Alphen aan den Rijn May 26 2010 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
Though we had wonderful weather the last couple of days, May will go in the books as the coldest month ever here. The normal average temperature is 12.7 dgr. but now they only measured 8!!!!!
The last couple of days @Twente were nice warm, but we have had during the Nationals all kinds of weather, storm, rain, polair air, tropical air in the end, hail , fog and sun.
The last day of the Nationals here turned out much better then expected. Jokes were made that instead of the 300 km pilots should fly 600. It looked like 600 km. weather , but in the evening we heard that it looked better then it was. For sure you have seen the great pictures on the site; www.nkzweefvliegen.nl under multi-media.Fabulous pictures from finishes on the last day , but also from people, launches, ropes…etc . Just have a look.
On the last page of my stories you will see the winners in the 3 classes and prizes given to others.
The first picture on top shows the winners of the club class. About the young man on the right Frank Hiemstra is a story to tell. He landed out in the beginning of the comps and was very disapointed. He pulled himself together and decided to just go for it , fly free and happy, no tactics just flying. I told him such a thing happened in the past with the late world champion Kees Musters. He still became 4 in Benalla in 1987, after being at 24 or so.
In this club class only 8 pilots, but still….Frank won 4 days and got the cup for third place.
Hope he will be world champion one day too.
I was impressed by the JS1. A great looking “bird” with the best pilot [at the moment] in Holland flying it. Ronald Termaat also the importer for Middle Europe, flew well but in open class the 2 Nimbus 4T pilots [ Peter Batenburg from that area and Mark Wering flying at Lasham in the UK ] flew as a team, to get away with their handicap and they succeeded, becoming 1 and 3.
In the combi class well-known pilot Steven Raimond won. Peter and Steven and Ronald will all fly the worlds this summer.In between life/soaring continues in Europe and now I should catch sight on soaring in general again. Hope you liked the short impressions from the Dutch Nationals.
The Polish Nationals really have fallen into heaps of water.It is so bad in Poland that 15 people died and flooding is continuing. They flew between May 15 and 23 their open and club class Nationals in Leszno, and as far as I can see and heard, they had NO day of flying. 97 Pilots in 2 classes waiting…every day..an organizers worst nightmare.
For sure you kept an eye as well on the OLC. I noticed pilots “found “Morocco again. From Quarzazate Bernd Dolman flew in the ASH 25EB 28, a yo-yo flight from 1209 km . Italy and Switzerland had 1000’s too and I was pleased to see that Giorgio added another 2 to his list. Yesterday some parts of Europe enjoyed great soaring weather. In Germany , Reinhard Schramme [Ventus 2CT 18m] flew a nice up and down flight from 822 km. And the best flight yesterday was also in Germany with 939 km. in a Discus from Köningsfdorf.
I was most impressed with the FAI triangle flown in an LS1 454 km from Wesel.
In Holland the nice weather continued with a nice flight from one of the competitors of the Nationals, Mark who flew with his Nimbus 4 d from our National Gliding Center a good 681 km flight to the East far into Germany, even mentioning snow on the Hartz mountains, which proves once again how cold it was.
The accident with the A330 in Tripoli, during my stay in Twente, was too sad for words.70 People from Holland died and only one 9 year old boy also from Holland survived!He is doing well, but lost his mum, dad and 11 year old brother.
More news on Sunday
Hope to CU then
Ritz