Alphen aan den Rijn October 11 2009
As you will see , I am in Australian mood already. Lot’ s of news about OZ.
Though still not the fittest person in the world, [I will have an ulcer as extra luggage!!] I do look forward to my visit to my 2d home country. I do continue writing but more on an adhoc base, as long as I have computers I can use. I am very anxious to see Tocumwal again after 3 years and I know and that REALLY feels good, that a lot of friends are trying to catch up with me. I know that there will be desillusions as well, but that makes leaving again easier.
The weather in Tocumwal starts to improve now, which is good. On October 3 however the young aviator day at the airfield fell more or less in the water as you can read here ;
Saturday’s Junior Aviator’s Day was a great day even though we didn’t actually get to fly. Most of the parents stayed for the mornings presentation. We firstly showed John Roakes DVD on ‘An Introduction to Gliding’, then some of the members gave short talks on different aspects of the sport and how it could lead into a career in aviation, whether it be as a pilot, ground engineer or air traffic controller. We found all the students to be very attentive and very keen to learn all they could.
The flying activity had to be cancelled as cloud base was only 200ft – that is when it was not actually raining!! But this did not deter the students who were able to spend more time talking to club members and instructors.
We had a great family BBQ lunch and there was plenty of time to talk to the parents. All the students were very enthusiastic about coming back for their promised flights and were not really disappointed as they realised that the flights on Saturday would only have been short circuits if we had flown at all. It is most likely that the next time they come it will be sunny and they will get a soaring flight that will be much longer and more interesting for training purposes.
At the hangar, students were able to watch Donald Ashton unpack his LS4 glider from the trailer and rig it . This was a good activity as it gave the students first hand experience on how the wings and tailplane are attached to the fuselage and how important inspections and correct rigging are, to the safety aspects of flying.
Neil Hardiman provided the only flying activity for the day with his model plane and gave everyone some spectacular aerobatics to watch in the afternoon.
The first Saturday in each month has been nominated as the Southern Riverina Gliding Club’s training day for Juniors. We are looking forward to seeing our new aviators next month and invite any members interested in helping out to come along.
A big thankyou to all those members who supported the Junior’s Day and made it possible.
Kindest regards
Judy Renner
(as my bumper sticker says – ‘I’d rather be at cloud base’).
I love ALL actions to get the young ones into soaring-mood, so this is a real good idea. In between the Sportaviation centre has nearly finished the ammenities bloc with the help of some of the future guests, so when I am there we are going to look if Dundee can find himself a beautiful place there at the new caravan park.
With a new IS28 double seater the fleet from Sportaviation has grown, so more pilots can enjoy flying together at Tocumwal airfield. Flying together and sharing the fun , really is something “hot” nowadays!
Tocumwal is slowly growing to get back on the map and for some ,the real die-hards ,it has never been of the map!
Yoghi from Japan, [with Junzo real die-hards,] has just arrived but leaves before I arrive –what a pity–would have loved to catch up with him!!!!
So ; a safe and wonderfull season is what I wish for all of my friends over there and …of course the first full month I will enjoy the atmosphere there myself again.
www.sportaviation.com.au
Talking about Australia; Francesco and Grietje and their 2 children have arrived back home in Corowa and are ready for a new big season. For sure many happy pilots again over there as they can fly in their own glider with the beautiful summer/soaring conditions of that part of Australia between November and Februari. Of course gliders are for rent there as well, even brand new ones!!!! Wishing everybody a great and safe season!!!
www.australian-soaring-corowa.com
And more Australia as Shinzo , who runs a gliding business in Narromine , Soar Narromine, made his 2d wonderful flight of the season last Friday, in a nimbus 4DM; again up and down to the W . and then S . of Narromine with a nice cloud base of over 2500 m. , a speed of 107 km/h. and… a distance of 728 km.
Still feel sorry that Narromine missed out on having the WGC in 2012, but in the Soaring I read that they are more then ready in Uvalde [Texas] to receive all pilots for this great event; practise week will be from July 28 through August 3 and the competition will be held from August 5 through August 18. Looking forward to that event!!
And here is my friend Jo with the story about the first competition in the 2009/2010 season for Soaring Australia and….soaring.eu. Several well known WGC and JWGC pilots participated . Enjoy:
Queensland State Gliding Championships, McCaffrey Field, Jondaryan
Sat 26 September – 3 October 2009
By Keith Allen, contest director & Jo Pocklington
42 gliders lined up in 5 classes for the Jimbour Wines Queensland State Gliding Championships hosted by Darling Downs Soaring Club. Conditions were challenging with fronts bringing dust and cool conditions for the start of the week, and every day flown was blue. Practice and day 1 were cancelled due to dust reducing visibility together with strong cross winds. There were 4 contest days.
AATs to the west were set on all days for Club Class. Standard Class flew AATs on 3 days and 1 racing task. 15 Metre, 18 Metre and Open flew AAT first and last days and racing tasks the middle days. The longest set racing task was 355km.
Comp day 1 brought a strong cross wind with blue weak low conditions; maximum rates of climb were around 4 knots, occasionally better. AAT tasks were set for all classes on day 1 to the west. Comp day 2, cross wind moderated which assisted launching. Conditions were again blue, weak and low. Comp days 3 and 4 were hot and blue. The last 2 days of the week were cancelled due to low convection and then visibility problems.
Graham Hennessy volunteered for scoring which turned out to be more of a challenge than usual, but with patience and tolerance from pilots, it worked out in the end. Tim Shirley assisted remotely and he and Graham burnt the midnight oil. The problem was with a new version of SeeYou which has now been rectified. Thank you very much Tim!
Although the comp wasn’t up to usual Queensland spring conditions, it was enjoyable. Fran Ning had her best competition day ever on day 3 when she came third, and her worst ever on day 4 when after starting, did not get any lift and simply glided into a paddock.
Club Class winners:
Craig Collings (ASW19) 3722
Paul Mander (Std Libelle) 3643
Phil Southgate (Cirrus B) 3551
Standard Class winners:
Lisa Trotter (LS8) 3749
Andrew Maddocks (LS8) 3630
Mike Maddocks (ASW28) 3427
15 Metre winners:
Peter Trotter (ASW20) 3972
Geoff Brown (ASW20) 3476
Jenny Thompson (ASW27) 3445
18 Metre winners:
John Buchanan (ASG29) 3721
Bruce Taylor (Ventus 2cX) 3717
Tom Claffey (ASG29) 3492
Open Class winners:
Gerrit Kurstjens (Nimbus 4T) 3994
Robert Hart (Nimbus 2C) 3432
Peter Griffiths / Tony Tabart (Nimbus 4DM) 3181
There were 17 fun teams spread across the 5 classes. The overall highest scoring team was Team EAT DiS consisting of Craig Collings (ASW 19 EAT in Club Class) and Dave Shorter (LS8 DS in Standard Class) with an overall average daily score of 880 points.
As well as official fun teams, there was a lot of inter-family rivalry. Mad Dog (Mike Maddocks) and his Mad Pups 1 (Andrew) and 2 (Nick) had a close battle with Andrew finishing second, Daddy 3rd and Nick 5th in Standard Class.
Wives and husbands: Lisa & Peter Trotter again led their classes, as they did here in the 2007 comps, while Pam & Gerrit Kurstjens battled it out in Open Class.
Indea Tabart’s mother Anita Taylor flew in Open Class (with Greg Schmidt in the Kingaroy Duo Discus X), Anita’s husband Bruce Taylor competed in 18m class, and Indea’s 2 grandpas also competed – Hank Kauffmann (18m class) and Tony Tabart (Open).
Thanks to safety officer Pearce Mitchell, tugmaster Val Wilkinson from Warwick for all the cross-club-collaboration, scorer Graham Hennessy, launch director Bill Smith, rope runners from Griffith University Soaring Society, weather Robert Hart, chief task setter Shane McCaffrey, operations directors DDSC L2 instructors, our ladies in the kitchen Dianne Bell, Narelle Hennessy, Kaye Hook and the bar Libby Matuszczak and Irene McCaffrey, and Wendy Medlicott for radio starts and everyone at Darling Downs Soaring Club for their support.
Our sincere thanks to Jimbour Wines for their continuing and valued sponsorship of our sport.
THANK YOU JO!!! One more note; It seems that the open class scores are provisional as the contest director has advised that there is query in that class.
Nice to see the enthusiasm over the October weather from UK pilot Edward Downham. His ASH 25 makes over-hours this late in the season as he flew from Dunstable another nice 345 km. flight.
All the “important” people in gliding are at the moment in Korea in Incheon, where the General FAI Conference is held. We forget sometimes how much time those people spend on talking, writing and discussing important FAI issues for the glider-pilots- sake. I am not so much into that, but I tremendously do admire their dedication. And…Korea is a nice place to go too, I think. Quite a lot of my friends are there. Wishing them good thoughts, so we can all happily fly safe.
Off to Oz now on Tuesday.” See you there”, for some of you. My daughter Inge will be there as well for the first week. Her dad will be there also to see her and to look at his “new” ASW17 23m. George is planning to put jet-engines on it. He also enjoyed a trip up and down to Corowa in an IS 28 with Ingo Renner; Passable weather with a cloud base of 2000 m and lift up to 3 m. , 150 km. and back within 2 hours!
I also hear Jari [ Finland]and Ken [Japan] are coming soon. GREAT!!!!
It feels again as in the past, it is “all happening [t]here”. I “nearly” feel better!!!
Cheers Ritz