Post 1.500 on May 22 2024

WOW 1500!!!!!! Proud. And that’s mostly from around 2006. Before , in the nineties, I wrote a daily blog at Sportavia for 10 years.

I own you the last 2 days of the great and exciting Danish Championship. Pilots dropped places after out-landings , but still WON!!!
This is what happend on the last 2 days!

Danish Nationals 2024
9 May 2024 – 19 May 2024

With 2 days to go,after task 6, the overall scores in the 5 classes looked as follows;
Club; Uffe [3.093] , Jan [ 2.899] and Felipe [2.824].
Standard; Filip [ 2.421] Lasse [ 2.397] Kevin[ 3.283 ]
15 m; Rasmus [2.499] Morten [ 2.444] Knud[ 2.835]
18m; Jan [2.792] Arne [2.727 ] Peter [2.617]

May 18. big tasks!!!!! meaning great soaring weather.
Club; Task 7…. 403.66 km..a day on which 17 club class pilots started, 7 finished and 7 got “airspace” behind their call sign.
2 ASW 20 WL in the top. Jan Walther [Andersen] used to fly in open class, when I knew him, won the day for 1000 point; 94.45 km./h. Runner up Steen [Elmgaard] started and finished at the same time and “got” 993 points.
Uffe [Edslev] proudly on top overall was out and “got” 414 points meaning he dropped from 1 to 3. Ouch….
Standard; task 7….442.47 km…..Lasse Edslev had a better day ; 1000 points for him.105.82 km./h for him.
2 points less for Jacob in a Discus 2a.
All 8 started and finished. TOP DAY!
15 m; task 7… 442.47 km…Morten Bennick, flew with 105 km./h to the 1000 points.
10 started and 2 were out. Henrik was 4th.
18 m; task 9 ..572.40 km….weather can be really good in Denmark as in other Scandinavian countries , but wet as well. This was a “nice” day. Specially for Arne Boye Møller in his JS 3.With 113 km./h he was the daily best and after his out-landing on task 6, when he dropped from 1 to 2, he is “fighting” himself to the top again.
20 started and 14 finished and several got “airspace” behind their call sign. Stig was one of them dropping from 7 to 11. A pity.
2-seaters; task 8..515.60 km…….Jørgensen & Rahtkens won the day in the ARCUS T, moving up from 6 to 4 overall.
All 13 started and 8 finished.

May 19 LAST DAY.….one more day of tough work in the “office”, meaning more hours in the air.
Club; task 8…4 hour AAT.…Not for Jan Walther Andersen, he flew 426.28 km with 98.47 km./h. Good enough for spot 1 overall with quite a marge. Jan won 3 days.
18 started and 14 finished;
Overall scores and the new Danish CHAMPION in CLUB CLASS;
1. Jan Walther Andersen in ASW 20 WL with 4,899 points. Congrats Jan.
2. Jens Andersen in MOSQUITO with 4,615 points.
3. Uffe Edslev in LS4a with 4,479 points . That was 6 points more then Steen.

standard class; task 8….4 hour AAT [ 360.66 km  /  632.80 km  (486.43 km)….with 427 km in an LS 8 neo Lasse Edslev won the last day; 104 km./h. over 427 km, but just missed out on the title with 7 points.
Philip in the Discus was 3d.
All 8 started and finished on a ‘high’.
Overall scores in standard class and new Danish Champion ;
1. Filip Bojanowski in Discus 2b with 4,404 points . He won 1 day but flew very consistent.
2. Lasse Edslev in LS 8 neo with 4,397 points. Won 4 days but on the day they all were out he lost 136 p.
3. Kevin Kjær Andersen in LS 8 with 4.270 points.

15 m class; task 8…4 hour AAT….490 km with 110 km./h was the best result for Poul Kim Larsen in a Ventus 2cT. Rasmus and Henrik were on spot 3 and 4. Morten was 7th and lost just 7 points too much and tumbled from 1 to 2. Henrik passed him on the last day to be for the first time during these nationals , on spot 1 overall. That’s called “peaking” at the right time.
Overall scores in 15 m class and Danish NATIONAL champion;
1. Henrik Breidahl in JS 3 with 4,279 points. Congratulations Henrik!!!
2. Morten Nørgaard in ASW 27B with 4.272 points.
3. Rasmus Ørskov in JS3 with 4,248 points. Good on you Rasmus!

18 m. class; task 10….4 hour AAT….Arne managed to fly 496.54 km with 120.91 km./h good for again 1000 points. He started pretty late,14.22, taking I guess a calculated risk to be in the end THE CHAMPION. Peter started at 14.08 was runner up and only lost 2 points on Arne.
Stig was 6th and going up again from 12 to 11.
Overall scores in 18 m class and Danish national CHAMPION;
1. Arne Boye Møller in JS 3jet with 4.727 points. Great job Arne!!!!
2. Jan Jørgensen in ASG 29 with 4,679 points. Don’t know Jan but congrats!!!
3. Peter Eriksen in AS33es with 4,471 points. Well done Peter.

2-seaters; task 9…. 4 hour AAT.…Mix & Christensen in a Duo Discus XLT won the last day.452.77 km with 111.93 km./h.
All 12 starters finished.
Overall scores for the 2 seater class and National Champions;
1. Dantoft & Dantoft in Duo Discus WL with 4,643 points.
2. Mix & Christensen in Duo Discus XLT with 4,602 points.
3. Sørensen & Sørensen in ARCUS T with 4,387 points.

With 7 out of 10 days and on some of them, absolutely perfect soaring weather, these nationals have been really nice to follow!!
Between 1970 and 2023 , I read, there have been several top pilots participating. Jan and Stig both won 21 nationals. Jan added this year another title…22!!!! AMAZING!!!!
Arne had 14 titles and added 1 too. And Henrik had 8 ..now 9!!!
Nice to see that they keep going for years and stay on a high level!!!.
GOOD ON THEM.

Jonker Sailplanes added :
“The Danish Gliding Nationals 2024 saw two new JS3 RES pilots participating in respectively the 18m and 15m classes – and it was a nail-biting race to the end with a total of 7 mostly blue flying days of 10 possible where both champions had to fight hard to crawl up the ladder. The competition started with mediocre conditions and turbulent (low buoyancy / sheer ratio due to 20knot winds) and some 3.600′ when it was good – but later the weather turned stronger and the last two days were strong with 6.600′ base – and nearly all of Jutland was traversed from central Jutland to the North and to the South with often stunning views of the west coast and inner fjords.”

Thanks AGAIN Arne for the Pictures. Here is the last one a funny ,but a VERY SERIOUS one, looking at the face of this little one.

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The QUALIFYING FAI SGP in NORWAY.
Elverum Starmoen
19 May 2024 – 25 May 2024

After Spain, this is the 2d race from edition 12 ; flown in 18 m.
Race 1;
“After several practice days in good weather, the pilots have been exploring the contest area with the hills and mountains to the north, and the flatlands to the south.”
“Our pilots showcased incredible skill over the 177.93 km course, starting strong in this thrilling series!”
Start at 13.45. 15 pilots attend and they are from Germany, Sweden ,Australia, Czech Rep and of course Norway.
Matthew mentioned; “Strong first day at Norway Grand Prix with 2nd place. Complex weather to the north resulted in a task under the 5500ft airspace to the south, which was very challenging with a heavily overdeveloped 8000ft cloudbase. Very hard to pick the climbs up under 8/8ths when always so low. Eventually dribbled back out into a booming convergence (pictured) for final glide.I did all the right things and made no major errors, but could only cover so many bases and a few got away from the pack, with one making it work! Congrats Conrad“
Arne Martin Güettler from Norway mentioned;
“That didn’t go as planned! Got way too low twice, but was lucky to make it out of it both times with a decent thermal. Raced Matthew Scutter’s Gliding to the line for second place, but was beaten by one second. And was a few meters too low too, giving me a some more seconds of penalty, dropping me two more places. If I was only 3m higher and 2 seconds faster I would have been 2nd… But at least got some points for 5th place.The Grand Prix is underway at last.”
Mind you;….Arne Martin is the WORLD CHAMPION of the VIRTUAL SGP .
You can read all about it on
https://sgp.aero/news/warm-up-a-dive-into-the-mind-of-a-arne-martin-gettler-world-champion-of-the-virtual-sgp
Winners from day 1;

Race ; “New day, new opportunities!Weather situation has given us a calm morning after a great day of racing yesterday.A layer of clouds is covering the task area until late noon. Weather looks good for afternoon and early evening with dry thermals and maybe some whisks of cloud up to 1800m AGL.”
In the end the day was cancelled.
“Todays temperature never reached 20 degrees as forecasted. Thus the thermals never reached the strength and height needed to compete today.”

Race 2; start at 13.30 and 257.24 km to go!! Start-line open at; 14.30.
“The sun and the heat is on for our third day and 2nd race for QSGP at Elverum, Norway. Gliders are gridded and the launch is about to start at 12:30.The competitors will fly a task of 257km today mostly in the valley of Østerdalen to the north of the airfield. Task will be flown in blue thermals up to 1900m AGL.
We are expecting an exciting and challenging race in the valley today.”

Indeed a very blue day, not good for everybody!
Klaus Kalmbach from Germany in a JS3, flew 119.7 km/h and got the daily 10 points. Runner up was another German pilot Conrad ,[119.3 km./h ] who won race 1 already and 3d was Joachim Schwenk; 118.05 km./h for 8 points. It seems the finishes were impressive!
Quite a few penalties as well.
Arne Martin Güettler; “Was forecast to be mostly blue, but we actually got some clouds in the northern part of the task, which helped. Still, I lost a bit too much time on the long southbound leg, never felt I got the good climbs I needed.” he was 6th for the day.
Matthew had to use his engine after 253 km and here is why?;
“The SkySight convergence forecast on the LX didn’t save me from myself today – I utilised it to get myself into prime position for a day win, but leading the gaggle out from cloud base to find the final climb of the task, I missed it and the gaggle behind got something else. Just needed 3kts to make it happen and instead got my first engine start in as long as I can remember. 10 points to 0 points!“

You can follow the next races on live tracking ; https://sgp.onglide.com/
Race 3 today; 260.22 km..…estimated regatta start at at 13.30.
More next week…
It seems that the “The automatic scoring has been full of errors in dishing out penalties, so they’ve had to do it manually, and it’s still being updated.”
So scores I wrote down are for now preliminary.

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—–News from 13th FAI Junior World Gliding Championships & 5th FAI 13,5m WGC 2024
“Dear Pilots and Team Capitans Championship is getting closer We have confirmed 67 entries on JWGC from 21 countries Today self briefing have been publishedYou can find it on the competition website https://jwgc2024.pl/en/2024/downloads

–——The Boeing 777 from Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 took off from London Heathrow last Monday night and had a scary few minutes.:
“A British grandfather [ 73, on his way to Australia] has died and dozens are injured after a Singapore Airlines flight was hit by extreme turbulence.There were 211 passengers, including 56 Australians, and 18 crew members on board as the plane dropped 6,000 feet in just a few minutes before being diverted to Bangkok.” 9 news.
It seems the granddad died of a heart attack. All passengers , who could still fly, have landed in Singapore this morning.

That’s it for now. Enough writing over the last week, so CU next Wednesday again.
Just to let you know already; NO BLOGS between May 31 and June 26, due to renovations to the house and holidays.

Cheers Ritz.