SORRY I am late. I had no connection to the server,…so no way to enter my blog, but it seems fine again. Here we go!

 

     

With 12 pilots in total , they started this SGP, on Friday March 24, with a pre practice day and one of my USA mates, Tony [Condon] flew this time a JS 1 -a and was proud and happy on his first flight in this great “toy”!
“Only”  5 pilots were flying ,the cloud base was at 5000 ft [ground is at 120 ft] and max start altitude from 4000 ft.
Here is his landing as shared by him.

 

courtesy; Bozena Michalowski.

Another practice day on Saturday ! With good weather and all pilots up in the air.  Tony mentioned;
“Yahoo! Had an awesome flight. One low point but had an awesome flight. Flew the first leg with 7T. Also got to see the Gulf of Mexico!“

Tony shared this picture from 7T  [ASG 29] with Jean Fidler who just returned a month ago from the WGC in Benalla,who won the day.

So 12 pilots flying in this 18 m. class event ,with  8 x an ASG 29 in different configuration, one Antares 20 E,2 J1’s [1A and 1C] and a HPH -304 .

The “real thing” ,  race 1, started on Sunday and it was quite a day. Tony ; ” I had an awesome run until I about landed out. Then I wSo 12 pilots flying in this 18 m. class event ,with  8 x an ASG 29 in different configuration, one Antares 20 E,2 J1’s [1A and 1C] and a HPH -304 .as just happy to make it home.”

The 10 points were for Tom Kelley in his ASG 29 flying 336 km. with a speed of 125.7 km./h. Same by the way as Jerzy [Szemplinski] from Canada, but he got the 8 points ,as he got a few penalty seconds .
” Poor”  UK pilot Jon Gatfield ,…he missed the start line by by less than 500 m. ; 5 minutes!!!!!!

Race 2;with 383 km. was won by Jerzy, no penalty points today for him so the full 10 points. He won the last SGP already in the USA, so somebody to keep an eye on. Sean [Fidler] did well as runner up and just a tad slower.
Tony had a good day though 20 sec penalty for a low finish, but he got 6 points!!
”  Finished 15 seconds ahead of Rich, but got a 20 second penalty. Fell off the back of the gaggle at the north turnpoint then managed to catch the leaders at the end.”

Race 3;

As shared by Tony with the text:”Another speed task! 431 km A Task. B is 340. A few wispy clouds so far.”

Another pretty long task with Sean gaining the 10 points and Tom the 8 p. 2 Pilots did not finish one only just after 414 km. and the other after 244 km.
Pete [Alexander] had a good run being 3d. Jerzy was 5th but leads the pact with 23 points after 4 days with Sean and Tom on his heels both with 18.4 Days to go.

With Jerzy and Pete in the middle.
Picture shared by the organizers and courtesy Maria Szemplinska.

Race 4;

as shared by Tony.

So another 400 km. race ,but….. later reduced to 269 km.
First they had a pilots meeting at the grid for a B task , then nice clouds popped up, also “interesting”  blue areas and quite some sink in the end.
As Tony mentioned;””We’ve had fantastic weather. Night and day compared to what they had for the seniors.”
AND,..Tony loves flying the JS 1!
“ The glider is going great, just need to get the pilot up to its speed”
Race 4 had 3 non-finishers and Jerzy again as winner.So his lead is growing and now 33 points with Sean and Tom following with 26 and 22.

         

Waiting for the pilot briefing with the trackers………….and…………Ready to go; my “flying source” Tony, in the USA.
Pic 2 courtesy Bozena Michalowski.

Race 5;

    

Ready to go for day 5 seen through the eyes of Bozena and shared by the organizers.

During this race 5 the JS 1-C from Jim Lee flew with a speed of 124.4 km./h. over the 294.85 track and with that speed he was the best; 10 points.Tom in his ASG 29 was runner up and with another 8 points he moves to a total of 30 and at this stage , with 2 days to go,…that means bronze.
Jerzy is on top with 39 points and on spot 2 Sean with 31.So it might be exciting for Sean and Tom the next 2 days with only 1 point difference.

Race 6 was cancelled, due to the weather;  forecast for thunderstorms at 2 PM.

As shared by the organizers; full sunrise rainbow at the 2017 SGP in the USA.

so on the last day there was a new chance for

Race 6! “Blue conditions forecast for today with top of lift around 6000. Estimated first launch at 13:30 local.”
So flying is on the menu again for the very last day.Pilots got a 270 km. task!
There is a saying;” What comes from far is good”! This time that turned out to be true as UK pilot John Gatfield had after one week “Orlando -flying in his fingers” and as it was the last day the 11 points were his!!!A speed just under 100 km./h.Runner up for the day was Tony with 9 points so a total for him of 22. He was quite excited “2nd one home, woohoo!!!”GOOD!!!
Jerzy was 4th but that was more than enough to win this USA Sailplane Grand Prix with 45 points. Good on him!!!
Runner up was with 35 points Sean.
Then it was 32 for Tom and Jim [Lee] and 31 for Rich Owen who was 3d on the last day.

Congrats to FAI SGP USA 2017 event winners

1) Jerzy Szemplinski, 2) Sean Fidler, and 3) Tom Kelley!!

courtesy Maria Szemplinska.

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GLIDERS BACK FROM DOWN UNDER !!!

All overseas gliders participating in the WGC in Benalla are back at their home field,   including the brand new types as JS 1 and Ventus 3.
Most pilots are flying their toy again and here are a few pictures shared by Schempp Hirth from Wolfgang [Janowitsch], who was happy to fly his WO over his own ” playground” again.
Pictures are courtesy to Robert Zinnecker.

        

By the way in this Ventus 3 Wolfgang flew on April 1 a great 1.116 km. flight from Wiener Neustadt.[sis.streckenflug.at]

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45th Tropheo of the City of Torino.

Luca De Marchi  as shared in the gallery.

 17 pilots flew this competition in one handicapped class. They started with a few non-flying-days due to the weather.
On the last day of March they finally went “up”  and with a set task of 258 km. Alberto Sironi in his Quintus M, was by far the fastest with a speed 122.23 km./h.
Runners up in the Duo Discus with team [Luciano?] Avanzini, had a good speed of 105 km./h. Luca De Marchi in his Ventus 2AX  was 3d.
Aldo [Cernezzi] 4th in the ARCUS M.
On April 1 they had a 1.30 AAT.
The ARCUS M. from team Grinza flew 199 km. with a speed just under 100 km./h.[597 daily points] and they were one of the 4 finishers. Among them also team Avanzini with 519 points. Alberto did not finish , he flew 192 km. for 427 points.
As 25 % finished the day was valid.
April 2 had no flying, but there was ,….the reserve day ,they wanted to use.I read however, that a lot of participants did not believe in another day and went home.
BUT,..they flew one more day , last Monday.
7 Choose not to fly and were already home, 9 flew and 6 finished AND,..it was a 1000 points day!
367 km. was the set task and Sandro [Montemaggi] “got” the 1000 points for his speed of 116 km./h.in the ASG 29E/18m. followed by the Duo Discus and the Arcus M.

So winners after 3 days were known now;
1. Team Avanzini in the Duo Discus XLT with 2099 points.
2.Team Grinza in the ARCUS M with 2.051 points
3. Luca De Marchi in the Ventus 2AX 2.039 points. These 3 were the only ones in the 2000 points-range.

It’s nice to know such a lot of Italian pilots from all my Rieti visits.

SAD news as well, Aldo Cernezzi, writes a lot about gliding and is involved with news for several magazines [p.e. Gliding International] and books. Last Saturday they have stolen his laptop from the car-parking- spot, during dinner in Torino’s club house and he lost all news and recent news etc …..EVERYTHING also the news on brand-new comps he is involved in!!!!!!!!!!!
Terrible  …..I hope he get’s it back. There was a video camera at the parking spot, that might give hope.
Aldo did not fly on the reserve day, we all understand.

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Interesting flights on the OLC.

A lot of pilots choose France again for a check up on their mountain flying. Quite a few training-camps in several places as Puimoisson, Barcelonette , Aubenasson and Gap, Serres and of course  Saint Auban and Vinon.
On the last day of March Italy had a great flight in an ASW 24 from Rubbiano;722 km.
On the last but one day , we had the warmest day ever on March 30 here in Holland , with 21.4 dgr. C. Of course you look at the OLC to see if the conditions were good to fly in our flat-land-country.
AND YES, in his 21 m. JS 1 Rien Bastiaansen flew from Terlet a nice 275 km. distance.On March 22 he flew already 330 km.
Also on the 30thiest our Belgium mates flew 424 km. from Hasselt-Kiewit in a DG 400.
The season is “ON”.
And THEN ,….March is over and,…..it is April again.

April 1, no joke,  was a great {foehn-}day in Austria as from Wiener Neustadt the WGC- venue from long ago [I believe 1989] , several pilots flew long distances;1.110 km. in a Duo Discus is GOOD!!!!He flew direction West to the area of Unterwoessen and back.
And 942 km.  in an ASH 26, also direction West but more to S. of Zell am See,  was good too.
As said Wolfgang flew one as well.
Lesce Bled [Sl] had some great flights over 700 and 900 km.

Lasham in the UK had great weather as well, for the first time this season a “full house” last Sunday.

as shared by Roy.

and busy, busy in Holland as well with upfront the AG  “Cirrus”  from our juniors, ready for it’s very first flight of the season after winter inspections .

As shared by the Dutch Junior Gliding Team.
From Soesterberg our “kilometer-eaters” Sikko and Mark in their ASG 29E, flew 543 km and my Belgian friends were happy as well; “What an amazing start of the season!! Nice convergence line at the end of the day.” The OLC comment from Niel who flew 465 km in his St Libelle from Diest. Bert flew from there 510 in a 15 m. Ventus ct.
Only from Holland 59 cross country flights were added to the OLC with a total of 14.968 km. An average of 258 km. per flight [source FB; Zweefportaal]
Indeed it’s kilometer-eater-time; On April 3  Alexander Mueller [EB 29] nearly flew his first 1000 for the season [975 km.] from Lesce Bled [Slovenia]. And from Luxembourg Guy Bechtold flew in his Quintus M 824 km.
Many happy pilots in this early spring time in Europe.GOOD!!!!!!

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CU next week.
Boxes for the removal arrived this week, let’s see how I go with time over the next weeks. I guess there will be a time with no Ritz-blog, as the connections for the new provider have to be changed. Last time it took 3 months!!!! I straight-away, ended my contract with that provider!!!We’ll see , will keep you informed.
Cheers Ritz