Alphen aan den Rijn     Sunday January 15 2012

ritzdeluy@hotmail.com     www.glidinginternational.com     www.soaringcafe.com  

Courtesy; Kempton Izuno.

To start with,  a real nice picture from Kempton Izuno[ via glider forever] ;
—“This was July 25, 2010, taken from about 10,000 ft over the Trinity Alps in Northern CA, looking North towards Oregon. What a fantastic specimen of thunderstorm. I like collecting them, but the jars are filling up my shelf . “—
Thunderstorms are not a strange phenomena for glider pilots. Some love to fly in front of it or avoid it by flying around it. Where it is very hot , you can have heavy thunderstorms, I don’t have to tell you.
To be honest I am not such a fan!!! I remember a real bad one in Uvalde at the time the pilots arrived back home to finish in 1991. Surely Patrick Stouffs will remember that day as well. He was one of them, the wind changed during a storm and became very heavy giving the pilots a “hell of a tailwind”. We stood on the side of the field but could not see a lot, which made it “spooky”. Due to this sand storm we were for a short time in ” grey fog” . It all looked spectacular but was luckily enough not too dangerous, though Patrick had minor  damage on his wing tip, touching slightly a marker along the runway when he turned his glider from it. Bruce [Brockhoff] and John [Buchanan] had to land in this bad weather as well. They were all sandblasted. Never forget that.

  Patrick in 2006 in Eskilstuna.

In Benalla it was pretty tough weather ;When I left you last Wednesday ,I read on FB that Swaentje from Germany needed a “heater”.  A heater in Australia????? I was wondering what was wrong till I noticed that Melbourne had cold weather [12/18 dgr] with winds gusting to 110 km./h. last Wednesday.
A cold front brought this wintry blast.
Tocumwal had the coldest night on record with 7.1 dgr.in the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
And that in MID summer.
But luckily the temperatures have gone up again to between 30 and 36 .
—“We had a day off yesterday. The wind was the problem, with about 30 knots on the ground and 45+ at altitude. It was seriously cold, but the sky looked like a lot of fun.—“By Bruce.

Day 7at Benalla,about 2 hours from Melbourne,  gave pretty nice weather [22 dgr.C] again for a not too long distance. Bruce was the old Bruce again winning the racing task [for all classes] for the day and his lead overall is growing.
In club Allan Barnes had a really good day flying via Tocumwal and Corowa back to Benalla with speed 104 km./h.  Overall leader Tobias Geiger lost 250 points…so he is 2d now and Alan climbed up to 4. One day to go!!!!
In 2-seater-class it is nice to see different pilots winning a day.Only when Terry does something totally wrong , he will loose his first spot, but knowing him,  I can’t I imagine that, …we all know however, it is only over after the very last finish, so let’s wait and see.
Bruce’s comment on today’s flying;
—“Good day today. There were some cu all round the task, with heights up to 6,000 agl. It took a while to get the launch started, so most of us left soon after the gate opened. There were good runs and some strong climbs, including a 9 knotter onto final glide that got me away from all the crowd. Still not a straightforward day, but very satisfying.—“

On the last day of the comps in Benalla, no big surprises. Bruce won  day 8, with Brad on his tail and Bruce won the comps, but it was great to see that Brad was 4th, missing day 1 due to business. After 8 days Mac {Japan} was 2d overall. Good on him. He surely will  travel now with a lot of other pilots to Narromine where the 50thiest Multi Class Nationals are  starting at January 30 till February 10, which is , by the way, pretty late in the season.
In the club class Tobias just did not make it to win the title. He ended as runner up behind Craig Collings from the club from Mount Beauty, a great area to fly!!!
In the 2-seater class IE won the last day but that was not enough to take the title home to the Hunter Valley. Terry won in the DG 1000.
As far as I heard a nice and good competition!That’s what Bruce said as well….and THANKS for sharing your thoughts with all of us Bruce, good luck in Narromine!;
“Tough last day with some treacherous weather. It was blue with an inversion so strong you had to duck at the top of each climb so as to not bang your head! Mostly we got to 3,000 feet with many glides down to 1,500, so the whole flight was steady work. I was really happy with how I flew today, initially with some company but later on my own. It all went well till right at the end when I came really close to landing, but was saved at the last minute.
Very satisfying competition – tough weather and good result.—“

At Chaves  2 non-flying days as well. Rain and volcanic ash from Chile, were the wrong-doers.On the official site was written;”
—“No tasks for today because the rotation of the wind bring volcanic ashes—”
A few lines from the blog from Jeroen:
—“I promised you to tell my tactics on day 2… Pretty easy: start early because of the cirrus clouds from the upcoming front. Big gaggles are less likely when you fly an AAT.
Furthermore you can fly a bit bigger distance in the first circles and still use the other to help you. We even had some cumulus so there was really no reason to wait. First leg was pretty good, I was in the flow and was gaining on the others. I took the right path under some nice Cu. Guess I had a good practice in Uvalde. On the second leg the cumulus were not in line with my plan, so I had to fly a big banana. Halfway on the third leg it dried out and conditions were not so good anymore (as expected). Had to fly very carefully to cover maximum distance to find the few good thermals. In combination of 45 km/h. tailwind I thought it was good to lose some water too. There were two small circles left and I could go on final glide. Don’t ask me why (because I don’t know myself), but I messed that up big time. Result: flying the last leg with 250 kph and still cross the finish line way to high!!!
That costed me the winning of the day and a nice bottle of “Treintatres” vino 🙁 But you don’t hear me complaining about 4th place !—“

For more news from Jeroen,  as this is only part 1 of his story go to;
http://pre-mundial.blogspot.com/
So Jeroen lost in the end from, young French pilot Killian and his mate Lourent and from Brasilian topper Joao Widmer. Nothing to be ashamed of!!!
The French are having a great practise run there for the next WGC. Killian won day 3 [set task of 348 km] and the  Laurent ‘s , [Aboulin and Couture] were 4 and 5 . A lot of outlandings in the standard class also “our”Jeroen after 130 km. More then half of the competitors went ” au vache” in this class;31  from 53!
 In 15 m. a local pilot gained the 1000 points on soaring-day 3 [AAT 3.30] . 7 Outlandings from 37 in this class!In the combined open class only 4 from 20 pilots “au vache” and day winner for this 4 hour AAT was a DUO DISCUS!!!
For day 3 and 4please read the news from Jeroen at his blog and look for the results at www.soaringspot.com .
Day 3 was a difficult one when,”20 kilometers short before the first turning point everything with a plug attached to it turned black ….”
Day 5  had yesterday a 315 km task with pretty Dutch weather, let’s see what Jeroen makes from it and if he wins that great bottle of red!!!!
NO he did not , but he was 3d behind Lucas Goldenzweig. A great run for USA pilot Francois Pin, winning day 5 in 15 m. class.
And the 4 hour AAT in open was won by top pilot Egon Rehn from Brasil 465 km in 4 hours and ONE minute.