With a flight from just over 1000 km. from Serres la Baties in France last Thursday in the Stemme [S10/S10-VT] , a “happy- sounding” Klaus Ohlmann , mentioned that the wave-season is about to start;” Very nice wave day..A little bit weak at the beginning, but with the incoming front it started to be much better. Anyway, the new season is in Approach.”
Up to 6000 m. MSL.
Gerard Lherm added a great flight from St Martin de Londres in the Nimbus 4DM, over 4000 m. MSL and 708 km.. We are going to keep an eye on it!
According to Benjamin, who flew with his mate , Vincent, the Alps had an unexpected great FOEHN-day too last Sunday. Departing from Koenigsdorf in an ARCUS T,they flew direction WSW; 957 km.!!!!![over 4000 m. MSL]
They shared a nice picture as well on the OLC.
Looking at wave paradise New Zealand, Ge shared some nice pictures with the message:
“A convergence day for us. The first photo shows cold air coming down the hill, the cumulus in the distance are fine but the first part of the convergence is blown out…we had to go a couple miles left to find the new edge, well out of shot.
The second shot shows a great system well marked by dust…we bashed up and down for a while, exploring.
A bit rough in the circuit.…”
No wave ,….but also a great flight from Temora in Australia last Monday ,when “we here in Holland,were all going with the wind” !!! [up to 112 km. /h. ]
Brian Du Rieu flew in his LS 10/18m. a nice 802 km flight ,…750 FAI triangle…. and topped the OLC-list with it.
A bit more to the S. , Tocumwal had several long flights in the ARCUS [808 km. 500 FAI triangle] and 765 km [749.5 FIA triangle] in an ASH 26 e.
Kari, from Finland flew 536 in the LS 6 and the 4 Japanese guests [ Hello Mr. Ogura-san] forgot all about the earlier rain and flew just under or over 300 km. !!!![ 226km….297….319….336 km] in LS 4 or PIK 20.
Good on them. SAKE!!!!!
Temperatures up to 36 dgr. lovely for early February.
Yesterday Toc. topped the OLC list with a 557 km. flight from Terry in his ASH 26E.
From Corowa Pepe had one of the last flights for the season in his ASH 31/21 m.;754 km.
Great to see that my former Tocumwal-friends Reinhard and Chris [and Lind]a are happily flying there.
Benalla had 669 km in the Ventus 2 CT /18m. and 627 in an LS 8. Yesterday; 624 in an ASG 29/18 m.
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During comps it is nowadays normal to see a JS glider . Not that long ago,….. this was not so normal. In a very short time Attie and Uys Jonker and their team have produced 100 JS gliders in different versions and nowadays they just belong to the “soaring-scene”. And I only heard HAPPY customers.
Sven was so kind to share some pictures from the JS-100th festivity .
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The last competition for the Aussie- season is normally in Horsham , so it is this year.
Quite some pilots again at this friendly airport for this friendly competition.
In the week before there was a training week, and some even flew their Silver C.Well done!
The comps are between February 6 and 13.
18 Pilots in club, 13 in 15 m. [one HC] and 7 in open /18 m.
They flew 2 days on the 6th and 7th , then 2 cancelled days.
Flying day 2 was a nice one with a set task of 428 km. in open class won by Peter Buskens in the JS 1 with 147 km./h..
In 15 m. 439 km. was set and won by Andy Smith [Ventus] from the Mount Beauty Gliding Club with 142 km./h.
Club had a 3 hour AAT won by Steve Jinks in the St. Cirrus; 365 km. with a speed of 118 km./h.
Today a 3.30 AAT for open/18 m….3 hours for 15 m. and for club as well.
Results at www.soaringspot.com
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When I arrived home from Australia I found a mail from Alexis in Greece, to be part of his[ open ]group of friends on FB, interested in “the weather” .
“We provide the most accurate weather forecasting and a wealth of information on weather, weather events and climate change.
The name “Meteorologica” was inspired by the first forecasting system and meteorology textbook by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.“
“ A taste of our forecasting system applied to Namibia.
The high desert of Namibia is one the best locations in the world for long glider flights using thermal updrafts. Each year numerous such flights are achieved.
Modern gliders are equipped with flight computers that log parameters such as the actual wind and the net (of the glider movement) vertical velocity of the air. In that sense each glider is an airborne laboratory taking measurements during flights as long as 1,350 km with intervals as little as 1 sec.
Those flight logs allow us to calibrate the accuracy of our forecasting system with enormous amounts of actual data. The accuracy in the prediction of updraft strengths is closely correlated to the prediction of rain and thunderstorms.
Of course, it is also very useful to glider pilots!
The charts are: maximum updraft velocity, wind at 3,000m and the actual satellite photo on 2016.01.05.”
As I know Alexis I decided to send him a mail to find out more about it and if we can ONLY read it on FB or maybe somewhere els on internet.
I got a long answer , but I share it anyhow with you as it is interesting, though at this stage it is more for Greece.
“Thank you for your interest!
First of all let me introduce to the scientist behind this forecasting system. His name is Angelos Lampiris and he is a very young and extremely talented meteorologist. He has built a supercomputer in his uncle’s basement and has developed this system by himself.
Angelos is now running and developing the models for the www sites below, finishing a revolutionary paper on how gravity waves affect the development of tornadoes and at the same time getting the system and the applications to a whole new level. Also, we are getting ready to launch the system for glider flights in the Alps and of course in Greece this spring.
For now you can only read the group on FB but there are two links with the forecasts for Greece where the system is already fully operational and providing early warnings for extreme events.
One site is for general forecasts and has two components. The first component is for simple forecasts with a very intuitive user interface http://www.antimeteo.gr/ and the other one is with charts for more sophisticated users http://www.antimeteo.gr/xartes.html . The charts also include output from the global model under the tab “Παγκόσμιο (mpas)”.
The other link is for gliding forecasts in Greece http://www.troposphera.gr/html/open.html.
As you can see all kinds of updrafts are included on the same chart. It does not matter if there are thermals, ridge, convergence or wave. The combined effects are there (and fully confirmed by our flights). The “secret” of the model is that is fully based on Computational Fluid Dynamics so that the whole atmosphere and all parameters are simulated.
We are working on getting funding and growing this. With the climate change unusual weather and extreme events will be getting more and more common with significant impact to everybody. According to the World Economic Forum it is one of the biggest challenges mankind is facing. We will do our best to make those forecasts as accurate and as available as possible. I have attached a teaser brochure for you.
The story behind this is amazing. Exactly one year ago I saw on Facebook (which I was then using very lightly) a wind forecast chart which had the usual pattern of the mountain wave (i.e. increasing and decreasing wind speeds every 10km). I found that Angelos had prepared this forecast and I asked him if he could produce a chart with the vertical movement of the air at 5,000m. I also sent him some info about gliders and mountain waves. I told him that I would contact him again when the forecast was promising. This was the case on 2015.04.17. Angelos was doing his military service in a remote island but he managed to send me a chart of the updrafts within a few minutes. The next day I flew the longest ever flight in Greece in completely blue wave but with Angelos’ map on my kneeboard!
As they say the rest is history.”
Thanks Alexis, and I am going to follow it closely. The predicted storms on FB , for this weekend, were spot on!!!
AND
Look at this the mountain-wave forecast for TODAY in Greece.
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Registration for the Open Benelux Gliding Championships 2016 at Terlet is now open!
Please check www.nkzweefvliegen.nl/obgc2016 for cost information and the registration form.
” Do not wait and sign up! We hope to have 5 full classes.”
May 17 -May 27!!!
At this early stage already 28 participants; 7 in 18m, 5 in the 2-seater class, 5 in club, 7 in open and 4 in 15 m.
When I looked again,…33 participants!!!!
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The NZ Multi Class Nationals finished on the 4th with a non flying day. Over 14 days, they had 7 valid days in both classes open and racing.
Champions; the combination Hunter / Jensen flying the JS 1 with 4839 points in open class and Yves Gerster in the LIBELLE in racing class with 4391 points.
On day 7 Yves “got” 1000 points for an out landing after 233 km from the set 283 km.The runner up that day had 100 km. less and “received” 533 points.That makes a difference!!!
Well done to all pilots and congratulations to the winners !!!!
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I was asked to like the FB group of Fabian Peitz. He and his mate, Dennis keep us updated on the way to the European Championship 2017. When your German is good you can read it at their site;Segelflug-Hoch-Zwei.
This website is still under construction, but soon [I hope] it will work; Well,….. It SHOULD BE ONLINE NOW!!!!!Have a look or try later, as I could not read it yet!
http://www.segelflug-hoch-zwei.de/
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And to finish a nice picture from Joergen and Dieter “Dundee” , ready for a flight S. from Tocumwal, to the Aussie mountains in the magic ARCUS. Dundee was even allowed to fly the “ship” by himself.
Maybe I should have accepted Joergen’s invitation to me to fly the ARCUS as well.
Joergen and Dieter as shared by Joergen, with the message
“Dieter ready for a flight in the Arcus. We did a nice sightseeing flight via Benalla to the hills further south, and back to Tocumwal.”
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There is an interesting interview from Reiner Rose from the OLC with Tilo and Bernd from Schempp-Hirth about the new VENTUS.
Have a look at the OLC site. As Tilo said;
” Medium primary goal is the World Championships early 2017 in Australia, where we want to be measured with a good number of new aircraft for us.”
That’s it you are up to date, more next week.
Cheers Ritz