Post 1.412 on Wednesday April 5 2023.

—–News from WeGlide:
After 26 weekends of flying, the Australian league came to an end last Sunday. Here are this year’s winners:
—–Kingaroy Soaring Club – 314 Points
—–Gliding Club of Victoria – 261 Points
—–Lake Keepit Soaring Club – 212 Points.
And, the fastest :
Individual; Matthew Scutter had 132.82 speed-points.
Team rating: Kingaroy Soaring Club, 384.28 speed-points.
Here is the overall ranking for the 22/23 league season:
https://www.weglide.org/league/AU?type=total&round=25…

I shared already the African season with world wide OLC updates and now we start here no, have started here, the European season.
Looking at the OLC figures for the down-under-season on the last day of March, these are the results;
OLC -plus CHAMPION; Mac Ichikawa with 5357,05 points, followed by Toby Geiger with 5328,62 p.
Best flight; Norm Bloch with 1.116,90 points.
Distance record since 2011;Mac Ichikawa with a flight from Tocumwal on December 27 in 2018; 1.389,85p.
Stats from all flights; Mark Bland from Mount Beauty with 25.306,20 points [87 flights/ 18.565,94 km]
Busiest airport ; Beverley with 118.752,26 p. [106.779,42 km in 363 flights by 43 pilots.]
Busiest club; Beverly Soaring Society; 134.966,36 points [120.754,76 km in 412 flights by 40 pilots]
Note on distance record by Mac; 1.193,14 km. in an LS 8.
Note on busiest airport; runner up Benalla with 91.018,14 points [ 78.775,45 km in 233 flights by 30 pilots and 3d Tocumwal 82.260,31 points [ 73.170,28 km. in 197 flights by 25 pilots.]

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The Perlan Project had news; Very interesting reading…..
“Einar inspired us to dream more and do more. . . On a recent afternoon, a group of family, friends and colleagues gathered at the University of California Botanical Garden to celebrate the life of Einar Enevoldson, whose vision inspired The Perlan Project. He was truly an incredible pilot, dreamer and statesman. More in our latest blog“
https://bit.ly/EinarCelebration
Einar passed away already, after a long fight against cancer ,on April 14 2021 but the celebration of his life was now in March 2023. Covid delayed easy access to visit.
R.I.P. Einar.

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50 thiest TROFEO CITTA DI TORINA /18 m NATIONALS
31 March 2023 – 10 April 2023

On March 31 2 parallel comps started in Italy; The 50thiest Trofeo Citta di Torina including the 18m class Nationals with some well known pilots. Though I missed a few as Giorgio, Vittorio, Alberto and Tomas.
They might fly different comps now. Indeed Alberto flies in Torino but as team in an ARCUS T.
Anyhow 13 pilots in the 18 m Nationals.
They missed out on day 1 but started with
Task 1 on April 1 with a 2.20 AAT; a strong day with 8m./s …not bad.
331 km in time 2.33,46 [speed 129.15 km./h] was the winning combination for 18 m pilot Alberto Pozzi in the JS 1. On spot 3 and 4 the Ventus 3 FES from Giancarlo Grinza and The Ventus 3T/18m from Stefano Ghiorzo.[318 km/ 126.81 km./h] and [306 km /126.62 km./h]
Later these preliminary scores changed due to “penalty points; the new scores were; Giancarlo won , Stefano was runner up and Andrea Ferrero in an AS 33ES was 3d with 292 km with 125 km./h.
Task 2 had a set racing task from 342 km…..Another pretty good day with a 2800 m cloud base and lift up to 6 m/s
With 124.94 km./h Stefano was just a tad faster than Ciancarlo; 124.63 km./h. and won the day.
AND,…Alberto [Pozzi] was IN as well, with about the same speed ; 124.55.
All 3 started together at 2 .04/5 PM and landed before 5 PM at 4.49/50 PM and all 3 are close overall; 1.668, 1.664 and 1.633.
But only 2 days yet! For the Torino Cup those 3 are in the lead too, On spot 5 is the ARCUS from Alberto Sironi.
Now they wait again till Friday to continue with another 3 flights.

More next week..3 more days to go …nice picture, very nice!
Volo a Vela Torino – Competizioni & Performance Sportive

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It was busy last Sunday at the Glider place Terlet. Cold yes but still pleasant. A beautiful spot where I spend MANY hours in awesome nature. When my kids Dennis and Inge were at the field, long time ago, I walked, read books , visited friends , had numerous drinks and conversations together or cooked for all those who came back with my kids , to our caravan.
The VELUWE belongs to one of the most beautiful areas in The Netherlands.

Cold but nice opening of the season though in the beginning of March we had already a few very good CC days.
DOWNUNDER, they continue with nice flights in their autumn; 607 km in the JS 3 by Lumpy from Tocumwal [yesterday 615 km and 578 FAI triangle] and 461 by Gerrit in the EB 29 R from McCaffery field.
At McCaffery they fly the Easter Regatta 2023, but unfortunately only the practice days had flyable weather, till now. They continue till the 9th.
GREAT WAVE FLIGHTS;
Even better was the Sunday in the USA ,Spain and in France.
Let’s start with a WOW flight from 2000 km in the ANTARES 20 by Klaus Ohlmann, from Serres La Batie. He tried a triangle but, as he commented” The triangle was not possible. First turnpoint under rain and clouds. So, plan B was to make a 3 TP flight. The Pyrenees were excellent. Great thanks for all the controllers, essential to fly in all these airspaces.” He used the Alps and the Pyrenees . 12 hours and 47 minutes!!!!

From La Cerdanya in Spain, Czech pilot Milos Pajr, left in a HP304 MS [18 m SHARK] for a 1.542 flight . Speed 161. 68 km./h. Good on him…… 9 hours and 32 minutes of sitting! Pfff….
Even faster were the flights from James Lee in the JS 1 and Gordon Boettgher in the ARCUS J from Minden in Nevada in the USA; 185 km./h over 1.517 km and 194.23 km./h over 1.315 km.
“Only” 6 hours and 46 minutes for Gordon and his mate and 8 hours 12 for James.
Great wave , not all was working as expected but “Minden area had the strongest lift all day.”
great comment with lot’s of pictures on OLC and WeGlide.

Talking about speed…one day earlier on Saturday April 1 Jim Payne flew his wave flight from 1.020 km. with a speed of 211 km./h. A fast run in 4 hours and 50 minutes in an 18 m Ventus 3M.
Talking more about speed. The Andes in Argentina gave Juan Pablo Verdura a fabulous day; 1.679 km free distance with 187.17 km./h in a Ventus 2CM/18m.from San Martin
WeGlide added” Absolutely breathtaking images from Argentina Juan Pablo Verdura once again surfed the waves of the Andes yesterday, and what a spectacle it was! After enduring mostly blue conditions for much of his flight, he was rewarded with spectacular lentis in the south. From there, the sprint scoring started, rocketing 457 km to the north in just 2 hours With a speed of 228.56 km/h, Juan Pablo earns 198.75 sprint points, solidifying his position at the top of the current worldwide sprint ranking. Congratulations “ https://www.weglide.org/ranking/free?season=2023… for the current speed ranking

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Yesterday the first long thermal flights already in Germany 905 km [533 FAI]. Philipp Keller flew “around” Munich in his Ventus 3M /18m. Looks amazing. Good on him.
Also from Hahnweide a nice 863 km-flight by Max Maslak in his Ventus 3T/18m.
He does n’t want to know what could have happened when he would have started earlier. The air was crisp, clear and cold with mega -cloud-streets. I saw them at the weather news on TV.
Before 10 the clouds had popped up already. Not bad!!!!
His first European flight again after he flew 4x a 1000 in Bitterwasser in Nov/Dec. 2022. He was 1 of the young German pilots invited for the 1000 km-camp.

More about the Torino Cup and Italian 18 m Nationals next week….and more interesting “stuff”
AND,…what a great F1 race we saw in Melbourne, drama, hectic, red flags, 3 starts and a less first start from Max and an unexpected finish behind the safety car for him,….but HE WON!!!!

Wishing you all VERY HAPPY, SUNNY, EASTER DAYS!!!!!

Cu then,
Ritz