Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday March 18 2009
Slowly more wellknown European destinations for cross country soaring wake up from their winter-sleep. Fuentemilanos and Rieti showed the first nice cross country flights and in a few weeks/months, it will be pleasantly busy there again.I know several people who are ready to go to either Fuente or Rieti, some have been in Fuente for over 20 times!!!Most pilots ,specially in Fuente, stay for a longer time , as 1, 2 or even 3 months, to not miss out on any good soaring weather. For sure lot’s of 1000 km flights will be flown again and lots of other first achievements! I will keep an eye on it.
This week the famous and very wellknown Art and Antique Fair TEFAF is held in Maastricht in the south of Holland. From all over Europe people fly in with private jets to visit, even in these difficult economic times.
Yesterday was for some guests a bit more difficult then they planned. Due to , what they say a ” steering-failure” from the pilot of a Cargo Lux 747-400 while taxiing , the nose wheel , did not stay on the tarmac but ended up in the grass on the site, meaning the plane was stuck and the airport closed for several hours.
After unloading 100 tons of flowers and vegies from Kenia, they brought it back with some “help from friends” on the runway then to the hangar for a check, luckily nothing was damaged and later in the day, they could still depart.
The “poor” guests arriving in their jet had to go to a small airfield over the border in Belgium and their taxi had to drive a bit further then planned.
Several European pilots, most of Germany however, enjoy [wave] soaring in France at the moment. All well known places as , Saint Auban, Sisteron,Vinon, Serres la Batie, La Motte [where Ingo Renner started the season in the past with club members from Oerlinghausen] Fayence and Gap have their guests.
A very weird story today in the Philippines where a plane with 44 passengers and busy to land on the runway, had to make a touch and go, as….a car was driving on the runway. A young man , son of an airport-official, [ read the airport-director!]was teaching his girlfriend how to drive a car!!!!!!!!!!!!
A very bitter pill for the EAC,the gliding club from Eindhoven in the south of Holland, where I was a member in the past, after being a member of the ZES, the Eindhoven student aeroclub where I learned how to fly in a Rhonlerche and went solo in a Grunau Baby!![1967]
The EAC is a very nice club and investing since years, a lot of time in cross country flying.
2 Years ago they celebrated their 75 th anniversary, they have about 150 members ready to fly and last week , THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON, they got the message that gliding was immediately prohibited for as they claim, safety reasons by the commandant of the airforce department!! Nothing ever happened ,as in unsafe at the gliding strip on this military part of the field and the club invested a lot of money in making things even safer now that Eindhoven Airport, which is more or less connected to the military base, is a more busy airfield in Holland.
Negotiations are still going on, but even I can’t believe this!!!Will investigate it as this is not good!! But….as I just heard from a friend, it does not look too good!!!!CAN’T believe it!
Just to inform you, as I think this is very important for you as computer-user. I just received this message from one of my Australian readers [thanks!!!!], so it is recent news!
See you next sunday, Ritz
TREVOR SMALLWOOD
BRISBANE OFFICE
Tel +61(0) 7 32221347 Ext 17347 Fax +61(0) 7 32221219
www.afp.gov.au < http://www.afp.gov.au >
PLEASE INFORM EVERYONE
Emails with pictures of Osama Bin-Laden hanged are being sent and the moment that you open these emails your computer will crash and you will not be able to fix it!
If you get an email along the lines of ‘Osama Bin Laden Captured’
or ‘Osama Hanged’ don’t open the attachment.
This e-mail is being distributed through countries around the globe.
Be considerate & send this warning to whomever you know.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS:
You should be alert during the next days:
Do not open any message with an attached filed called
‘Invitation’ regardless of who sent it.
It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts.
It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
If you receive a mail called ‘invitation’, though sent by a friend, do not open it and shut down your computer immediately.
This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.
This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus.
This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.