Had a week in Amsterdam with my grand children. Very rewarding!!!
Worst ever storm here in this part of Holland,  with lot’s of damage, several millions!!!!
I live very much in-land, in the SE of Holland, so such a storm is very weird . People had to walk their bikes and had to be careful to not go with the wind, even with the bike in their hands. Unbelievable.
SNOW in the east of Holland and hail and thunder and lightning here, PLUS those up to 124 km. wind gusts.
March brings gales!!!!

2 Horror crashes with planes in Colombia and Ethiopia last weekend, killing nearly 200 passengers . Not good!!!! VERY SAD!!! On top of that heavy turbulence in a 777 from Turkish airlines during landing in New York with several injured passengers.

————————-

IGC meeting in Istanbul.

As always in the first week of March the IGC plenary meeting was on;  this time in Istanbul on March 8 and 9.
A lot of reactions on one of the statements, both pro and contra.
—-they announced “We have voted to disallow tactical tracking… by making it technically difficult, and by declaring that workarounds (i.e. codebreaking etc.) are unsporting. We further voted to preserve delayed tracking for spectators.”
And;
“Afternoon session begins with a very interesting presentation about the Open Glider Network. For our competitions, we are committed to disallowing tactical glider tracking while preserving collision avoidance technology.”
A few reactions;
“Hearing from the IGC Plenary meeting in Turkey that the that tactical use of OGN is going to be banned by agreement that looking at the OGN data would be unsporting. I hope this is not true. This is not a solution.”

Interesting to see HOW they are going to do this.Glad and important they look into this matter, as there seem to be 2 “camps” ,but how they are going to implement this ……….??????? The sport should be safe , innovation is important but it should be fair and attainable for all.

Here are a few tweets.
—“From a late proposal: we have approved a modification to the Designated Start rule, adding a 5 minute option.”
—“The Lilienthal Medal is awarded to Dick Bradley.”CONGRATULATIONS DICK!!!!
— “The Pirat Gehriger Diploma is awarded to Dr. Angel Casado.” CONGRATULATIONS ANGEL!!!!
— “We have voted to experiment with a place scoring in our WGCs. Details to be developed for next year’s meeting.”
— “We have voted to experiment with a bonus for early starters. Details to be developed for next year’s meeting.”
— “We have voted to experiment with handicapping by adjustment to turn point radius, with distance credit to the center of the circle. Details to be developed for next year’s meeting.”
— “The 37th World Gliding Championships in the Club, Standard, and 15 Metre classes will be held in Australia at the end of 2022 (or early 2023).” It seems this will be Narromine. Great spot.
— “We have introduced two new trophies this year. The first “IGC Champion Pilot of the Year” trophy was awarded to Michael Sommer. The new “Göran Ax Memorial” trophy will be given for the greatest cumulative distance in the Open Class WGC, beginning in 2020.”

AND it is official!!!!All 3 2018 world records from the Perlan Project are approved by the FAI.

GPS altitudes Aug 26 Jim Payne and Morgan Sandercock 18,503 m 60,705 ft
Aug 28 Jim Payne and Miguel Iturmendi 19,449 m 63,809 ft
Sept 2 Jim Payne and Tim Gardner 22,657 m 74,334 ft

All the tweets on https://twitter.com/FAI_IGC

 

———————–

LAKE KEEPIT…….10th WWGC info

The weather is still good in Lake Keepit. Last Sunday Attila Bertok flew in his St. Cirrus 529 km. You might remember that he did his conversion from hang-gliding to gliding with us in the past. Great to see he still flies gliders.

The CD , Chief steward and president of the jury for the 2020 WWGC, have been announced at the IGC meeting in Istanbul. Here they are.

 Steward, Contest Director and Jury Chair. Frauke, Mandy and Gisela [Weinreich].

More news; As far as I know ,Luxembourg will attend a WWGC for the very first time. Diana Schuit , a Dutch citizen but living in Luxembourg already for a few years, will represent them. She practiced already a lot down under , where she lived in the past and is ready to go for it in open class in her brand-new JS 3.
Diana flew with us in the Sportavia period as tuggie and is a well respected co pilot at Cargolux nowadays.
She is married to George , who will be her crew and TC. Both live partly in Tocumwal as well.

And talking about tuggies this is the tug master in Lake Keepit in 2020.

 They have a very significant group of highly qualified staff completely ready for the Competition and its Lead-Up. This  is Val Phillips, Val will look after Tugs and Tug Operations.
10th FAI Women’s World Gliding Championships

After the early January 2020 WWGC there will be the European 11th WWGC in summer [August]  of 2021 in Husbos in the UK. Their PR started already as well.

British Gliding Association

And the next one is known now too since the IGC meeting;
“The date of the 12th Women’s World Gliding Championships in Fuentemilanos, Spain will be August 2022.”

————————–

—-Tocumwal; 8th of March, Bi Annual Hot Rods, Market and Gliding.

  

as shared by Sportavia Tocumwal

As seen and shared by Mary Anne.

—————————–

 

Those who are interested in flying the Uppsala Masters in Sweden; here is the latest.

Dear Uppsala Masters competitors and Teams!
We will within days publish Local Procedures and some other relevant documents such as price list and good to know info. Final day to register your self is 31st of March. This is also final day of payment. Payment and registration after this date is possible however will cost you 750 sek extra. At this moment we have some 40 gliding ships on the list. Amongst Swedish pilots we are happy to see that our Finnish gliding friends will visit us with a big team. This year we also have visitors from Norway and Germany, and not to forget our new world champion in 18m class from Austria mr. Wolfgang Janowitsch, this time flying with his mate Andreas Lutz in an Arcus. Last but not least we are glad to see that a competitor all the way from Canada has found his way to Uppsala, very welcome Jean Yves Germain.
So, stay tuned and we will return soon with updates!
www.uppsalamasters.se

as shared by Uppsala Masters

AND,…..some additional travel news
“Dear Friends,
For those of you that will travel over water to reach the beautiful country of Sweden I would suggest to have a look at the great offer our sponsor partner Finnlines have given us.

Route: KAPELLSKÄR – NÅDENDAL and return 
Travel period: 5th June to 18th of June
Latest booking date: 30th April
Promo code: MASTERS
Discount: -50% discount on morning departures and -35% discount on evening departures (deduction from std price list)

—————————-

 

And to finish another GREAT soaring family, this time from France; the de Péchy family. Very successful in 2018!!!! Well done and congratulations.

From left to right;Anton de Péchy, winner of the Coupe Jacque Gomy 2018, then the very well known French TC, Eric Napoleon, then dad Philippe de Péchy , holder of a French record and National champion, and last but not least Clément de Péchy, runner up in the race for the Coupe Jacques Gomy 2018.

 

Enough news, so CU next week. By the Way the Namibia containers have arrived already ‘Home’ in good condition.

Cheers Ritz