Alphen aan den Rijn Wedenesday May 27 2009 blog 200
I feel very pleased with my blog! Long ago I started to write daily on our Sportavia website. It was no effort, I just sat down and started writing. I observe what I see and “talk” to you! “We” had so many readers , that we became the 10th best read site in Australia. I NEVER thought about that , as I would not have been able to write then anymore. Of course I was excited, honnoured and pleased , but …I just went on! With the demise of Sportavia I fell a bit in a “hole”.
Our webmaster at Sportavia, Tony, who ALWAYS helped me with everything concerning computers etc. was also in domaine names! He gave me the www.soaring.eu site.
In the beginning I just wrote casual….when I had some news. I had to find another way to “observe”! With the OLC and the research on several sites , I translate in my way, what’s going on in the soaring world, so people do not have to surf the net for gliding news. Further-on people send me info and due to the fact that I know a lot of pilots, it is easy to get news from them.
I do not pretend to know everything about gliding or the weather, or even that I am good, but do my best to be accurate and readable for a big group. In any case I enjoy the writing !
So first of all THANK YOU to Tony, who makes it possible for me to write. It was very nice of him to tell me yesterday, that he will “put some web masters from his team” on my blog, so we will have pictures, clouds, gliders etc. in the future. I am very pleased with that !!!!
Sometimes I really get nice pictures from readers and cannot show them or share them with you. So thank you Tony!!!
Phil is the constructor of the site. He works for Tony and whenever there is a problem,…” he is there” ! Not long ago he put a spam filter in the system and nearly 10.000 nonsense-spams have been deleted in that short time, so that was really necessary. He made it very easy to use and manage the site. Thanks Phil!
Both Tony and Phil live in Australia , but no worries, in this world everything is CLOSE BY!!!!!
Also a thank you , to you for reading soaring.eu and to Mike who wrote in the past, when he had more time, very good articles for “soaring” about gliding. He still sometimes advises!
From some casual writing , I went over to writing every Sunday and since I have retired ,it is twice a week that the blog is on. It is very nice to find out that from all parts in the world, people read the blog. Phil is looking for me how many readers there are as I have absolutely no clue. But how many or how less it does n’t matter, I just go on.
The Dutch Nationals have had 4 days now, which makes this competition a valid National Championship. Yesterday was cancelled , the day before as well. After today the weather will improve , so we might have 4 days more! Today looks that a window might be “open” for a small task!
I was correct I just saw that the first launch will be at 11.00, so they fly again!
Thursday and Sunday I will be there to give you fresh impressions from these comps.
We were struck by very violent weather.It started already on Monday afternoon. A double- seater from the Gliding club Midden Zeeland , was struck by very bad weather and crashed. Unfortunately 1 pilot died the other one was flown by the trauma helicopter to a hospital . Investigation has to show if the bad weather indeed was the cause of the accident. Very sorry for the family from the pilot who died on a day starting so beautiful!
The night from Monday to Tuesday was so horrific …I never experienced such weather. Wild storms over 105 km/h. , hailstones [luckily not here] from 5 cm. fell down locally, so much water that roads were flooded, trees over the road and the rails, so all train traffic and car traffic was upset in the morning on Tuesday. Over 600 km of traffic jam, trains not going or with a delay up to 60 minutes. Lightning set several houses in fire! We are not really used to such weather, so a lot of people did not sleep well that night. I was one of them. At this stage the damage is over 15 million Euro.
According to the Dutch Bureau for Metereology [KNMI] this phenomena happens here only once in 10 years . They claim that 75.000 lightnings were counted for , which is just under the record and that in the Schiphol area , where I live too, 50 mm. of rain had fallen!!!! Normally this amount falls in the WHOLE month of May.The temperature dropped with 10 dgr. at some places from 27 to 17 !!!
More parts of Europe had the same weather problem. Also in Germany, Belgium and France was a lot of damage!
Airline pilots willing to land at Schiphol Airport,had to move to other airfields as Niederrhein, Brussel and Rotterdam, cause Schiphol Airport had to close several times during the toughest moments of the thunderstorms. So did Munich Airport.
On the other hand , Croatie has much too early in the year, a heat-wave!!!With over 30 dgr. and 4 elderly people died.
A good observer in an airliner this week! An airliner ready to start from a Greek Island took the wrong exit to enter the runway. No worries , that happens more! Another plane took the correct one and so they more or less passed each other . A very observant passenger called the stewardes and mentioned , that it looked as if the “wrong plane” had a flat tyre!!!!She mentioned it to the captain who straight away warned the tower, so they called the plane. Indeed the tyre was flat, which is terribly dangerous while starting.
7 Hours later that plane could leave too and the passenger paying such good attention…….he had his drinks for free !
I received a mail from a readerfrom Prague [CZ] and if you were just interested in buying a motor -glider or Blanik, here you are;
Dear Sirs,I was in Prague Aeroexpo and I would be glad if you know anybody who wants this
gliders:
1)
MOTORGLIDER
L 13 SE VIVAT,
1986 year
Reg.: OK 6110
new engine from 2006: Mikron III
only flying 1218 hrs.
new seats
intercom
signalization of landing gear
Price EURO 33 000 exl. VAT2)
GLIDER
L 13 A BLANIK
1986 year
only flying 1568 hrs
Price EURO 28 000 exl. VATThank you very much, Peter Harnoc
mail: peter.harnoc@seznam.cz
direct: +420 724041124
Just to inform you, that as more or less expected Wolfgang won the Grand Prix in Austria, the Schmelzer family was in one class number 1 and 2 during the Kempen Cup and the UK pilots in Spain flying the overseas Nationals have now , with 3 days to go 7 days out of 9 with Russell still leading. The French Nationals for open, 15m. and double seater classes , with 56 participants, have still 4 days to go and 2 days were till now cancelled! Didier Hauss is at this stage number 1 with Kilian Walbrau, the young JWGC winner as runner up.
In open class another wellknown pilot, Sylvain Gerbaud is leading in a Nimbus 4M and in 3d place is now “curly” Jean Marc Caillard with an EB 28. In the double seaters well-known WGC pilot from Russia Dimitri Timochenko,is on spot 3…..but they fly ofcourse HC , as the National winner can only be French.
Great to see that my friends Pepe [Spain] and Hans [Germany] ,” found each other again ” ,after flying at Corowa in Australia , now both in Beas Di Segura in Spain and topping the OLC list yesterday with great flights .Pepe flew 827 km [DG 800] and Hans 758 km.[DG 808] We can for sure expect more from them! They are pilots not flying with the clouds , but setting a task [FAI] and flying it, as Hans did yesterday!!!!
That’s it for now , up to blog 250 via 201 next Sunday or Monday depending at what time I will be back home from Terlet!
Just to let you know, I will be off for a week to the Belgium coast with my high school friends so no blog between June 4 -13.
Cheers Ritz