Looking back at the last 2 days from Leszno at  www.soaringcafe.com

  2 Former world champions did it AGAIN!!

Sebastian [with his daughter] and Michael [here without his son]
Both won several WORLD titles !!!
Pictures by Katrin from Pilotessa Design-com

A weekend at the KEIHEUVEL

Due to competitions everywhere, the amount of participants this year on the  KEIHEUVEL CUP 2014 was less than normal, but it was still a nice competition -day, though the weather did NOT really co-operate.

On Friday my friend Ans and I left for Keiheuvel. We both started our short soaring career with the ZES, in 1967 and still likke/love the soaring-atmosphere.
KEIHEUVEL is just over the border with Holland, about 20 km..
The weather fore cast was not too good, but catching up with mates is a lot of fun as well. And Keiheuvel just belongs for years already to my favorite airfields.
The Huybreckx family was so kind to offer us  their family caravan and Eddy put it for us on the camping area.

As said not all of them were there. Bert sr. and Hilde arrived in the night from Saturday on Sunday so did Tijl. He came from home, Bert and Hilde from the 46th Klippeneck comps,[Germany]  where Bert was a participant and finished on a nice 6th spot from 23 in 18 m. class.
The 15 m and open class only had 3 out of  8 days, the 18 m and 2-seaters flew for 4 days.

Emiel de Wachter arrived with his wife in the middle of the night from Friday on Sunday to participate. They came from the competition in Bailleau.[France]  Out of 9 days they had 7 which is JUST GOOD!!!!.
One of the Juniors of ” my ” HusBos team Robbie Seton won the  comps in the LS 8 15m. For that reason he only arrived on Sunday morning, he had to keep the first prize above his head. Emiel was 10th in that class.
On top of that they were pretty tired as they flew 7 days in a row!!!!

Bert jr. , the fresh new WORLD CHAMPION from Rayskala, was in Vinon together with his partner Barbara. Barabara had done an intensive 8- flights- per-day course at Unterwossen flying from the winch , now in Vinon she learned how to fly behind a tow plane.
She went SOLO in Vinon and both were over the moon.

The Schmelzer family with Bert jr. and Barbara in the middle after Bert jr. won the WGC in Finland.
Shared by the family.

Other Keiheuvel pilots flew in Niedersachsen [Rotenburg] in Germany in the standard class.
—“ Eight flying days, six competition days. Two teammates and some good rankings at Niedersächsische Segelflugmeisterschaft 2014. Now some food and a party with prize ceremony! Hopefully the team will always work like this week!” was the comment from Jeroen Jennen, who was there and won in his class with cousin Dennis Huybreckx on spot 2 from 23 in this class.
Jeroen  , who is in junior squad for Belgium [ they are hoping to find enough funds to go to Narromine with a few pilots as they have several VERY talented pilots in Belgium]  won 2 days , had one runner up day, was 2 times 3 and once 4.
Dennis just had 74 points less and the number 3 over 200 points, so the boys really did well.
Did not see them,  as they only arrived on Sunday later during the day,  when we had left already.

    

 

Winner Jeroen, here at the JWGC! and ….the 1 and 2d prize documents.

Not the 30 normally visiting- participants,  enough though for a competition, though only 1 in the club class.
10 in the Sport class, 4 in the Sport class with transponders and 5 in the transponder -open-class.

On Friday night we had a real tropical rain shower. You could not see the east/end of the airfield, it was all in ” fog”  from the rain.Our caravan had a real mud-swimming-pool in front of it. After this huge shower the  tugs arrived nicely in time before sunset and were marshaled into a dry big hangar. They had 4 tugs , 3 Pawnees and one Scout.

Saturday was the briefing at 10 for the Flanders Cup.
This is a competition flown on 3 weekends from 3 airfields in Flanders; Weelde, Hasselt and the last one from KEIHEUVEL. The winner gets ONE point in each of the 4 classes and you get penalty points when you don’t show up at one. So the winner cumulative is the one with the less points.
Each of the comps has prizes , in Keiheuvel one of the special prizes is an envelope with money donated by the Emsens family, who are sponsors for many years. They started that already years ago and I guess those were the first money prizes in soaring. We twice won an envelope in the far past.

Pilots paid attention to CD Stijn and got all info necessary.

Forecast was not brilliant , with 20 km. wind on the nose at the field but the skies looked good and the first launches with 3 Pawnees and 1 Scout started at 12.40, a bit later then hoped for as the lift was not good enough and the base still a bit low.

   

Horses along the airfield and the clouds not too good , not too bad.

Tasks were ;
85.7 km. long ,small triangle to the N. W and back to just 8 km. above Keiheuvel and home for club class.
113.8 km. polygon with 4 TP’s for the sport class without transponders
144.0 km. polygon with 5 TP’s for the sport and open class both WITH transponders.

Jelle [ standing close to  the canopy] with the KA 8, on the first spot at the grid, waiting for departure.

Wim Akkermans [ married to Sofie Huybreckx] and Jef Kell [married to Gitte Huybreckx] prepare the glider and are ready for departure.

Dad Jef and son , TOP-junior Pieter Daems,  ready to send the ASW 20 in the air.
I know dad Jeff from the time he was ALWAYS at the field, a young man, not even married then.

After some delay to get a better base to send the pilots up, launching started. It was clear that the skies looked better than they were and certainly the KA 8 had problems with the 20 km. wind. He went over the startline, flew 2.4 km.  but was blown back again. He was not the only one who gave up and landed back at the field.

Some were brave and tried, 2 even finished. Wim and Jef in the ARCUS M and Sander [Heeren] in the LS 4 .GREAT EFFORT!!!!!!

Sander before prize giving at the club house.

Whilst the pilots were trying hard Ans and I visited a beautiful church in Mol.

Fabulous antique church in Mol.

Whilst walking trough the old part of the town my eye caught the next picture.

The earl the Broqueville street with the history. Could not pass by without making the picture.
By the way Pierre and Arnaud flew back from Poland…courtesy DYNAMIC.

Still flying,…after flying!!!! Arnaud and uncle Pierre.
as shared by them on FB.

In between grand dad Eddy walked the latest “generation”  of the Huybreckx dynasty over the field. Little Emma. She is one of the 5 grand-children [ 3 boys 2 girls ]from the FOURTH generation, so the future from KEIHEUVEL is secure!!! Little as they are they ALL spend a lot of time at the airfield.

Pictures.
1. little cute and gorgeous Emma
2. and 3. granddad Eddy and his daughter mum Sofie and Eddy walking the pram.
4.Wim, dad of Emma prepares….no worries….. her bottle before ” jumping”  in the ARCUS M for the flight.

In the evening they had a nice spaghetti-night and the weather was good enough to sit outside.

Along the runways , pure nature!!! The heather was in full flower, early for the time of the year.

Sunday morning we knew already that the afternoon weather would be rough with severe rain , thunderstorms and hail. We visited the briefing at 10 and waited also for the prize giving at 11.30. It would have been unkind to leave early as Bert sr. and Hilde arrived in the night to see us.So atleast we caught up with Bert sr. and Tijl.
It was also nice to catch up with Robbie [Seton]  and his wife and 2 kids.

We just made it in time before a tropical rainstorm hit Nijmegen where I wanted to enter the train to travel home.Then I found out I left my hand-bag with EVERYTHING in it , in the car from Ans. With help from the NS , [I was allowed to use their phone, to call my mobile in the hope Ans would hear it, mine was in the bag,]  I reached the neighbors from Ans, but smart as she was she drove straight away back to Nijmegen [from Malden] to hand over my handbag.In that tropical storm!!!!
We both passed , talking and laughing, about 8 poles to check in and just before the train went,  I realized I had not checked in. Senior moments!!!!
I did in Arnhem.

All in all a great weekend, not so much flying but still prizes to hand out to the best of the 21 pilots:
Open class;
Wim and Jef in the ARCUS T got the 352 points as winners, slow [81.2km./h.] but steady!!!
Johan Lemmens,  flew the old glider from Kees [Musters] the MS [Ventus a] to a nice 2d spot flying 109 from the 144 km.
It was the 32 d time he participated in a Keiheuvel competition.
Dennis and Jan Schouten flew the DG 500 over 104.5 km

Kees’ old Ventus A.

In the sport class with transponders Sander [on the picture above] finished the 144 km. and won,[ 207 points]  the other 2 pilots flew 29.7 and 23 .5 km.

In the sport class nobody finished the best distance was 68.7 km. by Geert De Palmenaer in the Pegase.
Ken Evens the coach from the Belgium Juniors flew 30 km. and with that he knew already that he would win the cumulative cup later in the year.

Ken….As seen by Bram Fotografie.
Ken Evens in the discus 2CT/18m.  on tow. Cumulative winner in his class.
He ” loves”  flying this glider more than his Nimbus 4DM he said.

The tuggies “said” FAREWELL and till next year , so did we and a lot of  friends. On the back ground “DE KEI”  the restaurant with the great food at the airport and home for junior pilot Jeroen Jennen and his parents Rudy and Chrisje [….yes Huybreckx….2d generation]

Till next year
Cheers Ritz