It’s Monday morning now December 11;

—–Was 2 days/nights in a row in bed for 12 hours, so that should help me to get over the jet lag a bit quicker than normal. Just left Holland in time, as it snowed there and even a few centimeters up to 24 I heard, at places.
This morning I woke up early as I got an app from the Dutch railway to tell me that trains would have a winter-schedule. So I turned around and slept on !!

Holland as seen by Joke Termaat.

Some pictures first.
1. Great clouds on the way “home’ from my train on Saturday.
2. Beer with the “guy’s”/ glider pilots George, Scott and Colin.
3. Nice sunset yesterday here in Toc.[picture by George]
4. And with Ingo, both not on our best on this picture from Bruce.
5. Jamie in the office.
6. Georges hangar,… in the past David’s hangar.

       

    

Just said hello to Milan Petcovic who is flying his DG 101 ELAN today.

And made some more pictures ,specially for Brutus from the BB area at Sportavia, the Kees-Dennis tree and the South site of the WW2 hangar. It feels still weird and SAD that we owned that for over 10 years and now we are neighbors ?????!!!!!

          

 

—–In between Temora ,about 2.5 hour from here to the NE, had it’s first day from the NSW State comps, and it was quite a good one. Not for all , as Bruce wrote in his tale:
“What a strange day it was. It began with the age-old mistake of leaving the drain plugs out when I was filling my ASG 29 with water, which results in a cockpit full of water! Wet parachute, wet sheepskin liner, wet everything! You can see the results in the photo 🙄 So we have to pull the wings off to put the plugs back in, then tape it all up and start again. Launch happens into another blue sky, noticeably stronger than yesterday, but no higher and still full of challenges. I climbed easily enough, the crowd left at about 1350, and I decided to wait another 10 minutes… but I fell down and could not, for the life of me, find a bloody thermal to get up again to start! Eventually I left at 1422, feeling very lonely. Great run to the first turn, but missed a climb going in, and I could see we had some distance to do over irrigation and the river. Sure enough, I was down in the weeds, turned back a couple of km to fall onto a little ridge to survive, and successfully knocked about 10kph off my speed. The rest of the flight went OK, finally catching some gliders on the way home, the first ones I had seen all day. Closer to home the day switched off a bit, and I was fortunate to make it back reasonably well.
Surprised to see after all of that that I had a good result. It tried hard to turn to rubbish a few times today, but I escaped the jaws of defeat by a whisker.’

The more lucky ones did well looking at the results on www.soaringspot.com
Bernie Sizer won the club class [3.30 AAT] with 320 km. in time 3.29 in his PIK 20B. Not so long ago Bernie hired the ES [ASW 15] from Dundee, now he owns this glider and performs really well in it. So well deserved 1000 points.
In Standard the 6 pilots had a 3.15 AAT which was won by Scott Lennon [LS 8] from Temora;358 km. in 3.35.
John/Butch won the 15 m. class [3.15 AAT] flying 383 km in 3.24 in Ventus 2.
18 m; 336.57 km. were flown fast by,…..Bruce who after the mishap still won the day in his ASG 29; 121 km./h. He really went for it as Adam who was runner up “only”  had a speed of 112 km./h. Tocumwal-Lumpy Paterson was 3d.
Open class;Bruce won in the combined class as well, but best was Guido Dalla Rosa Prati in the Nimbus 3DM.
Not a good day for my mate Paul as he outlanded in his ASH 25 after 344 km.

Day 2 , is a real good one with for club a 4 hour AAT….Standard /15 m. 474.60 km….. 18 m/open 514.24 km.
Bernie is in the winning mood as day 2 was his too. 423 km. in in 354…good!!
Local pilot Tom Gilbert was runner up in the G 100 with 882 points.
Standard pilot Don Woodward in the ASW 24e, had his 1000 points and the Trotter’s followed.
The 15m. 1000 points were for Butch, so he is in winning mood as well.
In this class, 18 m. Bruce also won again nearly 10 km. slower than his mate Adam.
open; same first 2.
Bruce mentioned about the day “Much better day today. The forecast improved with a rise in the maximum temperature, and at the best we saw climbs of 9 knots to about 8,500 feet. ”

—–At the Pan American Championships flown at Chaves, the pilots continued whilst I was traveling to Melbourne.
They have had till now ONE real good day with 404 in 15 m and 360 in standard. Some days had a 2 hour AAT and lot’s of out landings ,…..on other day’s they cancelled.
They continue till the 15th.
After 6 days it will be between Martin Bossart with 2689 points and Damian with 2646 in 15 m. class and in standard class scores are close so EVERYTHING/ANYTHING  is possible!!!
They flew again on the 11th and Martin and Damian were the 2 best, so no changes in the top as Martin had 2 points more than Damian over this 2.30 AAT
Standard had the same task and the scores showed 4 finishers and 8 “out-landers”.As the number 1 and 2 out-landed, the overal scores are lead by the winner of the day; Claudio Schmidt from Brasil.
And here is team USA again, they are good with their PR.

12/10 Captain’s blog on a “no fly day”: Asado

The word simply means “roast.” But there is so much more to the Argentine tradition of Asado than can be contained in a one-word translation.

A proper asado consists of cuts of beef or sausage flame-roasted on an iron rack, arranged vertically at just the right distance from an open fire. The racks are stuck into the ground and tilted at a slight angle so that the meat is cooked uniformly. When the chef determines that the cooking is complete, the racks are quickly stripped and the meat is handed, still sizzling, through a window into a hangar full of hungry glider pilots.

—– The first 38 pilots on the OLC flew a 1000-PLUS last Sunday !!! Even over 1.300 km.
Veronica showed ARCUS pilots flying 1.315 km !! Alexander flew from Pokweni 1.369 km. in the EB 29 and Wilfried[ Grosskinsky],
1.363 km in the EB 28 [1000 triangle] from Bitterwasser.
It’s a great season over there.

Tuesday December 12;

Another hot day,… blue skies at 12.30…. and launches are in progress over my head here. At 13.00 it was 29 dgr. C and the “real feel” was 33.
At 4 we had 32 and a “real feel” of 35. I felt it, whilst cleaning ,sweat poured from my face!!!
Yesterday evening I caught up  on the road, with Andrea and Anton, long time friends from Tocumwal and flying with Eddie at Sportaviation. They really looked well and are having fun!

Between all those African 1000 km.-flights it was good to see a wave-one from Omarama, this time in a Discus 2B by a very enthusiastic German Pilot. The first again after Keith [Essex] flew one on November 9.

Now people found out our reason to be here, they send us the most lovely words on FB and Bas from Holland who was with Dennis in 1988 shared a great picture with Alain Potiers who was an instructor at Sportavia that season ,Bas and our Dennis.

Thanks Bas.

Today club at Temora has a 4 hour AAT, standard and 15 m…..511 km, 18 m./open 584 km. so another hot and good day.

Results etc tomorrow.

CU Ritz