Alphen aan den Rijn      Wednesday November 25  2009       ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

                            BLOG 250

Welcome dear friends “on” blog 250. Another “little” milestone! It was an interesting story/flight, is n’t it from David!? Hope you enjoyed being part of this first FAI triangle over 1000 km  in Queensland!

KLM is the first in the world to fly on “green energy”. A Boeing 747 from KLM went up in the air, partly with “plants”, some kind of canola in an engine ! They had a world wide “scoop” as the 747 flew with one engine filled with a mix of  bio-fuel Camelina, made from plants  and fossile-kerosine. The flight powered by biofuel took one hour and was called by the World Nature Fund; pioneering!!!! Still a lot to do before all planes fly on biofuel, but the beginning has been made!

After the very hot weather in parts of Australia, thunderstorms arrived with lots of rain to get the dust away and a new weather cycle will for sure bring nice soaring weather back. That shows today already with a 764 km flight from Corowa.
In Narromine , the Narromine Cup  is busy with some nice flights from some nice friends! This is always a very pleasant competition! Today they even flew over 700 km in an LS 8.
Africa  [ Namibie] has the better soaring -weather at this stage with several 1000 km. flights , I counted 32 over the last couple of days, in Bitterwasser, Kiripotib and Pokweni! Lot’s of those flights are FAI triangles!!!!
And what about this Alexander Mueller , who flies his ASW 22 BLE from Kiripotib???
Here are his last 5 flights; He must be tired by now !
November 20—- 645 km. speed 114k.0/h.
November 21—-1096 km.speed 140.6 k/h.
November 22—-1199 km.speed 140.5 k/h.
November 23—-1195 km.speed 133.41k/h. and yesterday
                November 24—-1375 km.speed 150.47k/h.
One of my Australian readers is wondering WHEN the first 1500 km. with thermal conditions will be flown in Africa?
Great to see as well that Herman Hamm [Germany]and Ralf Woodward[Woody from Aspen in the USA] are back in “their” Bitterwasser and flew over 700 km. , both are not the youngest pilots anymore!
Heard that even Canada  has “warm ” weather. The club from Art closed the doors from the hangar mid October due to freezing spell, but since then it was quite nice and they wished they had waited a bit longer. No snow either at this stage and non in the forecast either , BUT they are promised  a White Christmas , as there has been ONLY ONE YEAR in the last 100 year that there was a “green” Christmas. Let’s wait and see what happens with the 2009 Christmas over there!
Here in Holland  we have rain, lot’s of it and severe wind!!
The Belgium coast  really suffered last Monday from the wind with quite some damage and the poor UK  is worst off, with severe flooding and with bridges collapsing after very heavy rainfall and it is not over yet!!

The Belgium family Schmelzer is well known world wide. It is a flying family, where both Bert jr and Tijl, the sons belong to the top of the soaring world even on their young age. Dad Bert sr. and mum Hilde, fly as well , not on world level, but ..they travel the world, [Australia in the past , nowadays Africa, ]to fly and enjoy soaring to the fullest. On top of that they travel with their children as TC [Hilde] and crew to all EGC and JWGC and WGC’s.
Bert sr. has written a book about gliding in Belgium ,more specific in Vlaanderen. The book is written by him and by about 10 other pilots/ soaring experts telling each their story. ALL the profit from the sold books, will go the Liga of Flamish Gliding Clubs to support via a fund Flamish juniors to defend their flag/ country during FAI comps. A very good idea!!!!
If you are interested to buy the book please contact one of the email adresses under here. The invitation is in Flamisch /Dutch, but if you want to know more , please contact ;