Post 1.457 on November 29 2023.
https://wgc2023.com.au/

Only a few days to go and the first OFFICIAL flying day on December 3 will be a fact!!!
They fly till December 15[included] with a FAREWELL dinner in the evening and on my birthday December 16 the prize giving will be at 11 AM.

Unofficial practice time, scruteneering time, time to hug each other ‘hello here, hello there’ ,time for the official TC meeting [yesterday] and TODAY on November 29, time for the start of the 2d official practice period…the first one was was not flown…here is Bruce:
“Today the organisation decided on a no-fly day, as the forecast was for storms arriving from mid-afternoon onwards. Of course so far the sky has looked lovely, so the Europeans must think we are crazy here!”
They had however a mandatory safety briefing which was according to Adam “calm, friendly & well presented”.
Adam; “As the saying goes in Australia, unless it’s 6kts to 8000′, we don’t open the hangar doors
For Team UK ,7000 ft was good enough “Tom and Paul (Standard Class) were keen to do some more shakedown flights and were glad they did! Good climbs up to 7,000 feet made for a very enjoyable day.”
Also the Dutch pilots had a great day.
Here is Roelof: “When at home “only” 2000 m AGl is forecasted, specially in the N of The Netherlands.[Roelof is from Friesland]we fly why not now. Luckily I got a tow and had a beautiful flight under convergence lines. Perfect.” He enjoyed it to the fullest.
Wait till the real Narromine weather is there, he will be over the moon!!!!
By the way today was not flown either.
Only on November 27 they had a good practice-day with a 3 hour AAT for 15 m, won by Sebastian, also a 3 hour AAT for standard won by the the UK pilots Tom and Paul in their LS 8 and club got a 3 hout AAT as well ,won by French pilot Adrien Henry.

Most teams have arrived so have the gliders .It’s always a worry if they get through customs without problems and then trough quarantine. As far as I know , indeed, all containers have arrived so the big harbor strike had no influence. pfff….
The UK mentioned;”the gliders have arrived in Australia after a long sea journey; the shipping container was packed on 16 Aug and picked up on 21 Aug. We very much look forward to seeing it, and its contents, again on 24 Nov in Narromine as the training week commences.” British Gliding Team

More guests for Tocumwal; USA team Tony Condon and his wife Leah, arrived there to pick up glider DK [Discus] from Lumpies Tocumwal Soaring Center and familiarize in it. “Spent the day getting to know DK and had a nice flight late in the afternoon.” One day later they left for Narromine and Tony flew there as well.

Adam traveled from Japan via Germany to pick up a “part” of his glider. Weird hand-luggage they must have thought on his way.
As always lot’s of last-minute-things-to-do!

Last week I mentioned the arrival from the first 2 USA members TT pilot Tim and his crew Ron.
Here a short part of the first flight:
“After Tim Taylor glider passed technical inspection it looked like there was a chance for him to fly before the storms shut things down.
Storms came up from the south, the winds above 6,000 MSL were still from the NW, and covered the airport with heavy down pours, lightning and thunder. Tim stayed 30-40 km around the airport in sunny soarable conditions until he saw a clear path to the Narromine. Again ‘it was great until it was not’.
He got to the airport and landed by the outside perimeter in the grass. I brought the trailer to him and we derigged. We estimate at least 25 to 40 mm of rain came down during the time we got the glider in the trailer. Yes Gore Tex fabric is a wonderful thing
Good to get the flying experience, more local area familiarization and getting the outlanding on the airport out of the way” by Ron on US Soaring Teams

The weather was poor, so lot’s of nonflying activities on the first days of last week.
No worries for Stefan Langer from Germany, he spend his preparation time in New Zealand with Terry Delore.
” Canterbury Gliding Club had a great time hosting Stefan Langer, 2023 World Sailplane GP Champion and Gliding social media extraordinaire. We all look forward to your next visit with us.
Best wishes for the upcoming World Championships in Australia.
– Terry & CGC President Derek Kraak“
And,
“We have had some EPIC soaring lately!!
The clubs chat feed has been flooded with spectacular flights during our XCountry week.”
Badge flights were achieved , glider type conversions ,they welcomed North Island pilots, hosted a world GP champion Stefan Langer and they welcomed a brand new Sailplane to the Springfield Aerodrome. Enough enthusiasm over there.
Nick Oakley mentioned:
“One of the best thermal days I’ve had from Springfield …thermals to 11,500ft best climb went 16kts for 3 turn”

A full house on the last unofficial practice day, 80 % of the pilots was there , got a task and flew it between storms.

South African Gliding Team wished their “boys” well;
“Good luck to our boys Down Under. AP Kotze and Uys Jonker are flying JS3’s in the 15 m World Gliding Championships in Narromine in Australia, and Phillip Jonker and Laurence Hardman are both flying LS8’s in the Standard class.
Gooi mielies manne, and ring home some metal“
Such a lovely language!!!!

Today November 29 2d official practice day; no flying.…after a lot of rain overnight task setting was difficult because of the wet outlanding fields. Today there is a lot of wind to dry it all out and a weather change is on it’s way too.
Pfff just in time!!!!

That’s all about NARROMINE with their 37th WGC…for now.
More in the weekend. As said I try to write a bit more ,when I have news enough.

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——-Also in South Africa in Bloemfontein, a container arrived on the 23d of November and “boss” Dick Bradley is keeping an eye on things.
https://www.soaring-safaris.com/

——When I left you last Wednesday some pilots had a very satisfying day flying a 1000-plus from Veronica, Bitterwasser, Kiripotib and Worcester, but also 2 flights from France 1 from Perpignan in a Stemme 12 ; Gil Souviron / Henri Castanet with 1.470,85 km and a speed of 154 km./h.
The Pyrenees were working well and they flew over a huge area in Spain.
There is a long comment on this flight, interesting, have a look.
https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=9705698#map=
The other flight was from Grenoble Versoud, 1.515,78 with a speed of 159 km./h. in an ASH 31/21m. Thomas Puthod was the pilot.
On Sunday the Namibian weather was TOP again with several 1000 km flights .
And on Monday they had 26 flights over 1000 km……13 from Bitterwasser.
Guy Bechtold from Luxembourg a REAL, kilometer eater flew 2 days ;November 25; 1.262 and November 27; 1.265 km[ 152.9 km./h] …long,long sit…….. nearly 19 hours during these 2 flights.

——SkySight …..Did you follow the amazing flight of Yves Gerster from Swiss Sailplane GmbH this month, the first ever crossing to Corsia with an 18m glider?
Yves was kind enough to report to us how he did it!
When you click on Skysight you can read the full story. VERY interesting!!!!!

More next week, by the way we had the first official early morning frost this week. No better way to show gorgeous Holland than with this picture from the “ZAANSTREEK” ,de Zaanse Schans.
Though “gorgeous” ,….we had a landslide in the elections last week with as winner ultra right. Not good, but we are a democratic country, it seems an unhappy country too, with a winning ultra right populist Geert Wilders.

CU on Sunday.
cheers Ritz, we also had the first snow and 980.000 kilo salt was spread over the Dutch roads.
In Eastern Europe, Germany included, that does n’t help anymore they are totally covered by tons of snow….incidents, accidents and casualties!
Off to get my corona -booster-jab.