The juniors in Australia , had straight after the Nationals their “joey glide” flown from West Wyalong and day 2 was underway yesterday with  pilots reporting cloud base over 11,000′ before the start,” so it should be quick again today” .
One day earlier , flying day 1 was already fast with speed up to 127 km./h.over 270 km.flown by Rueben Lane from Victoria in a Mosquito.
Day 1 on the 17th had NO TASK, for the 8 relative unknown pilots at this stage. But this is how most toppers started!!!
today a 2 hour AAT was set but in the end the day was cancelled!

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The ANDES OPEN 2016 from from Vitacura in Chile had good days and the “Vidal’ s” were always in the top 3. No miracle they were the number 1 and 2 from 19 participants after 7 days .Carlos had 6293 points and Rene 5889.
Several 3.30 AAT ‘s , one with speed up to 150 km./h over 545 km. by Carlos.
Task 3 , also a 3.30 AAT, had only ONE FINISHER, flying over 4 hours to reach a speed of 77 km./h. That’s a battle, but a good one over 325 km!!

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Flying in the overseas season continued , also when I had less time to cover it and NO DOUBT Africa had a great one. On the 14th the last over-1000-km-flights were added to the OLC from Africa, they had a couple of days with rain.
Bitterwasser writes on their site;” Now we do have the middle of january, raintime. However, if you ask a pilot, they would say that this weather has nothing to do with humidity or so. Blue thermal, which starts often late. Humidity is under 10%. For the next days it looks more promising. For now, we do have 190 flights over 1000km! We will break the 200 flights soon!”
Bitterwasser, Kiripotib, Pokweni in Namibia, but also in South Africa places as Douglas, Gariepdam ,Bloemfontein  and Kuruman had excellent flights. Nobody I guess complained about the weather.

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All the places I have been to over the last 7 weeks whilst being in Australia, had great weather yesterday. It’s a nice hot long summer in Australia and for sure the weather gods have been extra good this year for Narromine.
Attila flew in his St Cirrus yesterday a 891 km. [750 FAI triangle] flight from Narromine.With that flight he TOPPED the OLC -day.
Benalla had a 1000 km, I guess the first from this season, just after the comps had finished with 2 non flying days, but what can you do.
Young Petr who flew the Pre worlds in Benalla, moved back to Tocumwal ,where he was a tuggie with Eddie’ s Sportaviation in the past and he flew with Terry in the Janus CT 943 km.[900 Fai Triangle] This glider is called by Ib and his mates from Denmark, the “wooden ARCUS ”  .
And kilometer-eater Terry Bellair, flew from Corowa 824 km. [ 750 Fai triangle]
One day earlier on the 18th, Corowa had a 1000 as well with Max from Holland flying it and that was the first for the season for him and Corowa.
A lot of pilots bringing their gliders from Europe to Corowa , have to spend at least one month in  Corowa to fly , so it is extra busy there at the moment, as several OZGLIDE pilots did so too this year.
In the beginning of February they start packing gliders again and several pilots help out then.

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Just  a short blog today. Still suffering from jet lag . Next days I will be in Amsterdam catching up with my family!
Cheers Ritz CU next Wednesday.