Alphen aan den Rijn     

 Wednesday June 1  2011, winter starts in Australia , summer in Holland   ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Sorry for the inconvenience but NOW, the NGC site is back on line!!!AND …we got over 204.000 vieuws on that site.

   joy flight with a sponsor at NGC.

It is always difficult to let go…when you have had fun, if it is on a NGC or a WGC or EGC or WWGC or JWGC ,I guess I am not the only one who has problems with that.
For me it was pretty emotional, as this was my  LAST job as competition journalist at a competition field. I guess if Chaves or Uvalde would ask me , I still might give in for ONE more time/ reconsider , but I am pretty sure they can handle their own PR- show with writing. So I count this as my last job!
 I think that writing is still interesting for readers, but more and more the new social media are going to take over. Pilots in 2 seaters write from above on Facebook, glider tracking has a great future, i-Pads and i-phones , as well as Black Berries are going to take over for messages on Twitter , Facebook  etc, straight from the strip or from the 2 seater and the young ones seem, atleast here in Holland ready to take over. It is their time now, I still have the enthusiasm, and I loved the last 2 Nationals here in Holland, but I am not the spring chicken from earlier times anymore !
Better to stop on a high,  then when they say: “Tsje, again that old lady”!!!!
I can hear Tor already say; “Let others be the judge Ritz”.
 
Of course it was again an easy [ but busy] job as we had fun and when you have fun , everything feels easy. The team was ONE and I was part of it. Felt touched that, when I missed out on drinking the bubbles after the closing ceremony, on the team-loft , they came with the magnum bottle to find me. I missed all their phone calls earlier but maybe it had to be like this as I surely would have cried! It IS an end of an ERA. At Least for me!

I LOVED EVERY MINUTE IN EVERY COUNTRY I WAS!!!!! THANK YOU TO ALL WHO INVITED ME!!!!!
I will surely miss it, but try to visit different comps who are not too far away.And….no I am not going to sit behind the geraniums. So keep me informed with news from your areas and I will take care of it. Of course I keep doing research on what’s happening in our world.
I started in 1967 , after my first visit to the soaring field from Venlo and now in 2011 I stop at Terlet , and in between I have visited the world and got LOTS of friends, here in Holland but also everywhere in the world.
In that time I got solo, was crew, TC, FAI jury member,FAI  steward and editor  at several comps, co-owner of the Sportavia Soaring Center in Tocumwal Australia and what they say; The eyes and ears on a soaring field. And as said I loved every minute, though some moments in our world were  tragic as well! 
Surely we will meet again somewhere in the world.

  At the NGC picture made by Sietske.

OF COURSE I CONTINUE WITH THIS BLOG,  AS WELL AS  MY COLUMN IN GLIDING INTERNATIONAL!!!!!

So back to normal and to the blog!

The Nummela Qualifying Grand Prix  only counted 3 days.Winner;  young Aku Jaakkula with 23 points. Not winning a day,  but being the most consistent , with 8-7 and 8 points on those days. Runner up was Juha Sorri with 17 points. Well done Aku !!!

The Belgium Nationals  had  5  days out of 8  .The last day had in 15 m class a surprise as young Bert Schmelzer jr. had a less good day and after a few days on number 1 in the overall scores , he unfortunately  lost nearly 200 points on this day . So Emmanuel Litt is the new Belgium National Champion in 15 m class. 
In open class Yves Jeanmotte won in Ventus 2cx/18m. Congratulations to both!

Varese had till now 2 days. Guilliano, one of my friends and a great tracking specialist is in Varese now for the visualization of the qualification of the  GP. The first tracking system I ever saw was his from by Post Frontal.[www.postfrontal.com]Together with the information given by Art Grant from Canada, with his great voice, this was for lot’s of people an eye opener.
The first 2 days were won by Giorgio Galetto!! 20 points in 2 days!!! Good on him!

Talking about tracking systems, I was very much impressed with the live-tracking during the NGC here in Holland. 3 young men [ in their 20thies!!]  are fully enthousiastic involved with it.
It is called ADS-B; Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast.
What does it do?
ADS-B is information, send together with the transponder signal. This information holds GPS info as height, speed and position, but also flight and transponder identification. This way [together with all spot  position data ] live tracking is possible!!!I hope some of you followed it during the Nationals, it has great future!!!! The output from the  beta version,  was very encouraging as it was VERY popular in Holland!
[ www.glidertracking.com ]

The 45th Hahnweide competition at Kirchheim [unter]  Teckhas, as you can understand a long history. I was pleased to see that the airfield is situated on the Klaus Holighaus street 59 now. Good old Klaus!!!
George , always has flown Schempp-Hirth gliders, from Cirrus to Nimbus 3d and most in between. Those gliders have been always GOOD and we had great service.
After 3 days Alexander Müller is on spot 1 overall. He is not only a “kilometer-eater” but also a great competition pilot! The Arcus T and M are on spot 1 and 2 in the double seater class. The new generation gliders of Schempp Hirth. Former world champion Wolfgang Janowitsch is 2 in the duo discus XL.
Good old Werner Meuser tops after 3 days the 18 m. class and in 15 m. classs it is Walter Eisele’s son Michael who is best till now.In standard class French pilot Adrian Henry is till now the best .
Yesterday was cancelled!

In Canada soaring wakes up as well,  as I heard from Art. Do not know how much fun it is “dodging rain, snowshowers and sleet”, but it was, as he said, fun for Canadian pilot, Ian Spence, who flew nearly 800 km. from Invermere Airfield over the Rocky Mountains!!

And….then we had on Monday at some places a tropical day with 30 dgr, blue skies and 2/8 of very nice cumulus clouds over Amsterdam!!!!!On Tuesday however we were back to 15!!!! I noticed the weather was good at Terlet as well on Monday , with a flight up to 586 km.
May had a total of 13.421 lodged flights on the OLC.
Yesterday on the last day of May, an interesting flight from Minden Nevada, where I was with a team for the pre-worlds , but through circumstances [ fire bombers had to be able to work at ALL times, also during finishes] they ended up in Uvalde Texas!!That’s were we have the next WGC again.
But to get back to Minden; A Kestrel 17 flew yesterday a great wave flight with a southerly wind- component ;2.254 km with a speed of 176.57 km/u.
And…a duo discus ; 1.229 km with 162,45 km/u. NOT BAD!!!!!
By the way we had the dry-est ever spring, and the 2d warmest.So you are totally up to date now.

Cu next Sunday, cheers Ritz
By the way at www.vimeo.com is a great video from the Dutch Nationals by Peter Jansen. Enjoy!

 an end of an era for me!