Benalla flying day 1 ??!! January 10 2017.
For open class only.
Courtesy Swiss Chris. His glider upfront flown by Fridolin. The maggies “check” the quality of the covers.
There was good hope and that says enough too. But in vain. I got a call in the early morning; foggy in Tocumwal,…no good! Never ever saw fog in mid summer in 25 years. So anxious to see what was happening in Benalla. LOW clouds there as well…
They tried hard as you can see!!!!ALL gliders on the grid.
But also messages “First launch delayed till 13.30 task B 248km for 15 m.”
AND….No flying for 15 and 18 m. they ran out of time , cancelled at 2 PM..and open……..
As shared by team USA.
AND,.. YES,…..open class flew a small 2 hour AAT but they flew, task C disappeared with the pilots in the glider!!!! With such gliders you can “Soar” in nearly nothing!!!
After all pilots from the other 2 classes had removed their gliders, the tuggies launched the ” big wings ” and the start gate opened at 3.40 PM.
So the first [preliminary] scores are there as well.
A good day for team Germany with Michael winning and Tassilo as runner up both in EB 29R, which is for the first time in Australia, starting rather late at 4.07 . Their mate Stephan Beck was on 5 in the EB 28.
Michael mentioned in an interview ….The performance in low speed and medium speed will be unbeatable. The full interview with him and Oliver Binder ,family from Walter [his uncle] is on ;https://youtu.be/fiI–frRIg4
Also team UK did well with Andy on spot 3 and Russell at 4.They started a bit earlier at 3.56.
Not too many points lost or won; 675 for Michael for 282 km. in time 2.11 and most pilots were between 400 and 500 . But still…..
Mind you in 1987 the weather was also “different” than normal and on the last days they flew in open , tasks from 842 km !!!!Weather cycles come and go and are “nice ” in the beginning and good in the end.Hope the normal cycles start again!!!
2 Outlandings one from Swedish pilot Owe Engstroem after 221 km. and Chinese pilot Peng Du started at 4.18 and flew 6 km. for 6 points. For them PR for flying in China is more important ,as they don’t have a lot of high-class-competition rhythm.
A first day with more illusions and hope and for some huge disillusions.
For the full scores have a look at http://www.soaringspot.com or at the WGC site under results.[http://www.wgc2017.com/] on this last link you can follow the pilots via a tracking system as well.Every country has his own tracker and the delay is 10 minutes.
Today’s winner in the EB 29 R. This glider is for the first time in Australia like the JS 3 and Ventus 3.
As shared by the organizers.
Bruce’s opinion on task 1 in open class;
“Day 1 for the Open class today. We woke to total overcast, and despite forecasts to the contrary, it took a very long time to warm up and get going. Eventually the directors canned the 15m and 18m classes, and we were given Task C, which was a 2 hour AAT to the north-west, then north-east and home. Such short tasks are fraught with possibilities to fall off the bottom of the list, and I guess we avoided that pitfall. However, we made a couple of mistakes which cost some time and distance, and for me the day was a bit frustrating. To begin with things were very soft, but by the time we got north of the Murray and into NSW the sky had fired up and we were using 5-6 knots to a maximum of more than 6,000 feet. Coming home was not so bad, and a timely deviation gave us a good climb onto final glide. I think the winners started about 20 mins behind us, and were more disciplined in their use of the day.
More to come tomorrow. Hopefully we are finished with the poor weather for some days and everyone will get to fly.“
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After the “normal latest-news” procedure ,I want to tell you about a few man who are pretty important during a WGC.
Together with the CD Terry, they more or less make it all possible for the pilots.
The officials ….and they are:
Chief Steward Renato Tsukamoto [Japan]
Steward Rob Moore [Australia]
Jury President Rick Sheppe [USA]
Jury Member Bob Bickers [UK]
Rob Moore was THE man behind the idea/creation of an FM radio Station 3WGC in 1987. Now we broadcast all relevant info, via social media ,by the official WGC web-site,[ http://www.wgc2017.com] sms , tweet or what’s app. THEN in 1987 the pilot info, grid order, launch times, tasks and live interviews were shared daily on paper and on this station. As said in the last blog, Dennis was part of live broadcasts from the air.
Many of the interviews by Rob were published as well in the Brown Brothers Daily Bulletin.
and
as you can see we visited as well.
With Giep [Fransen]and Gerrit [Kurstjens],Kees [Musters] and Bruce [Brockhoff] ,Janet [Hider Smith RIP] Gretha[Musters] and Daan [Pare].
In the ..1987…practice week…….
Klaus [Holighaus] RIP helped both George and Kees with new turbulatoren- tape under the wings from the Ventus A and Nimbus 3D.
and
Klaus flew with George in his “own’glider” to check the result.Brigitte [Holighaus]wisely smiles.Now, in 2017, their son and new Schempp-Hirth- “boss” ,Thilo is in Benalla as well!!!
AND
we “girls ” , Brigitte and I,just had fun.
AND
son Thilo arrived NOW, as well in Benalla.
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The 55th Nationals in Chile flown in the Andes.
With all the time differences, it’s pretty difficult to cover everything in ONE blog, but I try.
Will be busy tomorrow and the next days, hence less news, but I’ll make it up in the weekend. On top of that Jeppe leaves Chile and travels on to Argentina, so no actual news but no worries I can handle that too;
Last words from Jeppe in Chile;”What a flight. Upto 4500m msl in the Andes on the Arcus. Great day and even better flying with Phil Sturley.Hope to e back one day. Club de planeadores Santiago: mucho graciàs!”
Thanks Jeppe and have fun with Jean Marie Clement in San Carlos de Bariloche.
Day 3;
A 2.30 AAT was set and flown by all 17 pilots. A 2d win for Carlos as he flew 352 km. in time 2.54, so a speed of 121 km./h.
Rene was runner up again and as the best Chilean pilots ” they do their work” as expected till now.
After 3 days Carlos has 2.605 points and Rene 2543, the number 3 2.206 !
Courtesy Jeppe
more tomorrow but later.
Cheers Ritz