Within a week we went here from extreme to extreme as well. Talking about the weather; from minus 6 and scraping the ice-flowers from the car-windows, we are now in spring with 14 dgr.C. even 17 on the pole at the station ,here. Does feel SO much better!!!
It was , as we heard the next day, the warmest EVER 25th of January.
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The “young ones”.
Matthew [Here after he won the JWGC in Narromine] and Adam,[after the Pre Worlds in Benalla] full of laughter and fun,both learned a lot at comps as Joey glide , during JWGC’s and this year at the PRE worlds in Benalla.
There is something special with junior comps, where ever in the world, if they are in National set-up or JWGC set up; They are JUST NICE!!!
Uncomplicated, fair and with a strong to pretty strong new generation of pilots.
In Australia they flew JOEYGLIDE last week. As I told you before JOEY stands for a young kangaroo.
Not too many new young ones here in West Wyalong for the 12th get-together, but with Matthew and Adam they have good examples from how far they can get.
Text says it all;” Meet JoeyGlide 2016 Tug Lord Schooner.”
After a cancelled day they continued with flying day 3 and a 2 hour AAT was set, but,…in the end it turned still too big. Nobody finished but Rueben , winning already 2 days, flew 103 km. ; no points unfortunately for the effort, as he was the only one over 100 km. ,and one of the only 2 finishers, but it looks a new “star” on the Aussie firmament is born.
So still only 2 valid days out of 5 .But that changed last Saturday on the last but one day, when a 319 set task was given to get them back in the rhythm for the last days.Flying day 3 , WITH points, was a fact
Rueben [from Victoria] flew around with a speed of 88.99 in the Mosquito and won another day.He is 220 points ahead on the runner up from Queensland Chris Jesse in a Glasfluegel 304 C.
The last day was HIS as well, so a well deserved winner; Rueben Lane;he flew himself in the 3000 points marge, good on him; 3.089 points.
On the last day Chris lost a spot by loosing 200 points for the day. David Collins in the LS 3 was the runner up now but with some points less; 2.762.
Keep these names in mind!!!
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OLC-news and Western Cape Regionals 2016 at Worcester.
Also on the OLC you could see that the flights are getting less. NO , no, it is certainly not over yet, but in Africa the rain season has more or less started with 8 non-flying-days in a row in Bitterwasser and in the Southern part of Australia they had after the many great days a few off- days by rain as well.
Till the end of January the days there are just long enough to set a 1000 km. on a good day!
By the way after a few non-flying-days, South Africa started again yesterday with flights up to 710 from Gariep Dam and from New Tempe Bloemfontein with nearly 600 km.
Also Worcester was active , they fly the Western Cape Regionals 2016 between Jan. 23 and 30 there and Sven flew 518 in the JS 1 B.
That day the task was 501 km and Dawid Pretorius flying an LS 8, flew the set task with a speed of 177 km./h. Not bad ??!!
Laurens as runner up, was even faster with 179 km./h. On the 24th Laurens flew on the first flyable day around over 319 km. with 191.42 km./h on the ” clock”.
In club class an LS 3 flew the 406-km- set task with a speed of just under 140 km./h.
Only 10 flights on the OLC on January 22, that says it all!!
Last Sunday ,the rain was over in the Benalla-Corowa-Tocumwal- triangle and flights up to 833 by my Dutch friend Max flying from Corowa were flown on Monday, chasing the clouds.He topped the list that day.
On Tuesday, AUSTRALIADAY, Terry flew 768 km in the ASH 26 topping the list that day for Tocumwal and good old Jochen DECLARED and flew a 300 to the Rock and back in the LS 4. Good on him!!Kilometer-eater and frequent flyer at Toc . Stephan flew from Toc 612 in the LS 4 .
Max had another good one; this time 752 topping the OLC list worldwide AGAIN.
Benalla had flights up to 550 km.
From Temora Grant Johnson flew 664 km. in his LS 3a.
Narromine has had an extremely good year and as you can see on the picture shared last Sunday,…it’s STILL GOOD.
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Qualifying Grand Prix in Chile.
As shared by the Organizers with the message:“Gliders on the ground and in the air!”
As you can see the runway is parallel to the highway, never saw that before, guess they clearly see the difference from above.
The very first Grand Prix in 2016 is flown from Vitacura in Chile , where they were ready to welcome all pilots participating in the race, on the practice day on Jan 22.
11 Pilots in total, 8 from Chile. Some just practiced already during the Andes Open Chile 2016, where Carlos Rocca and Rene Vidal, were ” top of the bill” a week earlier.
When I met Thomas Gostner in Benalla , I heard he was flying straight back after the Pre worlds to Italy, to then go straight to Chile to fly the Qualifying Grand Prix. You love your soaring or you don’t!!!
Other “overseas” pilots are Zube Gintas from Lithuania and Juergen Wenzel from Germany,.
On the practice day Thomas was 3d behind Carlos and Rene.I have never been in Chile but they describe the race area as a ” spectacular region of the Andes to the east of Santiago and extending to the North and South.”
It all was suppose to happen for real last Saturday.
But due to bad weather, the first day had to be cancelled.
So Sunday turned out to be flying-day 1 and the weather was OK, as you can see.
The rain disappeared in the afternoon , the day before it was wet and not only from dumping the water!!!
” Pushing to the limits in European weather “, was what Gintas had to say after the flight.They only could start after 3 PM as rain was ruling in the morning, so the regatta start was at 4.15 PM.
Gintas did well, he lead the pact to only see in the end that Carlos passed him to get the 6 points. He was happy with 4, I guess ,as he did a real good job. Thomas was third, with 3 points.
Juergen got 2 and Rene 1.
5 Pilots finished the difficult task which was NOT flown ” inside the Cordillera de Los Andes because of the bad weather.”
Nothing to add to the latest; “ Day 3 in Chile cancelled: Because of the atmosphere’s high stability and clouds, it wasn’t possible to fly today.
We expect to have a better day tomorrow.”
They flew and a 217 km. task was set and WON by Gintas , who seems to be in his element over there in Chile. When I see on TV how 5 m. high waves “attack” people, streets and houses at the coast, they managed to fly at Vitacura.
9 Points for Gintas and 7 for Thomas.
As they mentioned on FB:
“ Day 4 Race 2 was a success! After a day with bad flying conditions, 8 pilots competed in this fun task along the Cordillera de Los Andes, finishing on first place Gintas Zube from Lithuania, on second place Thomas Gostner from Italy and on third place Carlos Rocca, a local pilot.”
Rene Vidal behind Carlos Rocca.
As shared by the organizers.
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2016 MULTI CLASS CHAMPIONSHIPS in NZ .
From Taupo , beautiful Taupo, the NZ-Nationals started in 2 classes with 21 participants ,on January 24 with a practice day to continue till February 5.
Unfortunately the first 2 day’s had to be cancelled but then each class had a small task; 3 hours for open and 2.30 for racing class.
The winner in open just flew over 100 km./h. so it was n’t a fast day , BUT A DAY with 1000 points.
In the combined racing class the speed from the winner flying a DISCUS, was just over 92 km./h.
The “lesser” gliders had it tough 6 from 12 out landed.
The next day was a no- valid -day. A task in open was set from 330 km. but the best pilot flew 188 km. which was amazing when you look at the runner up with 90 km.
In combi class 307 km. was set AND nearly flown by Patrick Driessen; 300,92 !!!!!No valid day either as the “rest” flew “only” up to 83 km.
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That’s it, you are up to date again, more next week.
Cheers Ritz