Part 28; HAPPY 2016 !!!! Updated.

Friday morning;
As you might have seen I added some more pictures in the earlier blog as I found they belong to 2015.
The party pictures will be on tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, as I am too busy today.

Have a nice weekend.

Cheers Ritz

Beautiful Tocumwal with “just” one of the creeks along the walking track I follow to town.

Sunday morning;January 3.
Slowly I will go back to my-more- normal-blog-style and be less personal.
This was the AUSTRALIAN diary and I loved writing it but with the Benalla comps it is easy to get back in the normal -blog-groove.

Before I do so I wish to remember our son and brother Dennis, who lost his life here close by , in a freak accident with the tug VH-ADP, today 28 years ago.
R.I.P.
NEVER FORGOTTEN!!!!

First of all,….THANK YOU for all the good wishes for the year 2016!!!
The last day of 2015 and the first one in 2016 were hot with up to 39 dgr. C. Very humid as well.
Then the change came and Benalla might be not having the weather they have hoped for, at least for the next couple of days.They start tomorrow with an official practice day .
Ingo is flying with Scot Percival in the ASH 25. The 4- times world champion calls himself ” just ballast”.
He drives up and down from Toc. to Benalla as it is “just” 77 km.
After flying in Benalla, he was at the SRGC part on the last day of the year and I promised you some pictures here they are.

Annie Wilson and I ready to go to the party….with bubbles. And….the ladies ready with some entree nibbles.

Joergen from Denmark with Annie and Dieter and members from the Geelong Gliding Club . And guests at Tocumwal with SRGC members Dieter Dundee and YH.

Dieter from Geelong who started his soaring in 1987/88 here in Tocumwal at Sportavia and now back here as a member of the Geelong ,Gliding Club, [he has been flying more here in the past] together with Mr. Ballast …Ingo Renner himself.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 2015 was globally seen the hottest year on record.
Australia was hot , but has been hotter before they claim, in 2013.
Due to the influence of EL NINO,the first half of 2016 will be have “above average temperatures” as well.
In some states as SA and NSW where we are, they had the hottest December in more than 100 years.
On January 6 they are going to release the official 2016 weather fore cast for Australia , for what it is worth.
They expect EL NINO to end in autumn 2016, when the temperatures and rainfall will go back to normal.

Globally seen , you notice the impact on TV or in the paper,with devastating flooding in parts of the USA and UK, a more luxury problem with lack of snow in the lower ski resorts in Europe , with all the results for holiday makers and ski-resort-staff and no -income and with scorcher -days here in Australia.
NOW it is over here, we had a GOOD drop of rain yesterday and fabulous clouds before the storm arrived. Severe weather-warnings for places as Wangaratta and Yarrawonga.

I happened to be at the cemetery when I noticed fast growing cauliflower-clouds and storms to the E. and S.

The last day of the OLC was topped by a [former] SRGC member Bernie Seizer in his PIK 20 flying 814 km. [750 FAI triangle] from Ararat.
“First 750Km flight.
With thick cirrus and weak lift in many places, this was a difficult flight. Made some big deviations to get around large areas of shadow and had to fly many km’s into the sea air at Keith and then back to lift. I didn’t think I was going to make it… had planned to land back at Horsham but managed a good climb just after dumping the water.”
Congratulations Bernie.

The 2d day of 2016, was a glorious one for former Tocumwal visitors Karin and Marcus; a fabulous 1.370 km. [1.102 km. FAI triangle] with a good speed of 144 km./h. in their ARCUS M flying from Kuruman. Congratulations!!
Not bad from dad Hans either, 1.245 km. in the DG 800 /18 m. flying some kind of yo-yo with legs from 390 and 323 km….from N to S of Kuruman.
And more congratulations for pilots flying in South Africa;
“Declared 800km FAI Triangle @ 149km/h new Dutch National Open Class record.” was the message from Dutch record-chaser, Max Leenders and Dirk Nieuwenhout flying from Douglas Backhouse in the Minbus 4 DM.

My Belgium friends , the Schmelzer’s are flying from Kiripotib, and had a “hard-labor-day” yesterday;757 km.
And some of my LASHAM friends have arrived in Bitterwasser for some good soaring.
Young Davide from Italy has started his soaring in BIWA as well.

The 2d 2016-day here , yesterday, looked not impressive, but turned out rather impressive before the storm arrived.It even was HOT , with an unexpected 38 dgr.at 5 PM.
This is what Swiss Chris [flying with Sportaviation] had to say:” What a day after the weak start.
One climb after tow , the rest flying straight along the trough line ,but unfortunately did not have the final height to close the circuit to the takeoff point (triangle would have been 340km)”.He flew 555.5 km.

“Rain and hail coming out of these.”