Alphen aan den Rijn 24-08-2008
Life is nearly back to normal! After the WGC in Rieti which I attended, the reading of all the news of the WGC in Luesse and now the Olympic Games, with ONE more evening of evaluations here on TV and ……..life goes back to normal again!
Loved the Olympic Games. Great results and great sportsmen and women.Great show from China!! Hope they have learned to be kind to ALL people now, not only to their guests.
Even the Dutch teams did a great job, with very unexpected gold medals as the ladies water polo girls and expected ones as Anky van Grunsven with the horse-training and the hockey babes!Being number 12 on the list of 204 countries is for a small country as Holland very successful.
Slowly gliders are prepared for the trip overseas, up to Africa or Australia. Heard that the gliders for Corowa go on the same ship as all the gear Andre Rieu takes with him to his performance in Melbourne. Some of my OZ friends have already tickets. He seems to be some kind of hero there.
Weather in OZ is already very pleasant and the season continues through winter in Queensland with Jondaryan as one of the places to be. Not great weather but still flyable. Now the weather improves and they flew today already over 500 k from Jondaryan airport.
Europe has pretty miserable weather though Germany still has flights from over 500 k too, one even flown in an LS 4. Great ffort.
The Minden-Truckee area in the USA is still good for over 900 km and from Rayskala in Finland they even still flew over 600 km. Heard that the weather this summer there, has n’t been too good either.
The Belgium competition at Keiheuvel was won by young Bert Schmelzer who had practise enough in Rieti.Good runner up was Eddie Huybreckx, a long -time-good-pilot!Last week Rieti fell with the nose in the good weather-butter again with over 700 km flights.
Here in Holland the weather is pretty miserable , but….next week seems to be OK.
You remember Dieter Dundee ??? He flew with us at Sportavia for many years and still lives half a year there.He stays with me for a few days and while visiting towns[–sight-seeing–] in Holland , we needed always the umbrella!That will be surely different when he will be back in OZ in October.Still very dry over there.
Heard that the Murray Border Flying Club in Tocumwal, will go back to being a -motorclub -only again. Gliding will move to Sportaviation and it seems the new CP over there is nearly finished.
It was nice from the MBFC to host gliding since the closing-down of Sportavia. Atleast some pilots still enjoyed gliding in Tocumwal.
Corowa has fantastic gliders on line next season, something to be proud of.I met Josef Snirc in Rieti and he is going to fly in Corowa and even brings one of “his” Dynamics to OZ. That “little” tow plane [ an ultra light] is very fast and with nearly no noise. Great toy!
Back to the last items of the Olympics on TV now and then I am back in the normal routine. Evenings start already earlier, yes we slowly move to autumn here and sometimes you can smell and feel it already.Wish I could see OZ for a few weeks, but…perhaps in 2 years!
See you next week.Ritz