A bit later then normal,as I was in Amsterdam and Alphen for 2 day’s.
In Amsterdam I had the great pleasure of catching up with Rand and Charlotte Baldwin. You surely remember “the guy’s” from SOARING CAFE and he is one of them.
We , Bill, Rand and I , had a SUPER co-operation in Uvalde during the WGC in 2012 and we still are “mates”.
Rand ,Bill and me .
Rand and his wife visited Amsterdam and from there they went on a cruise. They invited me for a lovely dinner and I welcomed them with bubbles. And,..as I had to be in Amsterdam anyhow, it all worked out well. I was amazed that they survived. They skipped a night…. had the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum and “Ritz” on the daily menu and they did it ALL. Good on them. AND,…finally we had nice weather too.
With Rand and Charlotte at “Loetje Centraal” in Amsterdam.
Enjoy your trip “guy’s”.
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The OVERSEAS SEASON STARTS WITH…. PACKING !!!
Last Thursday the containers left for Namibia with “RENT A GLIDER” Gliders in it [Flying with the champions”]; this time , 9 x Arcus, 2 x Antares 23, 2 x Shark and one Ventus.
ready to go and hoping and looking forward to another SUPER Namibia season.
As shared by Rent a Glider.
This weekend they packed the containers for Corowa [ Australian Soaring Corowa in Australia] in Venlo in the Netherlands. Not too many this year ,as Corowa sold their 2 tug’s and only self launching gliders will fly there now.
Their container-ship leaves on September 14 and the first possible flying-action will be on the 11th of the 11th 2017.We then start CARNAVAL here in Holland.
Diana ,whose glider “travels” to Australia as well, send me a few pictures of the packing and the shared pleasure with which these actions are going along.
With expertise for many years, Grietje and Francesco took the lead in this annual packing. Astonished to hear that in one morning the job for one container was fixed. Fabulous !!
Talking about Francesco and Grietje,[owners from” Corowa “] ; they flew in the past in Tocumwal. Grietje even worked a season for us. Here are some pictures;
Last week I showed some pictures from December 1994, this time it will be the beginning of 1995, so the 94/95 season, with a bit of history. And ALL of them at our caravan with different guests.
Morning coffee at our caravan a place where many visited. With George, Francesco ,Harm and Grietje’s dad Klaas.
AND
from Narromine we had as guests Dieter and Sandra, who were closing their gliding business; Australian Soaring Center due to “organisational restructuring” . Harm was involved in this business as well. Their gliders LS 4, LS 6, ASW 20 and ASW 24, were available for hire through Sportavia.
Breakfast this time with my beautiful old and fully restored Holden in the back.The Sportavia WW 2 hangar was still in full glory!
Season nearly over so some really good girl-fun….yes again at the caravan.
With Inge, Robyn , June and Vicky. EARLY in the evening.
and LATER in the evening after 6 bottles of bubbles.Won’t share the MUCH LATER pictures.
AND
we did not have a lot of USA guests but here is one of them . Ralph, “Woody” however, mainly flew in winter in Bitterwasser.
Ralph from Aspen on the head of the table,at Sportavia’s dining room, with Bill [RIP] and Val Riley founders of Sportavia and my Aussie mate Bruce.
Enough pictures for now.
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—– La Cerdanya in Spain had a Grand-Prix-like weekend for club class. 2 From 3 days were flyable. Jorge Arias in the St. Cirrus, won both days and was the winner with 11 points.
Jeff Billy from France in a St. Libelle, was twice runner up, so also runner up in the overall scores; 8 points.
—–Great [wave-]flight from Mikulovice (TS / CZ) by Milos Pajr in an HPH 304 S Shark; 774 km. He flew at one stage up to 7.190 m. MSL/ 6812 AGL.
Not as high as the Perlan-boy’s with their staggering 16,640 meters on September 3, they are profi’s ] but still VERY GOOD!!
—–“Pleased to announce I am now the APAC agent for the MDM-1 Fox. If you’re after a glider with a higher G rating than yourself, get in touch.” by Matthew Scutter former junior world champion, travelling Europe at the moment.
As shared by Matthew.
—–In September we celebrate “our” freedom here in Holland. It brings tears to my eyes to see how those veterans still love to come to Holland. A place where they lost many of their mates and where they had to fight and live in fear for “us”.
They were heroes, are heroes and always will be heroes!
For the first time the GEZC, the Gelderse Soaring Club close to Arnhem ,flew a few veterans , who participated in the 1944-operation “Market Garden” in much more fancy gliders than they flew in the past. For sure you have seen the movie ” A bridge too far”? I saw it a few times.
They started at Terlet and landed in a field in the neighborhood ,where these veterans landed in the past too. What a fantastic idea.
Very happy chappies.
These great pictures are courtesy Arjan Vrieze via FB.
—–1.500 km. in a glider is THE NEW MAGIC 1000 km from the past. It remains special but more and more pilots try a 1.300 or 1.500 km. Also last week when Keith Essex flew this distance from Minden in Nevada in the JS 1 C and what about the speed over 1.508 km??? 194.9 km./h. !!!!!
His OLC comment;”Tough on the ends but easy in the middle. Lots of moisture to deal with in the north and blue broken lift in the south. The whole wave system went unstable at the end of the flight.”
It looks on the barogramm as great wave between 4000 and over 5000 m most of the time.
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And to finish this great picture shared by DG Flugzeugbau GmbH.
“Ein Bild von Jason Adriaan mit einer DG-1000 bei Nacht.”
Cheers Ritz