Post 1.481 on January 31 2024 already the last day of the first month of 2024,…time flies.

–—– The Australian Nationals had only one more day.And that was straight away the last day on Friday.
Overall leader with 1 day to go shared his thoughts about the week. Here is Pete;
“After 2 days off due to dismal grey and wet conditions we are up to the final day of the multiclass national gliding championships at Benalla – one to be remembered for low and weak conditions. I don’t think I’ve ever flown so many low tasks in a row – so much so that I’m getting comfortable cruising at 100 knots when below 2000 feet above the ground. I really shouldn’t be since there’s not much between that ‘comfort’ and being on the ground. Some of the time the top of climbs has been 3000 feet or less so as soon as we left a climb we are looking for the next one. Pretty tough finding any sort of rhythm but it’s the same for all of us. I’ve been lucky so far and found the climbs when I needed them – right up to the last day with a near disastrous start when I went through the start line and found absolutely nothing until I was at 900 feet, so had to take the poor offering and wasted a lot of time. Anyway, some points lost but I still retained the overall competition lead.
The final day tomorrow promises to be a reasonable soaring day with some stronger climbs but 15-20 knots of wind to contend with. We might even see 6000 feet.
It’s a bit of a sad day since after owning it 10 years it will be my last flight in my ASG29 – it’s heading off to a new owner in WA. But with my current lead of 119 points I hope to finish on a high with a competition win.”
Bruce added;”
“There’s still hope for a final day tomorrow, though it looks like it will only be south of the river, and it will be breezy.
A shame, but I don’t have any higher level contacts to change the weather.”

TASK 8 out of 11 days and 6 flyable days: January 26 AUSTRALIA DAY!!!!
Nice to know that on this special day one of the most important ladies in soaring, Beryl Hartley, in Narromine , has been awarded Narromine Citizen Of The Year. Well done and very much deserved!!!!Congratulations Beryl.
More GRAND LADIES in our sport but this time from Benalla; Vivienne Drew; she got an OAM [ medal of the Order of Australia] for her services to gliding.
Congratulations too.I have the honor to know them both.
Very last day and luckily flyable.
Overall scores with 1 day to go; 1. Pete [Temple]…4.599 p 2. Bruce [Taylor]…4.476 p. and 3. Greg [Beecroft].4.467 p.
A racing task from  370.92 km was set and flown by 12 of the 14 starters.
David [Jansen] in his ASG 32MI was the daily best and “got” the 1000 points for a speed of 123.67 km./h.
Interesting;finally the 3 open class gliders were on this last day in the top 3.
Pete was on spot 7 and Bruce on spot 6, good enough to remain on the top spots overall.
Bruce for the last time:”
We’re all done and dusted then! Today was slightly frustrating for me, but I won’t be too sad about it as I have finished in a strong second place overall. It was windy and rather low, with plenty of cumulus for a change. I chose a line that appeared to be a good solid-looking street and it seemed to start slightly right of our first upwind leg, but was swinging back on track as far ahead as I could see. But as I began running that way another street out to the left was beginning to cook up, so I pulled up and returned for a re-start.
What a smoking first leg that was! It was all straight flying except for a short 5 knot top up along the way, and I rounded the turn and immediately connected with a good climb to head cross-wind. And so it continued for more than about 2/3rds of the task, which had a lot of turn points today.”
the full story on Taylor’s Gliding Page

Overall results after 6 out of 11 days in open class;
1. Pete Temple in ASG 29 with 5,390 points.
2. Bruce Taylor in ASG 29E with 5,277 p.
3. Greg Beecroft in LS 8 with 5,242 p.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

The last words are for Pete;
“It’s been a bit hectic packing up and travelling home to post before now. I finished champion in the combined 18m and open class. My 12th national championship win – most of them at Benalla so it’s definitely a happy hunting ground for me.
Thanks to the Gliding Club of Victoria team running the competition; thanks to my fellow competitors for the safe and tough competition in the challenging weather; and of course thanks to Mandy for supporting and crewing for me. I look forward to defending the title next year in my new JS3.”

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–—–The NZ Nationals were only a tad more lucky with the weather. On January 24 and 25 they had tasks in both classes. In my last post I wrote that Brett and Keith [open] had equal 1000 points on that 3 hour AAT day and Henry and Davy [racing] got NO points for their flown 2.45 AAT.
Open class;
Task 6; 2.45 AAT.…another challenging/marginal day and only 2 pilots managed to finish, Keith and Tim [Bromhead] [both overall leaders as 1 and 2], for 280 and 272 points. Brett lost as number 4 a total of 151 points.
Starts between 14.20 and 15. 55!!!!
Task 7; 369.12 km……Keith in his ASW 27 /18E had a top-day….He was the only one flying over 100 km./h and winner of the day with 1000 points followed by Tim [Ventus CT] and Brett [JS3] AND good old Tony Van Dyk.[ASG 27/18E]
“ It was meant to be a blue day but there were clouds to the north on task marking the way but the conditions were very soft in areas and the speeds were not achieved in either class. Once again some struggled and there were land-outs on track and some  before the start. In all it was a good day.”
One more day to go…?????????
Task 8; 1 hour AAT,…you see they tried hard BUT, author David Austin mentioned;
“Another day of low cloud and rain. Unfortunately we have had to cancel the day.”
There was no task 8 so the overall scores after 4 of 9 days;
1. Keith Essex in ASW 27-18E with 2,681 points.
2. Tim Bromhead in Ventus 2CT with 2,502 p.
3. David Johnson in Discus 2CT with 2,172 p.

Racing class;
Task 6; 2.30 AAT …3 pilots from the 11 “starters” managed to finish. Georg in the Duo Discus with 189 km / 73.80 km./h. And Mark in his St Libelle [217 km/ 54.51 km./h It took him nearly 4 hours [3.58.51 km./h] to achieve this, but he hold on !!!!!David in the SZD -55-1 was the third with 170 km/51.53 km./h.
Chapeau for these 3 pilots!!!!
Task 7; 251.93 km……This time it was Nigel in the Duo Discus, winning the day . Only 5 finished so a lot of outlandings again and not all of the pilots started.
Good to see Mark [Wilson] in the Libelle “holds on!!!” He leads the racing class at the moment.
Also in this class task 7 was the last one, so the
OVERALL scores are;
1. Mark Wilson in St Libelle with 1,503 points.
2. David Moody in SZD 55-1 with 1,268 p.
3. John Robertson in Discus 2B with 1,238 p.

Congratulations to ALL.

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–—–Western Cape Regionals from January 20 -27 continued after 2 NO TASK-days and 1 flown task with 2 racing tasks on the 24th and 25th in open class.
Open;
task 4; 348.74 km…flying day 2…..Oscar was in the mood and raced to the daily victory; 156.17 km./h. The ARCUS M with Nick and John did not start the rest , 10 pilots 1HC, did. Christian Hynek from Austria used his engine after 46 km, “- tried out the handling of the jet,involuntarily today” and took the very nice picture below.
task 5; 328.05 km…..was won by HC pilot Tokkie [Pieter Carstens] in the LS 4.…speed 169.44 km./h!!!!!!
He can’t be number 1 so that honor was for Peter Farrell in a JS3 ; 175.40 km./h!!!!

According to Christian the magic was shown on this task 3; “3rd competition day in Worcester: You think you’re more ahead with an average of 166 kph, but an LS4 with an average of 169 kph shows you where the magic happens, the red line at 180 kph!” He flew around with 166.17 km./h in the JS1/18m.
Task 6; 525.87 km….great to see Sven [Olivier] in his ASW 27 on top of the daily list with 164.72 km./h. He started later than the rest.” I really enjoyed this day win in Western Cape Regionals.”
Oscar was on spot 5 [speed 148.69 km./h]
7 Started and finished.
Task 7; 2 hour AAT…with smoke due to fires at Wolseley…!!!!!! Oscar won the day with 398 km and with that distance there must be good speed too; it was 166.95 km./h!!!!
10 started and 2 were “out”.
“Last competition day in Worcester, high and fast thermal into the Karoo … it was wonderful” by Christian who was 3d for the day.

The Sports class had only 2 participants and each of them won a day.In the end Laurens [Goudriaan] in ASG 32 was runner up with 2.009 p and winner was Brad Jackson from the USA in Ventus 2CM/18 m with 2.472 points.

Overall scores in open after 5 out of 7 pretty fast days:
Fast days as in…….task 1; 170 km./h . Task 4; 156 km./h. Task 5; 169 km./h. Task 6 ;164.72 km./h Task 7; 167 km./h.
1. Oscar Goudriaan in JS 3 /18m with 3,588 points.
2. Rene Lans in JS 1 Cjet/18m with 3,364 p
3. Andreas Spielmann from Switzerland in JS3 with 3,098 p.
Here they are ,all happy chappies!
As shared by streckenflug.at

OTHER NEWS:
–—–Bitterwasser shared their stats;
Bitterwasser statistics for the 2023 / 2024 season
117 satisfied pilots reported 778 beautiful flights in the OLC and flew 624 853 km (667 384 points). On average 800 km and 858 points per flight.
A total of 252 flights were longer than 1000 km. 2 of them > 1400 km, 9 > 1300 km, 39 > 1200 km, 57 > 1100 km, 145 >1000 km.
These large flights were possible from the beginning to the end of the season. Accumulations at certain times were due to the number of pilots.
Elmar Fischer flew a total of 36700 km and almost 40000 points with 55 launches and 312 hours.
The fastest flight >1000km was made by Ilka Elster-Back and Holger Back with average speed of 160.13 km/h
Simon Briel made the longest flight with 1413 km and Niels Fecker flew with Hans Ulrich Meuters the highest scoring flight with 1541 points.
(by Dirk Skura, Quelle OLC)”

As every year I add my statistics looking at the OLC on January 24 2024.
Most busy airfields;
1. Bitterwasser ; with 117 pilots during 779 flights ; 624.853,94 km.
2. Veronica ; with 84 pilots during 587 flights; 436.641,89 km.
3. Kiripotib; with 90 pilots during 627 flights; 425.968,35 km.
4. Pokweni; with 39 pilots during 410 flights; 299.432,42 km.
5. Worcester; with 32 pilots during 148 flights; 91.286,68 km.

5 Pilots REALLY flew many hours during many flights, so stats of all flights;
1. Elmar Erik Fischer ; 55 flights and 36.745,90 km.
2. Garry Coppin; 45 flights and 31.377,44 km.
3. Nicolas Bennett; 40 flights and 29.022,83 km.
4. Axel Nuss; 37 flights and 28.735,78 km.
5. Dmytry Borovyk; 38 flights and 26.945,57 km.

Speed OLC CHAMPION:
1. Juan Pablo Vertura [Argentina] ; 1.028,18 points. On 18 -11 2023 he flew 231.69 km./h !!!
2. Reinhard Schramme [Germany] ; 985.88 p. On January 5 he flew 154.48 km./h.
3. Alejandro Pettenazza [Argentina] ;972.85 p. On December 1 he flew 198.75 km./h.

—-Kiripotib said farewell to their last guests as well;
“Days at Kiripotib fly by too quickly, another season is over. Many thanks to all Kiripotib friends who made the last three months something very special again.We look forward to welcoming you back to Namibia in autumn/winter.”
They had 90 guests, making 627 flights and flying 425.968,35 km!!!
Next years bookings can be done on kiripotib-soaring.com/en/contact/

——-The latest IGC ranking list is studied by Adam and he shared it with us. He also wrote a long article on the low numbers on comps,interesting reading on ;Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

—-VERY INTERESTING flight on January 26 and the first 1000 km [wave ] flight in Europe has been flown from Romania from the airfield Targu Jiu in the mighty ARCUS M over the Făgăraş mountains
Pilots Nicolae and Iulian flew 1074 km speed 126 km./h.
“As they say in their own words: “It’s a milestone for us, long studied wave patterns come out to light… There is great potential for long flights in the Carpathians, gliding is such a beautiful sport, I can’t wait to explore and discover more“ WeGlide
On both WeGlide [https://www.weglide.org/flight/360846] and the OLC https://www.weglide.org/flight/360846 you find many pictures!!!!

——Last weekend some female Aussie pilots had a long AUSTRALIA weekend of flying in the gorgeous area of Mount Beauty.
“Day 1 of Rockettes x Victorian Soaring Association Women’s Soaring in the hills weekend. 18 flights and 10 girls got to fly yesterday. Woohoo“
Picture shared by Rockettes 

That’s it for now. The last couple of days it was cold here, but sunny and the days really are getting longer. Spring is around the corner. Slowly we can look ahead of MORE GOOD SOARING in Europe!!!!
You can already apply for the SUMMER COMPS here in The Netherlands between July 13 -19-/2024.

VERY INTERESTING; The FAI SGP at Terlet in May 2025 [ 11-17] for 18 m. gliders can only accept 20 participants. At this stage they have 34 preliminary bookings. SO THERE IS INTEREST IN this kind of soaring.

The Horsham Coaching week has started which means that Horsham Week, one of the last comps in the down under season is around the corner. Last one this season is the 2 seater NATIONAL championship at Tocumwal.[ February 17-24]
The 2024 Lake Keepit Regatta is between February 27 and March 4 .

Cheers Ritz