ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN      SUNDAY MARCH 24 2013

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

Good morning on this sunny Sunday morning here, but freezing cold.
Not a lot of time anymore so here is an important reminder , for those who are interested and have not read it yet,  this next invitation-mail  for the 17th FAI EGC in Ostrow Poland. When you are qualified to go and your NAC wants to send you , be in time ;

—“Dear Pilots, Team Captains and Regional Aeroclubs,

 Only 10 days are left until the deadline for the confirmation of the participation in the 17th FAI European Gliding Championships in Ostrów.

Currently 72 pilots have confirmed their participation in the Gliding Championships that will take place this summer at EPOM. The limit is 124 places, thus please send us notifications as soon as possible.

In case you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 PS. We consciously send this information to everyone – even if you already did send us the participation form, please do follow up with your friends that haven’t yet done so.

 On behalf of the organisers,

With numbers in gliding clubs going down, the initiative from Judy and Ingo Renner and their Southern Riverina Gliding Club, to specially focus a day on juniors and create a full day of interesting items for them yesterday at the Tocumwal Aerodrome , is a good one.
Club members have been asked to donate some money to pay for the tow fees for the young ones, a few days before there was an interview on ABC TV and a morning program starting at 10 , with all kinds of short speeches, DVD’s [ 15 min. Otto Lilienthal and 15 min. an introduction to gliding by John Roake] and lunch at 1.15 , looks very entertaining for the young aviators.
Speeches about the development of flying machines, the history about soaring , modelling, principles of flight, airworthiness and maintenance of gliders , learning to fly powered aircraft and career options , control surfaces and gliding instruments ,[ How to DI a glider?]   meteorology and safety and launch signals are programmed.
In the afternoon they will have their first flight and Ingo is one of the pilots.
Hope the weather was good for them.

 

As seen by Dundee from his “house”at the camping area. To the East it looked “RED”.

 There was FINALLY rain I heard after “a very hot summer with long spells of 35 plus days. March has seen an Australian record of “above 30 degrees” for 13 days in a row, whilst the temperatures in Toc have been in the mid to high 30’s over the same period. We have all found it extremely trying.”

That’s what the kids see from above!
Courtesy ;Ronald Hermans

Nice to see that Mount Beauty topped the OLC list on March 19 with a 622 km. flight in a 15 m. Ventus b by Andy Smith.
Just got some pictures from some friends who flew there during the mountain-flying-course. This way , by seeing it, you share a bit of their joy.

The city and airfield seen from the West.
courtesy Jörgen Thomsen

 

The landscape Jörgen , Brigitte and Roger flew over in the ARCUS.

Morning briefings with a few hours of theory lessons, discussion on techniques, and safety of flying in the mountains
during this course at Mount Beauty.

From France [Bailleau] I got an interesting link about unmanned gliders. Thanks Anthony!
It’s an article in THE ECONOMIST , [so don’t worry in English ] and it explains more about TALEUAS,  the hand-launched Tactical Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial System (TALEUAS) “which  is being developed at the Unites States’ Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. It needs an electric propeller to get airborne, but give it a few minutes to reach a reasonable altitude and TALEUAS can fly all day just by riding rising currents of warm air called thermals.”
Here is the link and ENJOY:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/unmanned-gliders

It was supposed to be REAL practise when the German police, with 400 people,  came together to try-out, an action against hooligans in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
It turned out to be a black day as 2 helicopters collided not far from the stadium, killing one of the pilots and injuring 4, 2 of them badly. The weather was not too good , with snow and while practising , the helicopters flew low. On TV it looked as if they were landing,  but investigation will tell us why it happened. The action was stopped immediately.
Even worse was the accident with a Chopper in NSW [Australia] where 4 were killed on their way to a fancy restaurant for lunch. The Robinson R44 light helicopter crashed after clipping a tree and  burst into fire.

 Calcinate del Peche [Varese]  , the Italian Alps, is the place to be for high performance soaring/training/stages and lots of Italian pilots are there right now. Even topping the OLC with flights up to over 400 km.
When you read as comment “bellissimo primo volo SAP2013, eccellente tutor!” it is all OK!!!!
Varese is an important place for soaring in Italy with at least 3 clubs at the lake.
One of them is called ” Aero Club  Adele Orsi. ” in short ICAO, very special is n’t it? Giorgio Ballarati is the “master”, who gives x-country-training there in the duo discus during the season, starting in March.
I know Giorgio from several comps and even worked for/with him in Rieti.Lovely guy and an excellent pilot!
Of course he also flew the ETA during the WGC in Eskilstuna.
I remember Adeles husband Giorgio as some kind of king, sitting/laying in his open class glider , with a crew around him with umbrellas during the Pre WGC. We were even invited in their castle-looking house , in the mountains at that time visible from Rieti airport. Impressive kind people, who did a lot for gliding in Italy!
The “ICAO” has by the way just recently chosen a new chairwoman; Margherita Acquaderni, holder of 28 Italian records and she was a participant in 6 WCG’s.

This weather???? I don’t know about it!!!
As said Australia had the hottest March ever, it looks like Europe has the coldest March ever. With the cold easterly it feels like minus 15 this weekend and the colourful tulips in the KEUKENHOF, one of the most famous attractions in Holland in spring, has no flowering tulips.
The UK suffers from REAL snow at the moment and we here have frozen seawater on the borders of the WADDENsea and even more weird, the tough Easterly wind annoyed ferries to go to the islands up North, as the water -level was temporarily too low. Pretty unique , certainly for this time of the year.
Spring started in Canada with MINUS 30 and chaos on the roads with deadly accidents.
Victoria in the South of Australia, was hit by damaging tornadoes and the rain, storm and gales lashed NSW as well. This picture below is from Yarrawonga close to Corowa , Benalla and Tocumwal, where wind up to 250 km./h. ruined a lot and injured at least 20 people, 2 pretty badly.
Not so much later  the Narromine/Dubbo area was hit by “destructive wind, large hails and heavy rainfall”.
AND….AGAIN 2 days later the runner up from Chaves , Tobias Geiger, flew again over 400  km.  in his LS 4 from Benalla. Indeed, that’s  how quickly the weather can change over there. I was sometimes amazed!!

 Picture on TV from Victorian Storm Chasers.As seen on FB by Tammie, the lovely wife from one of our tuggies Glenn, now a proud AG pilot.

And as extra UPDATE to these tornadoes, a link to this video, thanks Vanessa;
http://youtu.be/8HZr8gyqJag

And this one close to the Lake Mulwala, for those who flew at Tocumwal, the lake with the “dead trees”.
Same but under 1 minute!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkj0zXMKANA

 I am looking forward to the 50 thiest anniversary of the ZES ….1963-2013…..next Wednesday. About 140 soaring-friends have announced their arrival and a few from “my ” year 1967.
It will be busy over Easter with guests here, but I try to keep writing as well as of course Nitra starts with 124 pilots ;the first big competition in 2013 in Europe. It’s all going to happen again.

CU next week .When you have n’t got enough of reading …….and want to read more ……and have not read it yet, …….there is a nice interview with Uys Jonker on the OLC page as well as  “shared” on www.soaringcafe.com . Enjoy, as I did.

Off to look at the world championship ice speed skating in the Olympic hall in Sochi now, but I look downstairs nice warm in my room in front of the TV. As expected but certainly also hoped for in our speed skating-crazy-country,  “WE” are doing well, with 4 gold, 4 silver topping the medal list and more to come on this last day.

Cheers Ritz