Not yet open de KEUKENHOF, but it does n’t take that long anymore.

With a few very sunny, though  fresh days and little tops of plants popping up, it feels like spring is around the corner, even with wet snow and hail.
Last Sunday the first cross-country flights from German airfields and not long and they start here as well.
From Bad Neuenahr Ahr, direction NW Aachen, which is close to the Dutch border , a flight in an HPH 304 “SHARK’ from 317 km. and from Grosses Moor in an LS 8/18 m.  351 km. That’s SO early serious flying!!!

And France is active as well. From Bruno a flight on February 22 with up to 2.5 m. lift , up to 1200 m.
With only 8 flights on the OLC , the day before yesterday,and 7 yesterday [1 from Benalla; 460 km.]  it’s really an ” in- between-period” now.

As shared by the Association Aeronautique du Val  d’Essonne.

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After the many great , long,  fast, distance flights during the season, in Namibia and South Africa, dominating the OLC …..a few less but also long and exciting and fast in Australia, the Aussies and there guests continue the season a bit longer and are dominating now;700 km. from Stonefield in the Nimbus 4DM on Thursday February 19.
Kilometer-eater Terry Bellair flew last Saturday 856 km. [645 FAI triangle]  in his DG 400/17 m. from his home field Raywood and from Ararat, 792 was flown in a Discus by Gary Stevenson.[734 FAI triangle]
Tocumwal had 662 in the ASH 26 by Terry Ryan [ 557 FAI triangle] and Benalla ‘s Tobias Geiger in his LS 4 602 km. [440 FAI triangle] All these pilots you can qualify as kilometer-eaters, they LOVE their distances.
Most flying in Victoria and the SW part of NSW due to storms else where.
So Sunday’s best flights were from these areas;Pipers Field 622 in Ventus 2 c/18m., Tocumwal 572 in ASH 26 e, Temora 500 in LS 8 and 563 from Ararat in a Discus 2.
Australia was  confronted last week,  with 2 cyclones one in the top end and the [N]E, causing quite some damage.

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After 5 days the SQUAD week in Narromine had close scores.Looking at club class the difference between number 1 Bryan Hayhow [Discus] and number 2 Lisa Trotter [ASW 20] was 6 points. Mind you there were 2 over 400 km. days , the rest over 300, till then!
And in Standard Class between Peter Trotter [LS 8] and John Buchanan [ASG 29/15 m.] 3 points with over 500 km. days.

With only 2 days to go an interesting event,”  between”  the ” seniors and juniors”!
During this squad week the juniors get some extra training on high level, it’s practice in many ways [ avoiding all kind of penalties, making speed against toppers and flying in time with an AAT] .
The AUSSIE team for Narromine 2015 exists out of  Matthew Scutter , Ailsa McMillan,  Dylan Lampard in Std.Class.
Club class pilots; Joe O’Donnell ,James Nugent and Eric Stauss.

I ” know ”  3 members of the Aussie junior team in these classes; Matthew and Ailsa in Standard class  and Eric in club class.
James Nugent was doing a great job, whole week. He won 3 from 6 days , so a promise for the JWGC. From Mandy I heard he is only 16 years old!!!!!!What a talent.
He won day 6 , a 4 hour AAT in club class, in his LS 3 with 479.7 km. in time 4.10 , [speed 115 km./h.] taking away the 1000 points, whilst “senior” Bryan lost nearly 200 points.
Day 7 was won by Eric Stauss,  so the young ones also had their win  and Joe was always in the daily top 4 however on day 7 on 5.
That day a 3.30 AAT was set and Eric flew 371 km. in time 3.30 at the dot!!!! Good on him!!!
The final scores show a junior on top, James with 6683 points and Lisa on 2 with 6638 points.

Day 6 was a 4 hour AAT in standard class. Tom [Claffey] won with 560 km. in time 3.56, so a speed of 140 km./h.!!!Day 7 was won by Butch; 471 km. in time 3.20.11.
The “fight”  between the seniors and juniors was tougher in this class. Butch won 3 days, Peter Trotter 2 x, Pete Temple 1 and Tom Claffey 1.
Butch won with 6862 points, Peter had 6833 and Tom 7588, but Tom did not fly the last day.
Matthew ,[DISCUS 2a-4920] Dylan [3780 LS 8-] and Ailsa [LS 8-4506] trained hard, but after 7 days ended on the bottom side of the overall scores. No worries, it’s ALL about the training.

Latest news and GREAT news for the Aussie  juniors, indeed it’s a lot of things  helping to create a champion;
“A big thank you to Shinzo who has offered his office, briefing room and hangar to the Australian Junior Team for the Junior World Gliding Championships in December this year. THANK YOU SHINZO!!!”
By the way last Monday Shinzo flew 784 km.[600 FIA triangle] in his Nimbus 4DM.

I know Corowa helps out with their containers for our Dutch juniors and in another hangar at Narromine, from a Dutch couple  William Stalenburg and Evelien Nijland, running a gliding school there during the season, they can place/park their gliders.NOT bad, not bad at all.It ALL helps, also the factor LUCK!!!!!!
Our Dutch juniors are and think positive too, though it is far away ” that place Narromine” . But I know they are going to love it.
They shared this picture from the GLIDING BIBLE and I share it with you.

It’s going to be a great event!  I heard and read of so many potential champions. Try to be there for the last week!

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Looking ahead at Europe’s soaring; Calcinate [Italy] organizes a HIGH PERFORMANCE STAGE. It’s a bit later than usual, but that gives them a  chance to ” devote special attention  to long flights and distance and speed records.”
The organizer is Alberto Sironi and he co-operates with Giorgio Ballarati . The week is from March 24 til 29!
Lot’s of skilled coaches, a lot of them members of the Italian team, will take one or 2 participants by the hand.

—–Pilots participants should have a good experience of mountain flying, full control and effectiveness of the techniques of centering and climbing in thermals (even along the ridge), good mental and physical form and a keen interest in the objectives of the SAP”

—-The fee for the days of flying and towing are free for junior national team pilots, that will then pay only the registration fee of € 120.00.—-

All info at ; http://acao.it/en/high-performace-stage-2015/

A picture from another year with Alberto in the middle.
Courtesy ACAO site.

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One of the first big comps is always the Easter competition at Nitra, [Slovakia] where they fly for the Pribina Cup from April 3 till 11. At this stage they have already 100 pilots who have registered  in 4 classes and they come from 15 different countries. A total at this stage from 33 from Germany and 18 from Poland.
Interesting as well; ” In case of more than 10 entries of FAI 13,5m class gliders, a separate class could be created for them in order to promote this class and allow to pilots to test their performance and equipment before the 1st FAI World Gliding Championship 2015 in this class. ”

As shared on FB by the organizers!

 And to finish this blog a nice picture shared by DG.
DG-1000T and DG-808C Competition formation flight.

Cheers Ritz