Australia’s soaring-future looks bright!

” April doet wat ie wil ” is a saying in Holland and means as much as April does what it wants to do. It’s all about the weather. Last night we had after the great early sunshine ,…..MINUS 7 in the S of Holland and the fruit farmers had to take extra measures as heaters between the cherry trees and water over the pear –and apple- trees. We went from 25 to 8 dgr. but luckily the Easter weekend will be around 17/18 dgr C. again, which is good for the million guests we expect for that weekend in Holland.

Did I tell you that after Obama visited the Night watch in the Rijksmuseum NOT 250 people from the USA ,but 750 PER week, announce their arrival, to see what he saw. That’s PR!!!!

Several of my friends are practicing in, or on the road to ….Nitra for the Pribina Cup. The opening briefing will be on Saturday at 10 AM . Contest flying from Saturday the 19th till Saturday the 26th and the farewell party on the evening of the 26th at 8PM. Prize giving , same evening at 9 PM. The weather looks promising, but if necessary they have a reserve day at the 27th.

One of my Finish mates on his way to; Martti Sucksdorff.

The last couple of weeks I have written about the fabulous future from the Australian Air Force Cadets in their brand new gliders.
Tom and Jane shared some pictures from the opening of the new hangar in Bathurst. Of course they were there as well.

Courtesy Jane and Tom Gilbert ; the 2d DG 1001Club glider proud on display.

A $5 million facility built at the Bathurst Aerodrome for Australian Air Force Cadets was officially opened last week.
The Air Force has built the center as part of their strong commitment to youth development.
Cadets aged between 13 and 20 years of age will travel from all over Australia to participate in weekend and school holiday aviation camps in Bathurst.
Airforce Chief Air Marshall Geoff Brown , who flies regularly in the Aussie comps, attended the opening.
7200 Cadets will benefit from this new center in Bathurst [ in the state NSW, about 200 km. W of Sydney] .Since 1970 cadets flew already from Bathurst.
Great to see that so many young pilots will be ” created” by and for the Australian Airforce.
Just a great development!!!

Jelmer flying above Ameland and after the briefing during the Nationals in Holland.

Talking about DG; This is their latest project , the VOLOCOPTER and as I heard it got a lot of attention on the AERO in Friedrichshafen.
“We’re happy that feetback was so great and are very much looking forward to the next steps of the project!” According to the news on their site.
Involved in this project is Jelmer Wassenaar one of the pilots in my junior team in 2005 in HusBos. He also flew a few WGC’s. Very talented and very nice young man ,who studied aerodynamics at the Delft University [Aero Space Engineering] .He is one of the designers/development engineers at DG and as I read somewhere, he is called ” the father of the DG 1001TE” . Have to ask him when I see him.

Picture courtesy DG.

On Sunday 17th of November 2013 a successful maiden flight and numerous other test flights had been performed. All flights were unmanned and took place inside the locked “dm-Arena” in Karlsruhe, as is written on the DG site.
Since the beginning of the Volocopter Project DG Flugzeugbau is the key-partner of this project. Beside the complex development of the fuselage and its rotor plane, DG was also in charge to manufacture the first prototype structure. All prototype parts were manufactured at the DG Factory in Bruchsal/Germany.You can read more about it , also in English, on their site;
http://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/

Here is the movie of the Maiden Flight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dndB6u5mfgg

What happened more? Fabulous weather yesterday in the mountains from Austria. Several [5] over 1000 km. flights.
1.347 km. in a Nimbus 3DM and in a Nimbus 4DM 1.341 km. from Lienz Nikolsdorf is SUPER! Ridge, wave but also snow showers and low temperatures were the ingredients for a perfect , sometimes nerve breaking day for the 4 pilots flying and supporting each other, with a speed of 132 km./h. and 123 km./h . over the mountains.
The same air as in Lienz was available for pilots having the day off yesterday in Italy [Bolzano 822 km. in an LS 6] and Celje [SL 877 km. in a Duo Discus]
The cold air from the North brought great conditions to Belgium as well. 2 Pilots flew from Keiheuvel 634 in an LS 8 an 579 in a DUODISCUS!

Wishing you ALL a great Easter weekend with great soaring conditions good food and interesting conversations.