB 28 and Yves Gerster in a DG 400/17m.
The out-landers lost 500 points on this day and after 7/8 out of 9 day’s, the last day was cancelled]  the 3 best from day 1 were in the final top 3; 1. Gabriel with 5,329…2. Yves with 5,219…3. Thomas with 4,720.

In 15 m. David Leemann won day 1 in an LS 8. Day 2 and the last day were cancelled in this class . He also won task 5 [255 km.] and 6 [329 km.]  AND won the comps so he was CHAMPION in the open 15m class with 5,084 points.
Only 2 pilots could stay close; Peter Keller. He won task 7 and was overall runner up with 4,888 points.
German pilot Lukas Blattmann [LS 8A]  was 3d with 4,790 points.He won the last flying day ,1000 points, and flew during a 3.45 AAT a distance from 387.90 km. in time 3.45,53 !!!! Good on him.

——————

EUROGLIDE:

“Euroglide is the biennial gliding race over more than 2000 kilometres through Europe, organised by the Venlo Eindhoven aero club in Venlo, The Netherlands.”
Starting on Monday July 2 till July 13. But no worries if you are back in 3 or 4 day’s!!!This year’s race is around 2350 km.
Last preparations in full swing. With a race like this the preparations and PRE-FUN- are as important. Will keep you informed.

EG 2018 maps as shared by Bas.

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Next week more about the Spanish [3 classes,…. club ,15 m and open from La Cerdanya] ] and the French Nationals for 18 m ./ open class.Both started this weekend [23 and 24 ]and continue till the 30thiest!!
The French Nationals had already 3 day’s out of 3.
16 Pilots plus 3 HC pilots fly from Montluçon-Guéret; Arne and Peter from Denmark and Laurens from South Africa.
Arne won day 1 with 326 km.  and only 6 finishers.For the French Nationals spot 1 was for Denis Guerin, followed by Philippe de Péchy and Stéphane Aboulin.
Peter [ASG 29 /18 m] won day 2 with 343 km.,  so the Danish pilots are doing VERY well in France. Though Arne lost 315 points by being 10th.
By the way Laurens [JS 3 /18 m] was runner up , so both HC. Looking for the Nationals Gerard Lherm was the best , followed by Laurent Aboulin and Sylvain Gerbaud.
Day 3  yesterday, ,with a 3 hour AAT,  was a prey for Laurens who flew 246 km in time 2.57,19. Denis won the day for the French Nationals with 263 km in time  3.08. Lherm had a bad day in the EB 29D; outlanding after 168 km. Guess virtual.
More next week!!

Arne’s  18 m. JS 3 as shared by him.

La Cerdanya has till now 3 out of 4 days for all 3 classes.
In club all tasks under 200 km and in 15 m. 3 AAT’s from 2.15  and 2x 1.45 .Frederic Crespo Nomen leads after 3 day’s in an ASK 21 and a total of 944 points!!!!! That say’a lot.
In 15 m. 2 from 3 day’s have been won by Aldo Rodriguez. In this class 4 Spanish and 5 HC pilots.
Open 2.45 and 2x 2 hour AAT’s. So not yet the real Spanish soaring conditions.Also here HC “foreigners” ,and one of them Robert Pratt from France in ASG 29 , won day 1.
Yesterday 3 HC pilots in the top; Lukasz Wojcik [Poland] in the Diana 3 , Gintas Zube [Lithuania] in the ASG 29 and Robert. Robert leads overall , after 3 day’s with 100 points over Spanish pilot Serge LECLERCQ in the Nimbus 4.
The latest next week.

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AND looking forward to the 35th FAI World Gliding Championships in Club, Standard and 15-metre classes. Championships begin on 7th July at 19:00 in Ostrów Wielkopolski. The contest will take place until 22th July.
29 Countries participate with 49 in Club class among them the current WORLD CHAMPION Jan Rothardt from Germany.
42 In 15 m. ,with title-defender Sebastian Kawa in GP-15 and 47 in Standard class among them Louis Bouderlique who defends his title.

Cheers Ritz

To finish a great picture by Sophie Mahieu shared by L’album de Mamz’ailes SoFi and Planeur Glider

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Fabulous colors from the Pic [top of the- ]  de Morgon and the lac [Lake of-]de Serre-Ponçon.
Courtesy Sophie Mahieu.