Waiting for spring in different ways!Happy Valentines Day tomorrow!

ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN  WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 13 2013 

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

Valentijs dag 2013 2

“Heart Lake”
as seen by Jorgen and Birgitte between The Rock and Wagga.

While waiting for spring ,  lot’s of club’s and private pilots are preparing their gliders for the new season.

winter onderhoud by Rens  winteronderhoud Friesland Ilse

Pictures shared by Rens from Soesterberg in Holland and Ilse from Friesland.
With the last one she wrote; ” The boys are having their beer, we continue working”!

Or in another way as shared from the last TABOE, a course here in Holland, where young and older not-so-experienced glider pilots in cross country soaring, listen to experienced pilots to learn how to fly better x-country.

winter onder houde droog vliegen  winteronderhoud

“Dry- flying” during the TABOE training program,with one of the organizers Natasja and 2 top pilots Bas Seiffert who flew for Holland in Chaves and Dick Teuling one of my “old” instructors from the ZES.

winteronderhoud in Duitsland met Patrick Puskeiler, omdat het kan.

 or just using the winter for soaring,
as they say at FB and do in Germany,
just because it is possible”!

Winteronderhoud Zweden

Be prepared only 94 days left…” for the Uppsala Masters in Sweden.
May 18-25!!!

Still a few weeks to go and you can feel it, here as well, just cold and partly white. BUT…..it is clear ,….the morning starts earlier!!!! So it’s going to happen soon, that’s what the organizers from the 17th EGC in Ostrow think as well and I share their picture and thoughts.

EGC Ostrow

“The days are getting longer! The summer’s closer…”

On the other site of the world in NZ the club class Nationals have started @ beautiful  Taupo on the North Island,  with a 274 km. racing task and a 1000 point-day for Mark Wilson flying that great toy the standard Libelle with a speed of 82.7 km./h. !
Day 2 was “his ” again with more of those nice 1000 points,  while Tim Bromhead in the Discus 2 was 2d again.Task was a 3 hour AAT and kilometers flown 303 in 3 hours 9, while Tim flew 282 km. in 2 hours 46.

In Tocumwal Roger Druce had to go home for a while and the Danish friends  and Birgitte Orskov and  JörgenThomsen borrowed his glider . They bought an ARCUS allready, but they can use it next year in Australia as it will be only ready then. At least they love it straight away,  as Birgitte mentioned:
My first Arcus flight :Thank you Roger for letting us fly your beautiful excellent handling glider.”
And….on a 500 km.-day yesterday; “An excellent day with Cu’s.”
And,…from Norway Björn and Lis are back.Longtime guests also in the past with us, Björn is flying the LS 4 again. Don’t know why I remember them always straight away , maybe because they once in Sweden specially drove up from Norway , to show me “my/their” favourite car and allowed me to sit in that car, … my dream car ,… a Morgan. You remember the pictures?
Not to forget longtime frequent flyer from Finland Kari Lappalainen, who flew nearly 600 km yesterday, all up to West Wyalong in the LS 6. So Scandinavia is well represented in Tocumwal at the moment; Denmark, Norway and Finland.

morgan 003

morgan 006  morgan 007

Björn and Lis in Eskilstuna and what a nice car!
Now both enjoy the good weather for 2 weeks in Tocumwal, staying at the caravan park in “the Swiss Chris house”.
Look for the difference in weather for Lis and Björn on the pictures at www.sportaviation.com.au

Chinese?????
離陸から約1h後リスタートで仕切りなおし。冬のコンバージェンス+WAVE的な条件。男体山のWAVE入ったが、11,000ftまで激しいローターと格闘。後半は条件全般的に好条件になっていた。
No Japanese!!!!!And written by Kenshi Tagami.
But clearly readable 11.000 ft. and WAVE. That’s what I noticed looking at what happened at Itakura where I spend some time in the past.
So easy enough to know what happened and to be happy for him.235 km. in a DG 400/17m. and FLYING HIGH!International-soaring-language!
Talking about my Japanese friends. You remember 2 of our guests who in the past married at Tocumwal in the garden of our airfield; Mikiko and Shige Sawada. Look now! What a great family!!!!

Mickey and Shige
Schihiro , Mikiko and on her lap little Mahiho  and Shige.

The European WAVE season has started as well in France and Italy and places as Calcinate and  Aosta have their guests already  flying to up to over 3000 m MSL.
Talking about France, the 17th EGC website at Vinon is on line;http://www.egc2013vinon.fr/en/
Also in the USA good wave as Baudouin Litt from Mid  Atlantic Soaring and have a look at his flight on the OLC , up till nearly 4000 m. MSL, he commented “Very nice wave early with strong winds. They died early and almost got me!” and you SEE what he writes!

And,….a great 3.minute 30 youtube video with Patrick Puskeiler, Mario Kiesling and Sarah Kelly Arnold by PLANETAIRE in Argentina during the WGC; THE HORIZON NEVER ENDS. Enjoy!
You can also see it at FB as Sarah placed it there!

http://youtu.be/dwMFXd2wNx0

And also by Sarah; Promo video for Wings Over Sweden.
Let’s show some support for such a great program.'”

http://kck.st/XOasHM More then 250 km./h.  over Sweden pureley on renewable energies; a pilot prepares for a new form of aereal racing.

And some words shared by Sarah;
—“The amazing thing about soaring is that no matter what experience level a pilot is currently at, the challenge is just as wonderful and just as exciting as it is for you or me when we compete. My students get the same satisfaction from learning to land, learning to thermal, practicing slips or working on that first badge as I did in Argentina last month. There are not many things in life as good as that.”—

SARAH 001

Having fun with Sarah in Uvalde!

For those interested:
Sport: Aeromodelling – Indoor Aerobatics
Title: FAI World Championship for
Aerobatic Model Aircraft
Type : World
Date:  02.02 –
09.02.2013
Location: Coburg – Germany

Final Results :
F3P –
Senior
1st : Gernot Bruckmann AUT
2nd : Donatas Pauzuolis LTU
3rd :Tetsuo Onda JPN

F3N – Junior
1st : Theo Catros FRA
2nd : Takuya Takahashi JPN
3rd : Karl-Ernst Overdick GER

F3P – Team
1st: France
2nd: Austria
3rd: Germany

And to finish ; after the very unexpected abdication of our Queen now a bit of a shock that the pope retires. Maybe a good solution, I have been brought up RK , but do see that times have changed and a pope should go with the time.He deserves some rest, as he looked worn out and very fragile and hopefully a younger pope with a modern view takes over. Though,..it ‘s pretty modern to retire,  as popes “normally ” stay on, till they die.
At 8 PM on February 28 the German pope will be part of history.
It’s soon Easter,  so a new pope will be saying his “Urbi at Orbi” for thousands @ the ST Pietersquare, and for millions looking at the TV,  this year. But,…I guess as always,…. the balcony will be full of Dutch flowers!

Cheers Ritz

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