A bit of this….a bit of that!

Alphen aan den Rijn       March 30 2008

They were n’t wrong with their weather prediction last weekend here in Holland. We GOT the snow with EASTER!!!!!!! And…it was interesting to see how lots of people suffered from just 5 cm of snow on the ground [on some places], snow and hail storms and just when these showers happened no view, just a grey mass!!
On tuesday morning we had “our -morning-spits”, which means heavy traffic after a weekend. A disaster for the cardrivers but just a fantastic day  for those who make statistics, as the morning traffic jam was 888 km that morning!!
You should be in it!!!
To make it even worse with the new navigation toys as Tom Tom , they found out that, when they were not only looking at the jam on the highways but also at the secundary roads “we” had 1250 km of traffic jam. Hurray for Holland!
Only one day in 1999 was worse with nearly 1000 km. in the morning.
Am I glad I just have to drive 5 minutes to the gallery !
But the good news is , that this was the last twitch of winter!

Enough of the weather, though last weekend between the showers they managed to fly in Eindhoven [Southern part of Holland-Phillips_PSV ]on Easter sunday. They made a few starts I heard from Peter and even reached 1600 m., but they were more or less frozen!

George , no not Lee, but my ex Schuit,mentioned that my guess of 2 world titles was not correct. Thanks!
So…George Lee won 3 titles in open class;
first one in 1976 in Rayskala in Finland, in open class in an ASW 17
second  one in 1978 in Chatauraux in France in an ASW 17 and
third one in 1981 in Paderborn Germany, in a nimbus 3.
Lee flew in those years for Great Brittain,but lives now in Australia and as I mentioned, has his own airfield with his name!He flies for fun, no “hot-shot-worldcomps for him anymore.

Talking about “hotshots”. I was wondering last time, if there would be a pilot to be the successor for Ingo Renner, being  still now, the one and only 4 times worldchampion. And….I “found” one. It is just my very own expectation, but I reckon Michael Sommer has it in him, to do so. He won already last comps in Sweden, is a potential winner in Luesse [advantage of playing at home, though he lives at the moment in Melbourne] .Of course he still HAS to win there, but won the pre-worlds for whatever that counts. 
He is also young enough to fly more world comps.He  has the guts, ambition  and willpower to win. Another point is that Tassilo Bode,  another top pilot from Germany will fly with him in open class and both will push each other to big heights. My expectation!We will see in  the future if I am correct.

Grietje and Francesco with little Frank, have closed the doors from their Corowa -gliding-operations, to open them in the next season again. Enough work for them here in Holland too, as the containers have to be unloaded and the preparations for the containers for the next season , have to be made.
Only minor point in this for them very busy and succesfull season is,  that they did not get the possibility to organize the bid for the 2012 world comps. They were really hoping to do so, but the place to make the bid is Narromine. With Beryll Hartley there, I am , to be honest , not surprised that they got it. IF Narromine gets the honour , and IF I am still in good health and IF I can afford it, I will be there!!!!

Some nice [wave] flights over the mountain ridges last week in the USA. On March 25 a flight was made from Minden {Nevada } from 1400 km in an ASW 17 , with an  interesting speed of ; 154,10 km/h.One day later good old Jim Payne, flew also an O&R [ with Minden-Truckee as turnpoint in the N]this time 1726 km.His speed was;150 km p/h. His very interesting comment , if you are interested in this flight , can be read in the information  on the OLC site.You can as well look there, at his flight and height.

If you are interested in vintage planes. In Tocumwal Mike Burns and his team have nearly finished a CONDOR. The [Japanese] owners will be there for the first flight , scheduled on April 29.Ingo Renner has been involved in this project.

That’s it for now. Enjoy your week and I will be back next sunday.

Cheers Ritz

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