Post 1.550 on October 16 2024

——Oh those bloody hurricanes, they ruin SO MUCH and kill people, at least 16 I heard, as did the many twisters Florida had.
I hoped that Seminole would be save and spared, as I love following the senior comps at that airfield in Florida.
But NO , the next day I found these pictures and news on the internet so sad!!!
“Dear Friends of Seminole-Lake,
Our little airport had some damage caused by hurricane Milton. We are still standing and feel blessed no one was injured.
We’ll start cleaning up and rebuild as early as we can.
Seminole-Lake will reopen for business next week.
Thank you everyone for all your thoughts, phone calls, emails and messages.
God Bless!”

After those dark skies, a few days later blue skies and hardworking people cleaning up. TOP!!!!
Yesterday they opened their doors again :”Seminole-Lake will reopen for business as usual this Tuesday @9am.”

——Looking like a nice SPRING-DAY in Kingaroy! AND, a “high” day.

—-SkySight published news which might interest you as I know a lot of pilots use SkySight.
They have a new feature – Cu Overview
“For years our customers have told us they love the product, but they don’t like having to check so many charts to build a mental model of the forecast. So we have built – another chart! Don’t panic – stay with us for the moment.
Presenting, the Cu Overview chart!
-We start with a base layer of Thermal Height in soft contours.
-Overlaid on top are Cumulus cloud ‘dots’, with the size and density (oktas) of the clouds represented realistically, coloured according to altitude
-Overlaid again, we show areas of mid/high cloud in grey, and iconography for areas of rain.
For most pilots we expect this will replace the need to check the Height of Thermals, Cu Depth, Cu Cloudbase, Cloud Cover, Overdevelopment and Significant Weather charts in your preflight planning.

The development of this feature was a multiyear undertaking, requiring rewriting our cumulus modeling from a simple one-dimensional model into a full three-dimensional prediction. We are now able to understand and present both the “width” and height of the cumulus in a manner not achieved before. Additionally this has permitted us to replace the flawed “Overdevelopment” chart with a new chart “Cu Coverage”, that much better achieves the intent of the retired chart.
As always, we hope you will give us feedback about this new feature as we continue to evolve it further.”

—-–Noticed that after 10 weeks !!!!!!!the ship with gliders from Uvalde to South Africa has not arrived yet!!! It is in London, but will arrive only in November; Leaving London 20th, ETA Durban 18Nov!!!!
Their season has started then already.
The UK container has not yet arrived in the UK either….less ” bitter” ,as it will be winter here soon, BUT we and they had some lovely autumn days for flying recently!!!
AND,…here in The Netherlands we go back to 24 dgr. C today here in the S. ,whilst we had yesterday the first national night frost with minus 0.6 dgr. C!!!!!WEIRD!!!
AND,…they still fly!!!!! On October 5 still 39 flights in Holland on the OLC ,11 from Terlet ,but a week later only 2.

——Through the years ,I learned that a lot of glider pilots started as kids with model’s , no not good looking ladies or men on pictures, but model planes!!!!
I found out that ” the FAI F3F world championship 2024 for Model Gliders in Limoux, France, was well underway with seven rounds completed last Thursday and has finished now.
The event was between 2024-10-06 to 2024-10-12 and the event type is F3F Slope Race (Plus Scoring)

Here is more about it by “connoisseurs” ;
“The FAI F3F world championship 2024 for Model Gliders in Limoux, France (6-12 October) saw an impressive display of skill and teamwork by the world’s best aeromodelling pilots. Austria dominated the competition, clinching top honours in both individual and team categories.
The organisers faced the additional challenge of navigating ever-changing weather conditions during the event. The pilots were tasked with competing on three different slopes, each with its own unique characteristics. This transition between the diverse terrains tested the competitors’ adaptability and skill. In the end, a good number of rounds were completed, totalling 17.“

—-–More and more the AURORA is visible on spots it never was before.
When I lived in Tocumwal we often visited or passed by the Lake Mulwala. Look what great picture somebody took there.
It remains a fabulous phenomena.

Even in The Netherlands we could see it. I did not , but more up North you could see it without a camera just with “bare eyes”.
And also a “comet” , called C/2020 A3 [Tsuchinshan-Atlas] passed by over the Netherlands and that happens once in 80.000 years !!!!!!!! And I slept!!!!!

Great picture to finish this post. Indeed a short one ,but times are easy going in this “in-between- soaring-period”.

Cheers Ritz