Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday April 15 2012
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.glidinginternational.com www.soaringcafe.com
DG 1000; courtesy DG Flugzeugbau.
When you can log in your flight- book 5 x a 1000 km. “-BIG-plus ” in wave , in a pretty short time, it means 5 long cold days of sitting ,[63 hours!!!!] being alert[ over 6.953 km.] and not making mistakes. For Jim Payne it seems no problem, neither for Dennis Tito . On April 10, they added flight number 5 to their impressive list of continuing great/long flights, in that for sure good sitting and perfect instrumented DG 1001M. Luckily with a good engine as well as they needed it during this flight! So to make it still a nice day they got the best out of it, focussing from distance, to OLC speed , to gain points for that league and they did; 488.80 km with a speed of 195.52 km./h. .Flexible as well, those ” young” boys!
This glider is equipped with FAR compliant landing light, strobes and navigation lights. What a difference with the Blanik, once a pretty good 2 seater as well and not to forget a great trainer. It still is the “sniffer ” in Nitra and why not?!
Picture from the DG 1000 from the DG site
www.dg-flugzeugbau.de
A while ago I mentioned a new-to-be-gliding-place in Coober Pedy.It is still happening and as everywhere in this world the governmental system is slow. One signature still has to be set and then the gliding place in that “spooky”Coober Pedy will be active, where quite some people live under the ground and where your motel/hotel or swimming pool when you stay overnight is underground as well. Dundee has been there over Easter and made some pictures about the Festival ,where they promote gliding as attraction already.Kupi Kupi is the Aboriginal name of the new airfield, as the club ground is bought from the Aboriginals. The full story will be here to read when it is ready.
Pictures courtesy; Dieter Albrecht [Dundee]
Day 4 at Nitra had new challenges. As the thermals were not expected too be too good and the S. wind still was pretty strong , the 2 hour AAT’s were created for RIDGE soaring! Never a boring moment in Nitra, where they have the intention to fly whenever possible, even with the knowledge that not everybody comes home, which is pretty normal with a big competition with a lot of participants and with not the same experience for all.
According to the the organizers a day possible without thermals, but ridge soaring could be possible. On top of that a small window was “carried” by the Southern wind. So off they went…after postponing first and just before 2 they were all in the air and it did not look too bad! In fact it turned out to be quite a nice day. In club and 15 m. the winners from the first 4 days won again; Roman in a St.Cirrus and Sebastjan in a discus 2C /15m.!!!! Of course they are on top of the over all scores! Great result!!!!!
In open Wolfgang was 2d and in the 2 seater class our Scandinavian mates did well ; Ilkka won the day and is 3d overall, Harry is still 2d and Denmark is still on top at this stage. Still a few days to go, so let’s wait and see.
Day 5 was cancelled. Time to have a look at their pictures. Nice! All people look however, as if it is still winter!!!!
Day 6 , seemed a difficult one as well with a small window to fly in and showers later in the day. On days like this organizers mostly set an AAT so that happened as well; 2.30 for all classes. Again the weather turned out better then expected, with sunny , warmer conditions and…clouds!So not a day to quickly disappear and be back before the rain , but planning , looking good at the skies and get the best out of the window; fast and far!
Last day; now it all had to happen , consolidate or take risks to get more points. But ….it did not look good in the morning due to a low pressure system. That meaned the end of the comps!!!! Always a pity , but better then a lottery on the last day.
So Roman Mracek won EVERY DAY!!!!! Special! He wins in club class the CUP!
In 15 m. Sebastjan Ramsak won every day except the last one , but still is a great winner. Good on Sjaak to be 3d!!!!
In 2 seater class nothing changed. 1 Denmark, 2 and 3 Finland. Good!!!
In the mixed open class it was Wolfgang in the 18m Ventus , who still is the best!!!
Nice competition to follow.
Some pilots can straight go to Prievidza to fly the 2012 Flight Challenge Cup with 117 pilots in 3 classes.
Nice picture from Wolfgang from my 2006 dvd.
In Torino day 4 just showed not enough kilometers. Terrible days , those days where you have to fight in marginal weather for 0 points. Best flight was from Luca with 94.4 km. Guess Alberto and Davide were pretty happy it was “no day ” as they only had 31.3 km. on their logger.
Day 5 was not much better, but most pilots succeded in finishing their 157 km. task [only 2 outlandings and one pilot not flying anymore] . Alberto and Davide won and received “the royal reward ” of 327 points. But they are points and they flew!
Due to bad weather they finished earlier, but still 5 days!
Chinchilla had on their day 5 in both classes a 3 hour AAT. Bruce Taylor, this competition flying a borrowed ASG 29 , as he just sold the JS 1, earned 1000 points for 370 km with a speed of 112 km/h. Brad was 2d in his JS1. Lisa ,who won till now already 3 days ,was 3d and ONE overall. Good practise for her for Uvalde!
By the way, Bruce and 2 other pilots arrived only on day 2. They became a “layday ” [ read average points for that day] .
But OUCH……on Friday the 13th, it was a bad day for Lisa. The club class was already cancelled , but the mixed class had to fly a 2.30 AAT. Lisa only “made” 21 km. while Tom flew 261 and even finished just 7 minutes late.
On the last day both classes had a small 2.30 AAT. Mike Codling in club class was on 5 out of 6 days , the overall winner .Flying the Hornet he is a great Easter-champion.
More tension in the combined class where in the end after 7 days, Bruce Taylor turned out to be the best! On the last day Brad Edwards was the only one finishing and he is runner up in the total scores. Lisa quickly forgot her bad day and was 2d on the last day being 4th behind Tom Claffey in the overall scores!
Yesterday there was a big party in Malden, the place where I went solo long time ago. Great place to fly , but also to patry, I remember a few GOOD ones!!!!
I also remember the old hangar without a problem as a beacon at the field, but now we have to focus on a brand new one. One with 2 stocks, one on ground level for 15 rigged gliders and one UNDER the ground. You drive your car underground with the trailer behind it and parc it and drive out again all in one direction. Place enough ,as this way 34 gliders can be parked. Very spiffy!!!
Unfortunately I was busy so could n’t go but hope for nice pictures for the next blog. Here are the ones again, when they were still building this fancy hangar. By the way Malden is the place where The Kuijpers family is very active! Tim had a party there as well when he became Junior World Champion last year! The family from 5 all fly, Dad is president of the aeroclub, mum is sport co-ordinator for the KNVvL and National coach gliding.
On April 11 the CONCORDIA was rigged and it looks fantastic.Look for all the 88 pictures at www.soaringcafe.com Rigging from the controls is completed, now they started with the installation of the seals. It surely looks it will be ready for the comps!!!!! Great!!!! And…I am going to see it fly!!!!
WOW !!!!Courtesy soaringcafe!
Cu next week, cheers Ritz