Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday May 9 2010 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com blog 297
Thursday was not too bad here, with flights up to 300 km . but some parts of Europe really suffered from this low pressure system and specially the people on the coast of Cannes, were very depressed as after winter, they just had built up all their wooden summer houses and most of them have now been damaged by the waves. Some people said that the waves have been never that high since 1959. Even one of the big tents , specially built for the Cannes Film Festival, was damaged.
Unfortunately the ” low ” has reached us too, but better now then next week when the Nationals start.
In Poland [Zar] the qualifying Grand Prix 2010 started on April 30 with 2 days cancelled , but the 3d day was flyable and who else then Sebastian Kawa ” received ” the 2 points. The other pilot I know , from the 13 pilots competing , is Stanislaw Wujczak.This low pressure area is huge and persistent and disturbed Poland as well. So day by day had to be cancelled. Terrible for the organizers! Yesterday they flew one day more with only ONE pilot completing the task! Yes Sebastian, so he ended up with 4 points!!! He even had to swallow 300 penalty points [ 5 minutes–SGP rule p.8.7] !
All-other pilots outlanded between 19 and 174 km.The regatta start was at 12.15.
By the way…the Grand Prix Final will be flown at Wasserkuppe in July 2011.
On May 1 Fatra glide started at Martin Airfield in Slovakia. In 2 classes, mixed and club 55 competitors fight for the honors. Unfortunately Slovakia had that bad weather/ low pressure system , as well so after one flying day , with an AAT set for 2 hours 15, in both classes [ not a 1000 points day!] , a few were cancelled. After lots of rain the field was too wet to fly but there was hope for Friday and Saturday , that the comps could continue, but hope was there on Friday, briefing as well…then postponing…then cancelling….but….on Saturday everybody was smiling and the pilots finally could go up. Small AAT in 2 hours ! And….a very difficult one!!!!!
In both classes only 2 in mixed and 3 in club arrived back home.
So with today they will have 3 days of flying, which would make the comps valid! That is , when they can fly on this reserve day…I read it is difficult again.
Tibor is doing a great job in promoting this competition flown over the, still snowy mountains -Tatra and Frata-, in the North of Slovakia and of course this is good practise again for the WGC 2010 in Prievidza only 40 km away. During the comps the 15 m. Slovak Nationals have been ” flown “, as well. “Bloody rain”!
Several pilots have flown already in this area before, so we saw Roman, Dane , Lubor and more back this week. Look for results on www.soaringspot.com and inside news at www.fatraglide.sk, and when you want to know if they really flew today!
A few weeks ago I mentioned already that Fatraglide celebrates the 10th anniversary. Congratulations !!!! Sorry that the weather has not contributed to a big celebration!!!!
Weird but our neighbours in Germany seem to have had no troubles with the weather. Kilometer eater Jan Umlauf , several years a nice and welcome guest at Sportavia and last year again at Sportaviation, had on May 6 a nice flight from his home-field Boberg in Discus 2; 748 km. I was even more impressed with a flight in an LS 1 and Hornet:
a 500 km FAI triangle around Berlin!!!! The pilots flew from Eggersdorf which is NE of Lüsse, where the WGC has been flown. They claim that it was very blue [ 30 %] with a height of “only ” 1300 m. and that by flying together they made it! Chapeau!!! Klasse!!!I know that flying around Berlin, has been done many times before , but still…..Super!
Our Finnish friends have good times as well, with flights up to over 600 km.! And also Norway was “blessed “with some nice early-season- soaring-weather! But I can [not] imagine how cold it will be to fly there now!
The famous and well-known competition at Hahnweide started yesterday. Opening- briefing for this 44th edition, was at 8 PM on Friday. Saturday started with fog, but during the morning the fog disappeared and gliders were put on the grid and could fly, with the first launch announced for 12 o’clock. The competition goes till May 15.
In standard class 20 pilots will compete, in 15 m. 14 pilots, in 18m. 30 and in open class 21 with another 24 in the double seater class. A lot of very wellknown and very good pilots , as former and current world champions from Germany [Michael Sommer, Holger Karow ] but also from Europe [ Russell Cheetham, Steve Jones ] are in Kirchheim unter Teck. In fact too many to write down so , when you are interested I give you the link and you can keep an eye on it on www.hahnweide.de
Even Alexander Mueller, you remember from the so many 1000 km flights in his ASW22BLE , flies in open class!!
So what happened on day 1; A racing task was set for all classes with distances between 200 and 300 km. At-least they COULD FLY!!!!!But….not everybody flew the task. Several pilots landed back “home” aborting the task, but…..others made it back over the finish line! Good on them!
Winner in standard class yesterday; K8 in 2 hours and 40 minutes. 12 Pilots made it home from 20!
In 15m. class; Martin [1] and Georg Theissinger [2] From 13 pilots 8 made it home!
In 18 m. class; Eberhard Scott in 2 hours 37. From 30 24 made it home.
In Open class; UK pilot Steve Jones in 2 hours 35. From 20 18 came back home.
In 20 m. two seaters; WY in 2 hours 14. In this class 11 from 24 finished.
The latest issue of Gliding International is out now, with many different and interesting items. I even read about the younger brother of the sheik of the United Arab Emirates , who got killed in a crash ,[ not confirmed a Stemme] while the Spanish pilot survived and was taken to hospital. I tried to find out more about it, as you might remember, but I knew more then some friends I asked.
They found the debris after 2 days due to very bad weather.
More items as; European GPS system—how to evaluate which sailplane to buy—Computer assisted meteorology—the ASH 31—A gliding International Research Project….European Mayhem ESA gone berserk …”ESA and commercial interests join forces to kill off sporting aviation !!!!!—more microlight Sailplanes made—and more….. when you are interested and you do not have it already, you can order this good and easy reading magazine at www.glidinginternational.com
Not cause I write in it, but I just like to read all the stories. As the cover says; we are the best on what we do!!!.
By the way the Dutch Gliding Magazine Thermiek will be out soon , but you can read it in PDF , in total at www.zweefportaal.nl and click on Thermiek, that is , if you can read Dutch!
What happened more this week;
–Julio Poch has been extradited by Spain to Argentina last Thursday. I shared the news with you in the past, about this, in Holland living Transavia pilot who was arrested on his last flight before retirement. After 9 hours of “talking” with an Argentinian magistrate
Julio sticks to his decision that he is innocent.
–The final report of a Dutch research committee , not to accuse but just to learn from what went wrong, about the Turkish Airline crash last year, has been presented and the main conclusion, different then the one from the interim report was , that if the pilots would have reacted adequate the crash had not happened. They claim that the pilots had 3 times a warning to get out of trouble , but did not use them. Why??? Nobody knows! Of course the defect instrument was mentioned as well. Weird is that on the 2 days before 2 different crews said they had the same problem with the altimeter in this 737, but ” solved it ” and as it did not re-appear on the way back , they did not mention it. 8 People got killed under them the 3 pilots.
–Eyjafjallajökull is annoying the flying world again, with delays with flights to the N of the USA and yesterday also the North of Spain was closed for airline- traffic. It seems Portugal got their share of ash as well.
–The Giro d’Italia, now we talk cycling has started yesterday in Amsterdam. Yes Amsterdam in Holland. The circus stays for 3 days to continue then from Italy.
–Today is the Grand Prix from Spain…formula 1, busy , busy….
Enjoy mother-day, off to Twente tomorrow, “see you there “, and join in at www.nkzweefvliegen.nl , there is also a link on the home page to www.soaring.eu and when I can make it I try to write EVERY day!!!!
Cheers Ritz