Alphen aan den Rijn
Sunday September 11 , a day on which 10 years ago, the world changed
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
A day to remember this 11th of September. As everybody else, I clearly remember what I did on the moment the planes flew in the Twin towers. I just had a drink with my dad during my holiday in Holland and saw on a TV, while ordering the beer in a cafe on a nice market-place, how the 2d plane hit the tower. I could not believe my eyes and thought it was a movie/animation, but the faces from other people in there told me that it was happening in New York at that time!!! And….the world, we …could follow it live! I still can’t look at it and still have problems to believe such terrible things can happen.
Talking about sadness, there was more this week as the so maniest old plane [ Yak 42] from Russia crashed killing 43 people,[ 2 survived but are in bad condition] a lot of them top ice-hockey-players and their staff from Lokomotiv Jaroslavl. Top as in …world champions and Olympic champions and from different parts of the world. All were happy and ready to start a new season of top -ice-hockey and it all ends on the bank of the river Wolga . Terrible!!!
Finally the Russian president Medvedev is angry about all the crashes and promised to do something. About time with 121 people killed in 7 crashes only this year!!!!! Investigation has to show us what happened, maybe bad fuel????? as they suggest now!???? Let’s wait and see!
One of the last comps flown in this summer season 2011 here in Europe, is in the UK at Aboyne, where the Deeside Gliding Club , THE place to be in the UK for wave, hosts the UK Mountain Soaring Championship from September 4 till 11. And…though the weather is horrible here, they managed to fly on Sunday [ 246 km. ] with 9 finishers out of 15 pilots and on Thursday with a 2 hour AAT.
John Williams in the Antares /20m. won in 1hour 56, nicely under the set time and flying 259 km. with a speed of 129.4 km /h. Not bad!!!
Friday was scrubbed and yesterday was the last day and they tried hard. Briefing at 2PM. But another scrubbed day , we are used to it this season.
So John Williams won in the Antares with 1739 points before David Latimer in Ventus CT/17.6.
Mountain flying here above Argentina.Picture courtesy Bruce Cooper
It is great to stay in contact with a lot of our guests/friends from the Sportavia period. Last week I got a mail from Hisashi from Japan, written in the Boeing 777 on his way to Cairns for a holiday. Hisashi was one of those guests who was most grateful for what we could offer him. He loved his cross country soaring, as that is not too easy in Japan. Most airfields are on the banks of rivers and those places are not the best for hours of good soaring, yes they are perfect for starts and landings , flying from circuits.Hisashi is planning on going back in the 2012/13 season. In the past he always brought friends with him, now it will be friends with their children!!!! And of course Tocumwal will be the place to go to.
He caught up with George and they had a good time. Great to see how good Hisashi looks, due to more exercise and healthy food!! Compliments.
Hisashi and George in Cairns
Greetings from Hongkong[courtesy Hisashi]
We had an earthquake on Thursday night at 9PM here in Holland. YES, an earthquake!!
That is pretty unusual certainly with 4.5 on the Richter scale, but I did not feel anything while people about 15 k from here did feel it. Nothing happened but it was a real phenomena. The epi- centre was just over the border from Nijmegen on German soil. Even journalists from all over Europe were interested as for our country this was a pretty heavy earthquake and the 3d worst in 100 years.
Experts predict/expect that in the future we might have a REAL one…..!Hope not!
As said already too many times the weather is not too good in Europe this season. One of the places to be were the mountains, specially the Alps. Over the last days longer -European -soaring -tasks were mainly in the mountains from France and Italy .
The USA was pretty blessed with good weather as I noticed at the OLC. Also this last week the longer flights were flown in both North and South America, occupying since September 2 the top-2 spots at the world-list .
Yesterday we had a splendid day here, with up to 29 dgr. not a soaring day bytheway, but today autumn is back. Atleast we had a great spring!
This next article is not new but as we look ahead to the start of the season soon in Bitterwasser and as I have never shared it with you before, I do now as it is a bit of “cucumber-time” for soaring news at the moment. It is a great interview on the site of the Southern Riverina Gliding Club at Tocumwal airport, [ www.srgc.com.au] where Ingo Renner [ 70 years old since June this year] is the chief instructor and I am still a proud member. Don’t get me wrong, I “love”and support and I am proud on Eddie [ Happy Birthday!!!!] and Sheryl as well, as soaring and Tocumwal belong together!!!![ www.sportaviation.com.au ]
The interview was with Lothar Arndt who is an instructor at the SRGC with pilot Milan Petcovic from Serbia after he flew his first 1000 km at Bitterwasser. In “our” time we had quite some nice pilots arriving from Melbourne from the East European countries even bringing their families to visit Sportavia for the weekend for joy-flights and soaring for theirselves.
Enjoy the article!
http://www.srgc.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90
To finish 3 pictures from my archive[2006] from one of my favourite soaring-photographers Kai Monkkonen from Finland .Enjoy the beginning of your week and see you on Wednesday,cheers Ritz
