Post 1.408 on March 15 2023.
AUS GLIDE
13 March 2023 – 24 March 2023
NARROMINE
Tony Condon
The club, standard and 15 m pilots rushed from all parts of Australia and even from the world to Narromine for the Pre Worlds. I noticed Jack from the UK and Tony from the USA.
Tony went via Temora where he borrowed glider C2, from the Gilbert Family. It’s a Cirrus with LS8 tips and Discus panel.
Long ago in 1984, the world arrived in Australia too, to fly the AUSTRA GLIDE. There is a beautiful video from this event, an ABC documentary ,about this 1984 gliding competition in Benalla, Australia. It was the largest gathering of gliders in Australia ever, and a precursor to the world championships in 1987.
Austraglide 84 is still to be seen at YouTube.……and WORTHWHILE looking at, [just under 30 minutes] when you have not seen it yet. I just looked at it again and it still impresses me.
It’s mainly about Ingo [Austr] , Kees and George [The Netherlands] Herbie [Eric Moser USA] , Griffo [Peter Griffiths Austr.] ] and shows all in’s and out’s of soaring in that time .
To AUS Glide now. Adam had to travel/commute again via Singapore and Japan to Sydney for these Pre Worlds. He mentioned ;
“this is the selection event for the Australian team, cut throat, 1st or 2nd make the team, 3rd does not. “
So tension enough and expectations HIGH for a great COMP.
Official practice day was yesterday and today the comps start. I will post what I hear and find.
Adam Tony and Bruce share their posts so you can follow them for “hot DIRECT news”.
Tony Condon…..”It was nice and cool up at 10,000 ft! Final leg made sure that it wouldn’t all be easy. Good tour of the area.”
Taylor’s Gliding Page “We had a nice practice day today, great weather for this time of year with mostly 7 knot climbs to about 11,000 feet out west“
Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures…”This was a fantastic leg towards Condobolin, classic Australian weather, 7.7kt average up to 10,000′, confirmed by SkySight XC Speed predictions beautifully
” about practice day.
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding about the practice day on the 14th. “We got about halfway through the morning met brief before Telstra cut all phone comms in Narromine for ‘maintenance’, and with a nasty blob of altocumulus locally we didn’t even have a satellite picture on the grid to know whether it was moving or breaking up. Eventually the day was cancelled and the gaggle went to Coles to buy Optus SIM cards. Telstra outages expected to last 7 days!”
During flight by Narromine Gliding Club Official “Wow! What an exciting finish to the first day of the Pre-Worlds. The entire fleet is pouring down the last leg at a great rate of knots and it is literally anybody’s race at the moment.”
Standard class;
task 1; 3 hour AAT…….a 1000 points day..9 participants amongst them Bruce ,David [Jansen] and Miles [Gore Brown] and Allan [Barnes] as winner of the day with 390 km in time 3.07 so a nice speed of 125 km./h. That was 2 km faster than the runner up. The first 5 flew LS 8.
A total of 6 LS 8 gliders and 2x Discus B.
15 m class; 3 hour AAT…..also 9 pilots in this class and a few well-known as Matthew [Scutter] Adam [Woolley] Brad [Edwards] Mac [Ichikawa] and Norm [Bloch.
“Poor” Tim was out after 383 km.
Daily winner Matthew in his Diana 2. 403 km with a speed of 133 km./h! Adam was runner up.
Club class;
Task 1; 3 hour AAT. 19 pilots in club!! Good!!! Best for the day, young James Nugent in his LS 3. Tony was 13th . “Day 1 complete. Nothing earth shattering for me but I had a nice flight. One thermal averaged 11…that was nice.“
Female pilot Jo [Davis] was 4th.
More next week.
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USA 2023 Senior Soaring Championship
March 11-March 17
Courtesy Bo.
As always the seniors travelled to Seminole Lake for their championship. They meet already for the 33th time and to be part of it you have to be older than 55 years.
Last Friday was a practice day with a 2 hour task. Pretty good weather but as Nick mentioned; “Clouds all day, but again, climbs were often not what we hoped.”
Inside and outside.
Never too old to fly as long as the mind and body are fine.
On March 12 they started the comps and this time also , with a total female crew for the fist time in those 33 years.
Courtesy Bo.
Bo makes the most wonderful pictures from EVERYTHING at a field. A great observer, she is.
“US Teams Night at the Seniors. Monday was a “Rest Day” from flying with rain off and on all during the day, so everyone was in good spirits and excited for a nice dinner with extra libations and dessert from the US Team committee, plus an interesting presentation from recent WGC competitions and plans for the future. One of the highlights was Sarah Arnold’s recap of the day that she and Karl won last year in Hungary.“
courtesy Bo.
More next week.
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The South African pilots , a mix of young and old had a practice/training week at Tswalu as mentioned last week. They had superb weather with speed up to 160 km./h “Look at those skies.”
The German pilots are in St Auban mixed with some USA pilots.
The Tocumwal pilots still fly nearly 500 km in Discus and ASW 27. Today even over 600 km!! Nearly autumn there.
From Aosta in Italy, Swiss pilots flew 1.012 km in the ARCUS M and from Serres Klaus Ohlmann flew 950 in the ANTARES 20 to SE of Aosta.
From Soesterberg Sikko mentioned that he flew Cross Country already for the 3d time “and it is only March11”. Contrarily with the S.A. pilots he had no sand and scrub to look on but SNOW.
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SIXTY YEARS Z.E.S.
On March 27 the ZES [Aeroclub of Students from Eindhoven] celebrate their 60thies birthday. All kind of festivities have been organized to celebrate this happy moment.
It all happened with the “thoughts” of a few students on March 27 in 1963. On the picture below you see them but then not as student anymore.
Sitting on the ground; v.l.n.r. Cor van Dobben, Wim Dortu (†) en Dick Teuling who was with Kees Musters my instructor.
My first acquaintance with the ZES was in 1967, only 4 years later on March 29 .
That visit is as a common tread through my life and the fact that I still write is because of the ZES. I only was a member for 2 years but it all had a huge impact on me. The last couple of years since I am back from Australia, I am a donor .
As you know soaring got in my blood. I was crew, TC, Juror and Steward, and nowadays I still write my blog to share my thoughts about what I read and see or experience, so you can read it every Wednesday.
World wide I got to know so many lovely people, I travelled the world for comps and on invitation to be editor on WGC’s, WWGC’s and JWGC’s.
Soaring enriched my life. SO ,…in the past we always shouted out loud to toast ….. 1-2-3-4-5-6 fly up.
I do that now too.
Thank you ZES!!!!!
Cheers Ritz