Alphen aan den Rijn March 2 2008
Yesterday the metereological spring has started here, so autumn has started in Australia. It might have looked sunny on this first spring day here in Holland, but we had a terrible storm and at 8 in the morning on saturday, I was trying to save my fence from falling down over my just sprouting plants in the garden. Not a good idea with gusting winds up to 119 km p/h. My neighbor saw me, he was also the one who “built” the fence and rushed out to help. One part was broken, so he took that part off and another part , to let the wind play. What violence wind can be!!!!So more autumn here then spring at this moment.
While in OZ Terry Bellair , who really had an amazing good year, still flew a 569 km flight from Raywood.For me he was the best Australian OLC pilot this year !
Italy:
In Rome the IGC members had their annual meeting. Last year when I was in Rieti, Marina Galetto was already very busy to organize things as accomodation etc.In the end they had some problems with the place for the meeting room , but all ended well in the Crowne-Plaza-Rome St Petershotel. The plenary meeting was held between febr 29 and March 1 2008.
The IGC is responsable for FAI Gliding activities in particular World Records and International Competitions with the excemption of glider aerobatics.
Looking forward to the results. You can find the news on the IGC site.
Australia;
The Murray Border Flying Club , a social club situated at the airfield of Tocumwal has a brand new site. With Ingo Renner as their CFI, they fly mostly in the weekends, have once in a month a meeting with a BBQ and if you are interested in their news you can find them on, www.mbfc.org.au
The more commercial club from former Sportavia CFI Eddie Madden is very busy to built up their new business and for their news you can look at www.sportaviation.com.au Next season they will be ready to go, though they had quite some guests already this season and there are still some Japanese pilots!!
Corowa has flown 500.000 km this season, I mean of course the pilots flying over there and ended as runner- up in the race for best airfield in the world, according to the OLC information. For sure they were the best in Australia. Good friends Pepe and Roger were the last flight to leave the airfield, flying the duo discus back to its home field, Benalla.
Bitterwasser [NA] was the best field and they claim 147 1000 km. flights!! and nearly 600.000 km of flying by their pilots.Gariep Dam[SA] was a good 3d.
End of this month we will know who are the participants of both world comps, as the deadline of the final entries is set on March 31 2008 for both comps in Italy and Germany. The Dutch pilots are already in full training to be “just good”. Baer Selen, 2 times world champion and Ronald Termaat , the current European champion are heavily involved in this.
Well hopefully your gliders are ready , or nearly ready for a European season. When the weather co-operates ,we surely will have a busy soaring season. I try to keep an eye on “things”. For all the real hot news you can of course see the different sites and read the gliding magazines, I just try to inform you on a low-key-base, but hopefully in a pleasant way about what’s going on as far as I see , read or hear.
Ritz