South African soaring!

Alphen aan den Rijn    Sunday November 13 2011

www.soaring.eu    www.glidinginternational.com      www.soaringcafe.com 


Courtesy; Mattias Hemborg 2006
double click to enlarge

Soaring in Africa started strong with NEARLY another 1000 km flight. I share with you the enthusiasm;
” Oscar declared a 1000km FAI triangle Potchefstroom-Dealsville-Pomfret-Potchefstroom yesterday and came close, landing out nears Klerksdorp some 60km short.  Some 5m/s climbs in the best part of the day and eventually 4800m but the last glide looks as if it was dead with a 186km glide to the landing…
  second longest flight in Africa this season (so far) after Uys’ 1000km o/r exactly one month ago. Oscar flew the JS1.
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=2158036

Another super flight that day, in the ASG 29 by Mannie a 700 km. triangle also from Potchefstroom.
And…the National record , distance over 750 km. with 3 fixed TP’s for open class [ Nimbus 3T/25.5m.] in Brasil by Henrique Navarro,  is not too bad either. 
Gariep was still struggling with a 50km./h wind, but some pilots enjoyed flying ……even with the tough wind.
Nice to see Pierre has settled in Kiripotib for some good overseas soaring and Sven had another good flight , this time on November 12 from Worchester , with 739 km. [ speed 121 km/h.] in ASW 27.

Very unusual to see in the middle of November poppies and cornflowers  in Holland [close to my house along the road] .We still enjoy nice weather during the days with very sunny conditions , but colder nights.

 

 The economical situation is world wide a bit of a problem.  Problems also for many European countries. The people who know , claim there will be soon a new recession.
Airbus has till now, as ALL carriers do, sold planes in dollars. Even the French businesses delevering to Airbus , were paid in dollars.
Now they deal with EUROS as most of the customers prefer to pay with that currency. Interesting!

The 2 young German pilots, Benjamin and Fabian, who have arrived in Australia to promote  Fly-Down-under, from the airfield of Stonefield, { NE of Gawler}  and started their soaring in a PIK 20D,{ www.fly-down-under.com}, while waiting for their Discus 2B YB, who was send from Germany with 4 other gliders to Adelaide.

Talking about Australia, the first briefing and flights from guests at Corowa are a fact. Good to see Harry back in Australia and flying over Tocumwal on his first day starting at Corowa again after an absence of 2 years . He knows Toc. so well, as he flew several years at Sportavia. Even better to read that Grietje, together with Francesco the owner of Australian Soaring Corowa , has been allowed after an absence of 2 years , to fly the tug again. Knowing Grietje [ she worked for us in Tocumwal one season and Francesco was our guest] she will be over the moon. Good on you Grietje!!!
Also nice to see that Graham Parker , who had his glider with us on line in the past and toppilot for Australia at WGC’s,  is flying at Omarama.
In Tocumwal some pilots got together to fly a few days and flights up to 567 in ASH 26 were flown.

This year the Australian -Women- in- Gliding- week, will be held in Benalla from December 27 to 31. Ladies can come for an Ab Initio training or rent a glider or BYO [bring your own]  Next year the event will be in South Australia.

Not so nice ……the accident from one of the toppilots [35 years old] from the Red Arrows. His automatic chair went up on the ground , while going over the taxi-way. He “flew”  through the glass [ the canopy is supposed to disappear under these circumstances!!!] and was catapulted up to 60 m, to fall down again. He did not survive and with this tragic and curious way of dying,  the Red Arrows lost 2 pilots [one in August] in a short time. All the Hawk T1 planes are grounded now to find out what went wrong. Very sad!!!!

From Jo I received the next message  on behalf of Christopher Mac Donnell about a new book about Italian Vintage Sailplanes.
—-I am glad to inform you that my book “Italian Vintage Sailplanes” is finally coming out from the printer. It is now available by EQIP, who were also the same editors for Martin Simons’ books.
http://www.eqip.de/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=74&lang=de

 It covers most of the sailplanes designed and built in Italy from the beginning of the 20th century through until the early 1970s.  It includes sailplanes in wood or tube and fabric and it fills the gap in Italian gliding history.
With my best regards
Vincenzo
E-Mail: vincenzopedrielli@gmail.com 
www.vincenzopedrielli.it

 Talking about vintage sailplanes . Cheers Ritz

 
Picture above; courtesy Fritz Schweikart and under Johan Ersson.[2006]

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.