It remains special,… not so much anymore as in the past but still,…the 1000 km. , certainly the first one.
Not only ELY had several over-1000 km.-flights last week, but also Europe was at some places AS GOOD,on July 6, with at least 5 x a 1000- plus in an 18m. Ventus 2CM , an ARCUS T ,ASW 22 BL and Antares 20 ,flown in Germany and in Switzerland from Bex in an ASH 31/21 m..
Gilles Navas just missed out from Vinon in France, [he has many already];999.31 in an 18 m. ASG 29 E. And 950 in a Discus 2 is worthwhile mentioning too.
On July 5 Germany had already a 1000 in a Duo Discus X from Scheuen Celle [NW of Braunschweig] .
France …Paris.. had 50 mm. of rain last Sunday,…that’s a lot!! So the weather changes from very good and hot to very ” heavy”, cool and wet with severe storms.”They” say we have to live with it, so we do.
We expect here this morning 50 mm. only in the morning, it seems they are correct.
———-
2d WGC 13.5 m. in Hungary!
Szatymaz, Jun 29 – Jul 16, 2017
Got a mail from Tony who flies the 13.5 m. -WGC for the 2d time and I know how much he loves participating. He had a minute
AND
“Even though the scoresheet says so, Florian is not flying with FES. All the MiniLAK’s here are flying as pure gliders. Couldn’t fit the FES and a pilot in and stay under 35kg/m^2!”
So we are even better up to date!!!
Serious flying and serious fun after and great clouds during launching.
As shared by Tony, who had a great day and felt like a “happy chappie:
“Had a great time running with Sebastian Kawa,Sebas Riera, Uli Schwenk , and Florian on the second leg today. And the pool here is really nice for cooling off at the end of the day.”
Picture 3 shared by Sebastian K.
They postponed the first launch from 11.45 to 12.15 to have the best circumstances for the day.
Day 3; 331 km
No Sebastian’s on spot 1 this day , OK,… Sebastian K. shared spot 1 …BUT good old ULI with his big smile!!!
Yes, the Seb’s were 1 and 3 , but great job from Uli!!! 115 km./h ., so 952 points for both Uli [115.06 km./h.]and Sebastian K. [115.02km./h.] and Sebastian R. had 949 points. All very close as Thomas, Florian and Stefano had 934 [2x] and 931 points. And with 930 points Ukraine pilot Vladas had a good day too.
After 3 days the overall scores are interesting as well.
Sebastian K. with 2488 points, Uli with 2416 and Sebastian R. with 2408.
Sebastian and his dad Tomasz
as shared by Bacskai Vera.
Day 4;a 3 hour AAT and,…he did it again… Uli won the day and “received” gracious the 1000 points. Uli flew 300 km. the ONLY one just over 300k. [97.12 km./h.]Good on him.
Sebastian K was runner up with 292 km [93.94 km./h.]and after 4 days still leads the pact BUT,…only with 7 points!!!!
Thomas was 3d.
Tony had a good run and was 11th; “Had trouble lining up climbs today. Seemed like every leg was crosswind. And then of course just when you need that last good climb for final glide the day starts dying. Oh well tomorrow is another day“so…
Day 5; a set task from 197.78 km.
As shared by Tony who was on spot 1 on the grid.
Day 5 was DIFFICULT. According to Sebastian” typical Hungarian weather that I was afraid of. Blue and stable. Than very fast overcast .”
And US soaring team mentioned:”Today we have a short 200 km racing task due to expected precipitation and thunderstorms developing around 4pm. First launch is scheduled noon local.”
9 Finished ,…a few pretty low . A winner ,…for the day….yes Sebastian and he was the only one who “hit” the 100 km./h. Thomas and Stefano were the next best with 88 km./h.
They fly ” the Italian VersUs, which are Diana 2s modified for 13.5m and 15m tips, as well as self-launching FES. These guys litterally fly away from us, with glide ratio about 20% better than ours at cruising speeds also about 15-20% higher than us. We rarely see them for more than a thermal or two.…” as by US Soaring teams.
” Finished at 70kph. Thrilling final glide!” was the comment from Tony who started at the same time, but finished a bit later than Francois who just made it in . Guess Tony “found” some extra height before landing. 3 Points difference between them,..what the heck!!
Tony’s story:”Well, we started early and prayed for rain. And the storms didn’t come. They still haven’t come in fact. Was a challenging day for us with thin cu on the first leg that got us split up, then the first turnpoint was in a hole which featured both of us getting really low. Second leg was a nice line of clouds with one really good climb and another one or two weak climbs. That didn’t quite get us final glide though and the second turn point was, you guessed it, in a hole. Francois finished a little low and I just squeaked in above minimum height thanks to a thousand birds soaring along the edge of the lakes on the arrival. Onward!”
A few just missed out in between 1 and 5 km.!!!
Day 6 and TASK 6 , great average AND…. WHAT A TASK!!! Speed task of 499 km. so a 500!!!!
Great weather…OR,…. mind you these guy’s do not have an EB 29 but a good and high-quality -13.5 m. wing-glider, mostly with an engine , they can’t use, because of the FAI weight rules!!!
So I was anxious to see if there would be pilots finishing.And,…they were in the end less happy with the day. Some who had the FES and the correct weight ,put it on to bring them home as there was RAIN ‘on the track which was NOT forecasted.
” Washed out of the sky by a line of showers on a day with 0% forecast precip..”
So a bit of a shock to the system, but some pilots still reached nearly 400 km. And whilst waiting at 8, I had good hope that MAYBE there would be finishers. There were NOT,as I noticed the next day.
Uli and Sebastian R. flew 391 km. for 1000 points each.Good!!But most had to be picked up from a field .The Silent pilots cruised home “under steam” and had their dinner in time.
Tony’s OLC comment;
” The day was going really good for the first two turnpoints. We did a nice job on the first leg and managed to get in and out of the first turn without much trouble. Then got an awesome climb and a nice run along a street towards TP2.
Found Florian and Kawa at the second turn and tagged along with them as long as I could hang on. Approach shadow from line of rain messed up the rest. I just wasn’t willing to take the size of deviation required to get out ahead of it. Then I was too low to get out ahead of it.
Started the motor and quickly was in a great thermal that got me plenty high to fly home as I bounced through lift all over the place! Have never been so mad about finding a thermal!”
Daily winners…
with Sebastian R on spot 1 and Uli and Florian to the l and r.
Day 7; NO …not a rest-day after 6 days of flying, they continued with a 3 hour AAT, later changed into 2.30.AND,…a new face on the daily number 1 spot;Vladas Motuza who flew his mini-LAK over 246 km. in time 2.28 for 800 points.
Stefano followed with 245 in time 2.29. And Sebastian with 239 km. in 2,30 at the dot.
After 7 days of flying Sebastian Kawa still leads with 5.687 points followed by Uli with 5.603 and Vladas with 5.341.
Monday is a well deserved rest-day!!!
So the new and last week started for the pilots on Tuesday at 10 with the briefing and yesterday….a set task number 8 was handed out from 296.66 km.
The weather .”Moderate West wind, good cu, streeting, and potential late over-development are all expected.” It turned out MORE wind and less lift and,…NO FINISHERS but 752 points for Tony who won the day with a distance of 218.41 km,. GOOD ON HIM. Sebastian just ,missed out on “nothing” 218.31…10 meters!!!” I made it 18 mud steps further than the great Sebastian Kawa“.
Congratulations I know how much this means for Tony who is very down -to -earth.
Here is his OLC comment
“13.5m WGC Day 8. Difficult start with hardly any lift near the start line. Worked some clouds to TP1 and on the way out. Then it got blue and progressively weaker and weaker. Good team work and a few other gliders around helped us keep moving. Limped into the turnpoint and found one last weak climb. Watched Uli land out and then floated it as far as I could.
Ended up, by pure luck, going 100 meters further than Sebastian Kawa to win the day! Wahoo!”
As shared by US soaring teams.
Tony is supported by many and at every big competition he shows his gratitude!!
Private sponsoring and by business as Paul Remde’s Cumulus Soaring.
TODAY….Day 10…Task 9; 2.30 AAT. “25-40mm of rain overnight, late start expected. First launch not scheduled until 12:45.“
———-
Stendal[Germany]
Nationals for 15 m., 18m.,and open class
As shared by the organizers
The weather did not really improve here , so small tasks,but still happy pilots and Arne Boye Moeller ,who arrived for a few days crewing for Katrin [Senne].
Does n’t look too bad !!!! And with Arne and Arnaud……….Stendal not too big as seen by Michael Eisele.
As shared by Katrin.
Day 2 ;
15 m; 147 km.
Won by Tilo Holighaus in his Ventus 2AX. [ 81.5 km./h.] 26 from 35 finished.Bad day for Kai [Lindenberg] ; only 69 km.
18 m.;182 km.
Won by Mario [Kiessling] in the Ventus 3T.[110.59 km./h.] The “girls” did well with Stefanie [Muhl[ on spot 3 and Katrein on spot 4.
open ;187.6 km.
Markus Frank in his EB 29 flew around with a speed of 110 km./h and with such a speed in such a machine you know that it was difficult.All 31 pilots finished but the last spot for an ASH 25 with 73 km./h says enough as well.
Michael [Sommer] was runner up, Bruno on spot 9 and Holger Karow on spot 16 with the THE Broquevilles on 21.
Day 2 in 18 m. class
As shared by Segelflug- DM Stendal.
Day 3;
Finally GOOD weather!
As shared by Arnaud with the words:”Very nice day @ Stendal...”
15 m.: A 3.30 AAT gives lot’s of possibilities for the pilots and ,…they used them. 1000 Points for 411 km. in a Ventus B in time 3.46. for Henrik Bieler.
18 m.: A 3.30 AAT as well and good runs by the “young dog’s” and one “old” Fox. Mario won the day with 425.6 km. in time 327.48 in his Ventus 3 and collected the 1000 points.Matthias was runner up with 944 points and good old Reinhard Schramme was 4th in the Ventus with 935 points.
open class; The The Broquevilles loved their day, did not win, but finished on a good spot 6.
Michael won again and flew 528.5 km. during a 4 hour AAT in time 4.12.
4 EB 29’s in the top 4.
Michael, vice- world champion and number 1 at this stage in Stendal, interviewed by the MDR.
As shared by the organizers.
Day 4;
15 m.; 2.30 AAT....2 Pilots at spot 1 for the day and,…at 1 and 3 overall.Sebastian Bauder [Ventus 2] and Jan Omsels [Discus 2 A]both 800 daily points and a total of 2974 and 2967. In between is Michael Pfennig[799 points for the day] with a total of 2968…..The 3 of them fly together and it seems it get’s the best out of them; 251 km. for the boy’s in time 2.22.
So excitement enough and still a few days to go to follow them all, as it seems they are not totally satisfied with the flight,…the 2d “leg” could be better.
18 m.; 2 hour AAT….. a short day for the pilots after the long day and because of the weather. Mario was 3d, Matthias 7th and Sikko 9th BUT,….Andreas Kessler won the day in the ASG 29e; 242 km. in time 2 hours at the dot!! Claus Triebel was runner up.
open; 2 hour AAT….696 points for the daily winner…. Michael!!!!251 km. in time 2.14. He won 3 from the 4 days already.
Also nice to see was that the runner up, was Kornelius Volociuk, [ASW 22 BLE] who I met years and years ago and it’s not him but the car and the “ornament ” on the nose I still remember.
Young Felipe Levin is climbing on the overall scores to spot 2 and the first 9 gliders are all EB 29’s, so it seems you need such a very expensive, but gorgeous toy, to win.
Oliver Binder from EB is on spot 4 behind Markus Frank.
The Nimeta YY from Bruno, …..a lot of cleaning….
As shared by the organizers.
Day 5; Briefing first,….. not one but even 2. The weather in the end turned out better than expected, so they could start day 5 out of 5 with a smaller task and the first launch at 2 PM!!! When you look at the weather it’s all understandable.
Meteo forecast………..Briefing with lot’s of pilots ……………and the weather when they were launching.
As shared by the organizers.
15 m; 138 km…..and a big “bunch” of pilots started at 15.58,…so did Katrin and she shared spot 1 for the day. Good on her.327 points for her and Thomas Wettemann and the rest had just a few less.
18 m; 216 km…. started first and they shared it with a live video.NICE!!! Matthias was the best and not a real good day for Mario, [19] Matthias had 630 points, Mario 543, not a lot of points to win or loose.
The overall-difference between is less now though, Mario still leads with 3376 and Matthias has 3236.
35 From 41 finished!
open ; 197 km… Felipe and Michael flew together and both shared spot 1 for the day. Only Alexander was “out” a pity as there were only 172 points for him!!BUT,…the toppers “only” shared 483 points ,so no worries.
In the evening a real shower passed by but most were ” home”then.
Day 6 out of 6 in Stendal; with a sunny morning and task’s ,but it all rather started late and B tasks popped up. First start at 2 but 1.5 and 2 hour AAT’s.
As shared by the organizers
In the end the day was cancelled. A bit of rest will do them all good.
A new week and a new day and as the day was cancelled some nice pictures from day 4 by Philipp Stern shared by the organizers.
Tuesday July 11 ; the weather did not improve yet , in fact it was “raining cat’s and dogs”.A small C task was set for open class ONLY;1.30 AAT.
There were winners!! 2x Nimbus 4 M not EB’s they were on spot 3-4-and 5 with Michael, Felipe and Alexander followed by Bruno in the NimetaX.
RAIN today there, as here in Holland, lot’s of rain!!!!
————
Czech Nationals….finished with still 6/7 days out of 12!….
Pribram
25 June 2017 – 7 July 2017
RACE 9; 3 hour , 3.15 and 3.30 AAT’s were set.And flown by most!!!!
Club; Flying day 5 with 317 km.as the best distance in this class and 1000 points for Jaroslav Tomana in the St. Cirrus.
5x A St. Cirrus in the top 5.
Mixed 15m.;Flying day 6 with 397 km. in this class by David Mach and for him 1000 points as well and 4x LS 8 in the top 4!
Mixed open; Flying day 6 with 443 km. by Polish pilot Zdislaw in the ASG 29. Roman [Mracek] was a good runner up with 995 points.
Race 10; 3 hour AAT’s in all classes to define the champions as it turned out that July 7 the real last day had” have overcast, windy and rainy morning as usually during this competition. The weather is influenced by passing cold front.” So pretty unstable and complicated. They tried however…In the end race 10 was the last one.
Club; flying day number 6 and Jaroslav won again this time 1000 points and …..he won the comps as well in hist St. Cirrus.
4. 209 for him . Runner up Ivan had 4.045 points same glider and Petr Stepanek in the ASW 19 B was 3d.[3.946.]
mixed 15 m; flying day 7 and 376 km was flown and won by 2 Jan’s; Jan Boruvka [Ventus c/15m. ] and Jan Horak as runner up in the ASW 20 A WL flew 303 km. Not enough to win the comps as Miloslav Cink won, good on him;5.256 points . Pavel was runner up and Radek Krejcirik number 3.
Mixed open ;good day for Roman who won the day with 382 km in time 3.02, and moved overall from 5 to 4. The same jump for Petr Krejcirik from 4 to 3 and Lucasz Wojcik [5683] and Petr Tygy [5262] remained on spot 1 and 2 for a long time and also on the last day.
My Aussie friends Adam and Butch finished on 9 and 10 overall and my Dutch mate Steven on 11.Here is Adam;
“That’s that, the CZ Open Class Nationals are now done & dusted. John & I got everything we wanted out of it, team flying experience which we can’t get (in AUS it’s called cheating 
😢), plus local knowledge gained from the site & weather.
Much learned as one would expect, one poor day for John & two for me – which finalised us in 9th & 10th. Thanks naturally to the great organisation, John & I both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves – also to our crew, Marek!
Tomorrow we start our journey for the POL pre-worlds where we’ll both compete in 15m V2’s 
:“
Over and done with. The good weather starts!
As shared by Adam.
————-
Austrian Nationals
Mariazell
30 June 2017 – 8 July 2017
NO flying on day 1 for all 4 classes ,but flying-day 1 started on day 2.
18 pilots in 18 m. and the first day was for Reinhard Haggenmueller [ASG 29/18m.] just ahead of Wolfgang Janowitsch.[Ventus 3T] A 2 hour AAT and 589 and 587 points .
No day 2 and no day 3,…..so Flying day 2 started again BUT only for open and 18 m. with Guido Achleitner and Andy Lutz as winners for 264 and 585 points.
BUT THEN,…. the good soaring weather arrived on July 5!!!And,…the 1000 points!!!
No AAT’s but nice longer tasks;444.67 km. for ALL classes!!!
Best speed in 15 m. ;112.16 km./h. over 444.67 km. in an ASW 20 C.
Best speed in 18 m. ;120 .25 km.h. nearly a class apart by Wolfgang in his Ventus 3T. Next best; 111.79 km./h.
Best speed in St. class; 100 km./h in an Discus 2 b, but,..not the best daily flight; 96 km./h. in an LS 1f and 1000 points.
Best speed in open class;129.75 km./h. by Sebastian Eder in the EB 29. Also a class apart as the runner up had 112.25 km./h.
July 6 was another good day with 3 and 3.30 AAT ‘s and off they went. Another 1000 points day.
15 m.: 3.30 AAT; 437 km. in time 3.45 in Ventus 2B by Eduard Supersberger.
18 m.; 3 hour AAT and won by ,…Wolfgang…again….398 km. in 3.07 so a nice speed of 127 km./h.
st.class; 3.30 AAT and 383 km. in time 3.35 was flown in the Discus 2B. An LS1f was runner up with 334 km. in time 3.26.
open; 3.30 AAT was again a prey for Sebastian Eder in the EB 29, what a “machine” that is.
473 km. in time 3.31 so a nice speed of 134.34 km./h.
July 7 set tasks from 367.26 in 15 m and St. and 388.16 km. in 18 m and 414 km. for open. Nice soaring weather in Austria!!!
15 m.;only 2 finishers a “hard day in the office”, but great job from the finishers. They flew 4 and 4.30 hours.
18 m.;5 from 17 finished and,….Wolfgang won. Werner Amann was “in” as well [3] and Andy unfortunately was “out”.
St.; only 2 finishers and the LS 1f won!!!
open: 5 from 8 finished Guido [Achleiter] won the day in just under 4 hours. Sebastian just finished as the last one from the 5.
July 8 ; last day at the Austrian NATIONALS in 4 classes.
15 m; 2 hour AAT…Eduard Supersberger [Ventus2B] is the clear winner in this class. With 4.076 points he was nearly 300 points better than the runner up.
18 m.; 388.16 km…AND YES my mate Wolfgang won another day and is the VERY clear winner from the 18 m. Nationals in Austria in his Ventus 3. A pretty difficult day as only 5 from 17 finished. Most stayed under 200 km.
3.824 points for Wolfgang and the runner up Werner Amann had 3.525.
st. class; 2 hour AAT…the last day’s David Richter-Trummer leaded the pact already in his LS 1f. He did nothing wrong on the last day, finished on spot 5 on the last day and is the new champion.Good on him.
open; 2.30 AAT…tough day for some, very tough. The Duo Discus T won the day[253 km. in time 2.32] and number 1 overall, Sebastian Eder, lost a bit more than 300 points with 274 km in the EB but in TOO much time; 2.53. A shorter distance might have been better but who am I….The number 2 Guido had a better day as runner up [779 points for 258 km. in time 2.27] ] and moved in his ASG 32 MI, to the winning spot NUMBER 1,[4.175] with Sebastian as runner up.[3.993]
The Ventus 3 seems to be a REAL GOOD glider. In Sweden also Boerje Erikkson won ” the Swedish Nationals in 18 m class with his new Ventus 3. In June he also won the Open class Nationals with this outstanding glider.”
Of course they are both good pilots too.
Schempp-Hirth also delivered last week DUO DISCUS number 700 . WOW!!!!!!!
———–
AMSTEL GLIDE in Holland.
Was flown last weekend and due to the weather one day was soarable but created enough happy faces, though not a lot of participants this year….maybe due to this weather.
The Amsterdam Soaring Club every year invites pilots to fly from their home-field Soesterberg for a weekend together and the pilots deal with a SGP regatta start and points.
They flew in 2 classes;
club had 146.32 km. and unfortunately the only out-lander from the 4 pilots was junior world champion Robin and he was annoyed with himself. I do understand, s…t happens.
combi with 10 pilots had 8 finishers over 194.73 km.
Club and combi winners as seen and shared by FRANS GUISE.
COMBI
1. Sjors van Loon in ASG 29 E/18 m.; speed 73.12 km./h.
2.Wouter van Willenswaard in Ventus 2CT /18 m.; 68.88 km./h.
3. team Epema in Duo Discus XLT; 64.05
CLUB
1. Maurits Hebels in LS 4 ;speed 77.11 km./h.
2. Jan v d Ven in DG 300WL; 63.40 km./h.
3. Theo Janssen in ASK 23; 45.49 km./h.
Finish by Sjors as seen by Frans.
CU next week with the latest on the 13.5 m WGC and Stendal.
Cheers Ritz