With 37 dgr. C. it was the warmest Pentecost in history in Germany. But the heat did not only bring joy, as at least 6 people were killed by falling trees in the state Nord-Rhein Westfalen . Trees , surviving 2 World Wars dropped like matches under the up to 150 km.h wind.
Here in Holland we had 30 dgr. C which was more then enough and code red for the Southern part of Holland !! So thunderstorms here as well , but not as violent as in Germany, where hurricane wind was measured in some towns specially Dusseldorf  . Also France and Belgium got their bit of heavy weather.

MALDEN ….. Open Military Championships….the last day!

 

Great picture shared by Aukje.
They left the cable at 250 m. but did not find connection, so they “had to do it”  again.

The pilots from the Open Military Comps in Holland, flown from the beautiful  and always friendly / inviting airfield of Malden had only 5 days to show their skills. And from those 5 days, they had 3 pretty good days to do so and 2 to have fun, socialize and TALK about soaring. With 380 km. on Monday , 314 on Tuesday and 335 on Friday the open/18m.  class pilots  had enough kilometers to show their soaring-skills. The other classes , club and combi had a just a tad shorter tasks. Friday looked fabulous here with nice blue skies and 3/8 of high big CU’s, so I had high expectations.

Last day skies! Shared by Ben Hiemstra

Club left , on this last day, with fresh Dutch Champion in club class Frank,  on spot 1 with 59 points on a not Frysian pilot but still from the N.[Hoogeveen..Drenthe] ]  and on his dad Ben [ 67] and 2 other Frysian pilots. That FAC is a really fun group of lovely people ,supporting each other and all very close. For sure they would  try to have 3 Frysians on the podium on this last day. AND…that happened between the ” bond” of the Frysian pilots , Hoogeveen pilot Ide, might have felt too eager or overpowered, I don’t know, but he out-landed and sadly enough, dropped from 2 to 7. Frank and his dad , what do you want  more for such a close soaring-family ….stood on spot 1 [ 2839 points] and 2. [ 2601] And a 3d member of the Frysian club, Sander Terpstra was on a third spot[ 2558]. Congratulations!!!

All Frysians fitted on the picture on the BBQ evening at Malden courtesy Sander Terpstra

In combi the last day showed 3 DUO Discus types up front an XL, XLT and XT. They topped the overall scores as well with Tjeerd and Francis on spot 1, Evert Jan on 2 and Jeppe and Wolfert on 3. From the 5 pilots , 4 fly for KLM and 1 works for Transavia.

In open class Erik Wijers in an LS 6 C 17.5 m. topped the overall list on each of the 3 days, on the last day with less than 100 points on 2 and 3. He won the last day over 263 km.  got 1000 points and the overall-number-2 from the morning Ben from Eindhoven out-landed. So with more than 400 points on the runner up,  Erik  won the OMK.
Congratulations to all!

PREPARATIONS!!!

Some pilots and crews are already in Rayskala and participated in  the Finnish Nationals in Standard and Club class. They acclimatize and prepare for the WGC starting on June 22 with the opening ceremony the day before on June 21. Poland is only in July/ August, so there is some time but countries far away have send or are sending their gliders now. Not too much flying, due to rainy weather ,but those who participated claimed they had learned a LOT!

The S.A team has send their gliders to Poland. In the 2 South African containers are SEVEN JS1 gliders. Here is their news and their pictures. I  only hope the container is not on the highest spot on the ship as with scary, read VERY turbulent  weather,  they dump those containers in the sea first!!!
“And away they go!!! Two containers full of JS1s left Durban harbour on the MSC Rita to Bremenhaven. Final destination: Leszno Poland for the 33th World Gliding championships. This is a historic moment with 7 JS1s on the the same ship….talking about all your eggs in one basket..” 

  

  

As shared by Jonker Sailplanes.

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QUALIFYING GRAND PRIX in SAINT SULPICE

Before start  1 PM on Tuesday. Shared by organizers

In France  in Rennes Saint Sulpice, the first training day for the  Qualifying Grand Prix was on Thursday. 5 Pilots in total from the entree list are not from France but  from Germany [3] , the UK [ 1] and Slovenia [1] .
On Thursday they started with their first practice day.
On Saturday with the first day , won by German pilot Kai Lindenberg. A short task from 103 km. exciting enough , with wave but also outlandings.
On Sunday was day 2 and pilots were send on a B task , 207 km. this time at 13.45. Christophe Abadie was the daily winner with 8 points.Only 7 finishers , Jutta among them.
Monday was a 122 km. day and Alain Mazalerat won the 10 points. Alain, a retired airline pilot,  arrived  before the Grand Prix started,  by glider from Paris !!!!!
We got to know Alain in Angers at the Huit Jours d’Angers, a long ,LONG time ago. Great to see he is still so enthusiastic for soaring.

Yesterday was a day with great clouds and a task of  255 km. and the line opened at 2.15 PM. Christophe Abadie  in his ASG 29E,  “got”  the 10 points AGAIN and the 2 German pilots Thomas and Michael [Eisele, son of the Bayreuth competition director Walter] got the 8 and 7 points.
So today at day 5 ,they start with Christophe Ruche on 1 with 10 points on number 2 the other Christophe [Abadie], from Buno and Alain and Thomas both on spot 3 with 16 points . More in my Sunday blog from SoaringCafe.

Lot’s of lovely  pictures from Jean- Pierre Henry at:  http://fb.me/6GoSxE5Zz

ARNBORG ….Danish Nationals.

AB ; Arne on final as seen by Joergen Eriksen.

The Danish Nationals were flown between May 29 and June 8 in 5 classes. They had more flying-days as cancelled days; 6 for 5!! Several over 300 km. tasks, so good days to see who would be the National Champion in each class.
In Club class one of my mates Ole Arndt won day 1, whilst , through all those years,one of my favorite pilots Henrik Breidahl unfortunately outlanded and one of the pilots I got to know when he was still very young and talented , Rasmus Orskov flying the LS 1 f , flew the 319 km. with 68 km./h.
Rasmus had a few outlandings but won the last day and a 3d spot overall in the end.
Champion was  Ulrik Soerensen in the St Libelle  with 2704 points, whilst  good old Ole was runner up with 2562 points ! 18 Pilots in this class.

Ole [to the l.] here with Joergen visiting at Uvalde.

In standard class the only pilot I knew [out of 11] from several comps was Jan Andersen . He was on spot 1 overall EVERY day. So the new Danish Champion.

In 15 m. class,2 from 11 I know from comps or visits to Sportavia [Ole by the way flew there as well] Ib Wienberg and good olg Stig Oye from long ago. Ib finished as 4th and Stig 7th. Quite some out landings in this class , costing points. On day 3 only 3 pilots finished and Ib was one of them. On day 4 Ib was 1 of 2 finishers again. But on day 5 [ a 2 hour AAT] with no finishers Ib only flew 12.4 km. good for 31 points, whilst daily winner Stig had 398 points for 160.2 km.
The new 15 m. champion is Johnny Jensen.

Ib ready to uncork the champagne bottle

In the 18 m. class 10 pilots and the ones I know are well known by all ; Arne Boye Moeller and Peter Eriksen. How did they go? Peter won day 1 but he lost some points on day 5 when Arne managed to finish. Arne won the last day over 395.2 km. and Peter was 3d. Arne was crowned as the new Danish champion in this class. He won 2 days and was on 3 days runner up, a good enough reason to be called CHAMPION.Peter finished overall on spot 3.

Arne as the new National Champion. As shared by Arne.

7 Gliders in the 2 -seater class , all a variation of a Duo Discus and 1 Taurus. Henrik Gormsen in the variation XT won the comps. For all scores ; www.soaringspot.com

LANGTORA ….Swedish Nationals

Hopefully 7 days [between June 7 and 14] of flying for the Swedish Nationals in 18 m and club class. Till today they had already 4 days ! 21 Pilots in club class and day 1 over 110 km. was won by Per Carlin ,who I remember as a good photographer at Eskilstuna during the WGC. He did not fly there for this WGC, but made some great air-shots when he flew when all were gone for the day and before start making those great pictures of the gaggles. With the crash of my last laptop I unfortunately lost all the Eskilstuna pictures.
On day 2 only 2 finishers who flew the 192 km. Day 3 over 186 km. was a prey for Per [LS1f] again and on day 4 they had a 2.30 hour AAT.
The 3d victory for Per, who flies as good as he makes pictures!!! He flew 250.6 km in time 2.46.

13 Pilots in 18 m. class and the most well known are Borje Eriksson and Ake Pettersson. Boerje won day 1 [ 119.5 km.] and 3 [254.5 km.] and was 3d on day 2 [263 km.]
Yesterday they had 248.8 km. and all 13 pilots finished!! Borje was 2d behind Tonny Olsson, who is 3d now overall after 4 days. Borje is still in the lead.
No task as yet for today! They continue till the 14th. All scores on soaringspot!

 

great picture ; Minden from above as seen by Pete Alexander  with to the left  Rick Walters Shared by the SSA on FB.

Next weekend the 18m. Nationals in the USA will be flown from Minden in Nevada. Can follow it a bit for you , but I depart on a 1-week-holiday with my high school friends on June 20, WITHOUT my laptop so I will miss a few crucial comps, but so be it.

Talking about Minden, Jim Payne flew another 1000 from there on Monday. The day before Konigsdorf was the place to be as 4 pilots flew a 1000 over there in Arcus , Quintus [2] and ASG 29 . It was the 5th 1000 for Mathias Schunk since April 24. Good on him!
Also a great race from Bolzano by Giorgio Galetto, in his Ventus 2cxa; 1.051,39 km.
And,…919 km. from Insbruck in an LS1f is GOOOOD!!!!
Also the Ouarzazate visitors have good 1000 km. weather . Since May 30 they flew 20 x a 1000 plus from there.

Some interesting planes arrived in Holland, certainly for “spotters”.  One arrived last week in Maastricht with a big red mouth on it; no doubt…. the Rolling Stones,  who performed last weekend at Pinkpop.
And the 787 DREAMLINER , arrived from Seattle  with the name ARKE on it.  They own the first Dutch 787 and to show how happy they were with it , they flew low over some airfields in Holland as Eindhoven and Rotterdam as well as over the 4 head quarters from TUI [ARKE is part of them]  to show it for those on the ground as well. They bought the plane mainly for their trips to Curacao, Bonaire and Aruba and can take 307 guests with them.

You are up to date, cu next week.

Cheers Ritz