Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday January 5 2011 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
Finally back on line.They installed in Melbourne the new Word Press , thanks guy’s!!! All issues have been solved and most important the fact that I got TOO much spam and nonsense/trash [over33.000] and I am on their new server now. Hurray!!!
I am playing a bit now to get everything on in good order and see if the stories I wrote in word can be copied and pasted. Will send you allnews in ONE go. Might be too much but you can “switch off”, when you have had enough.
Let’s try!
Here is the news from Wednesday December 29 2010
still having that weird feeling of a “spinning head”, but…I arrived back home Tuesday- morning after a unique and unforgettable trip , of “only “ 16 days travelling around in Australia and New Zealand and seeing and experiencing more then somebody else in 4 weeks.
Of course I got a cold, no wonder when you fly 10 hours and 30 minutes from Auckland to Hongkong and 12 hours and 15 minutes[head-wind] in a 747-400 with lot’s of sneezers, coughers and snifflers. On top of that the station- building at Hongkong Airport is always using their airco -system on the highest speed, even when it is only 10 dgr. outside! You really freeze there!
You will find all the news about the trip in the diary under this blog and I continue over the next days, so you miss out on nothing about NZ. Sometimes the blog and the news mix , but that news is then part of the blog.
Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday December 19 2010 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
First of all apologies for writing not earlier. Maybe next time I take less luggage and instead , my laptop with me. Over 100 congratulations for my birthday …..I was really pleased with all of them. THANK YOU!!! No time to say thank you personally, but facebook friends and friends reacting on my hotmail account, I really THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!
Even Kiki has not forgotten to send his “bisoux “,[plenty of kisses] nothing changes in this world, is n’t that great!
In between Phil has worked in Melbourne already hard, to upgrade my blog-site, but unfortunately my password and username seem to have changed as I cannot get into the blog anymore, so I write in word this time and copy and paste it later in the blog. Hope Phill reacts soon on my may-day/HELP message.
A lot happened in our small community and in the world of aviation. No need to say that the weather gods really spoil all pilots in Namibia with great Christmas-weather-gifts. Then I have to smile when Rafi from Israel , who I got to know during one of the WGC’s, mentions in his comment after flying a 1000 , “still not Namibia on its best but improving”. Yesterday he flew another just over 1000 km flight and was back just before the showers started everywhere. Bitterwasser- airfield has , when you look at the OLC a really good run, with nearly 500.000 km flown by 115 pilots till now. Since I left on December 11 I counted 55x 1000 km for Bitterwasser only. Kiripotib and Pokweni had their share of good 1000 km flights as well.
You remember I wrote about Dirk [Germany] who flew with us in Tocumwal, a real character. On one of his flights , so I heard, he had a problem with his engine which only came out half and stopped over an un-landable area. In the air he asked a Dutch pilot to tell his wife that he dearly loved her and their children, which made a huge impact on the Dutch pilot. In the end he still managed to land his glider on a road in front of a farm. Due to the fact that, looking against the sun , he missed seeing a road sign, he hit it with the wing ,he turned 180 dgr. damaging his glider totally but…luckily Dirk can see his wife and tell her himself how much he loves her. Due to a tough wind [40/60 km] he seems to have calculated his final glide wrong. He was pretty cool about it himself in his comment after the flight. He called it a nice flight with a not so nice out landing. The street was big and wide enough but the low sun got him into trouble as the sign was invisible for him. Shit happens as he called it . The glider is back in the container!
In comparison with Namibia airfields , Tocumwal is doing well, for a small operation run by only Eddie and Sheryl , with the help of UK tuggie Liam, high-school mate Jake and when necessary , an extra instructor Rolf. Being 11 on the list is just good!!! I was very pleased to see how relaxed and happy, Eddie was this year in comparison to last year, when he worked harder then hard to fix everything in time to start their business. Jari will be back in January and more Japanese friends are flying now, as well as Aussie guests spending their Christmas holiday at Toc. Today Yuji flew a nice 551 km flight in the LS 4.
Sad news from Tocumwal as well. The day before I left on December 10 we had the SRGC Christmas party. Don was not there, he is pretty sick, but we still hoped to see him. That tempered the good mood of the 20 guests a bit. Much more of tempered mood, when Gloria [Burns] mentioned she was going to hospital as she had problems with a heart valve. In case it would be necessary they would make a by-pass as well. I told her she looked fit and well, that surgeons are so good nowadays and that those operations are done daily. “So don’t worry, see you next time”!
It was not meant to be. She died after the operation and will be buried this Friday. She was the invisible ” engine behind Mike her husband”, who had for years his engineer- business in our hangar and got later involved with the jet-engined- Caproni, in the hangar on the South side of the field. She was a great lady!
On the OLC airfield list, Corowa is 5 ,but for both counts that there has nearly been more rain then sun in the last part of 2010. Like next year hopefully January will be top! Great to see Maarten and Ton from Holland over there as well as Chris from the UK.
Corowa friends had to endure the tragic loss of Finnish glider-friend Ilmari on December 24. I did not know him, but saw him on the day I visited Corowa 2 weeks ago. 2 ASW 22 gliders arrived back early that day . Anders at 4, but that is normal , Anders loves his flying, he is no kilometer –eater, neither a record-chase but enjoys every minute. But the other ASW BLE arrived back at 5, on a glorious day, cause he had engine problems. On the ground he tested the engine , but there it seemed to work fine.
This was their message;
—-The ASCC sadly has to announce, the tragic accident to one of the gliders in Corowa on Friday 24th of December 2010.
The pilot involved was Ilmari Rintesalo.
The accident happened during the self launch during which the glider was unable to climb normally.
After hitting power lines next to the Redlands Road, the aircraft came to rest next to the road.
Emergency services responded quickly, but to our regret Ilmari did not survive.
As soon a further info is available it will be published on the website.—-
Hitting powerlines is written in my brain as this way we lost , as most of you know, our son and brother on January 3 2011, 23 years ago, flying the tug up to Jerilderie to pick up a guest who flew his first 50 km., so the accident had quite an influence on my Christmas days.
So please , avoid ALL power lines!!!
South Africa had at Welkom Airport the Nationals 2010 with several overseas guests as Ronald Termaat from Holland, John Coutts [ NZ] and Aussie friends Brad Edwards and Bruce Taylor! Also over there…. showers! Out of 10 days, pilots in open/18 m. class flew 6 days and good “old “John Coutts was the winner in JS 1. Bruce was 2d and Attie 3d. All of them flew JS 1. As said before there were 10 JS 1’s flying out of 16 gliders. John started his glider career, age 15, in Auckland, where I just was. John was world champion in 2003 in Poland in 15 m class, Brad in 1991 in Uvalde, also in 15 m class, Bruce won several times the Australian Nationals and flew at many WGC’s.
Today we heard that less people have been killed in accidents with planes. Just under the normal average. Unfortunately today 12 were added as a Russian plane crashed. Bizarre is that all of them were PILOTS!!!!!
That’s it for today. See you on Sunday and wishing you ALL
A GREAT , HAPPY, HEALTHY AND ABOVE ALL SAFE 2011!
Cheers Ritz