Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday May 20 2009
Dundee has left this morning again, so ready for some news. Of course the Dutch Nationals start tomorrow and I will visit the friends tomorrow with my daughter and my grand children. They know about gliding as they visited in Australia at the airfield where we lived. So they will be happy too. Today is great weather here with nice clouds and 21 dgr. The first week does n’t look too bad for the competition pilots though rain and showers are fore-casted as well. You can follow the news on www.soaring.spot.com and all results will be on as well as the tasks. I advised them to do so, so glad they did!It gives pilots ALL over the world the possibility to check, what’s going on.
Hahnweide, starts today with flying day 4. Only one day cancelled till now and for today it looks good! In 15 m. class Belgium pilot Jean Luc Colson is on top at this stage. In 18m. class former world champions Reinhard Scrhamme and Werner Meuser fight for the best result with UK top-pilot not far behind. EVERYTHING can happen here, with 4 days to go including today.In standard class 4 pilots still have a chance to climb the platform. In open class Uli [Schwenk] more or less rules the show in an EB 28 edition and in the two seater class, good old Sigi Baumgartl is 2d with 2 points , ready to go to the highest spot. All duo discus flying only 2 Janus gliders. My Dutch friends flying in this class lost a few places!
Hahnweide really shows nice pictures!
Yesterday I was pleased with the flight in a Club Libelle from the Ottenrguener Heide [ Nordlich from Bayreuth the place where we flew the WGC in the past!] ; 571 km. Again several up to over 900 km. flights in Europe , so still no complaints about the weather.
The Uk Overseas Nationals have started in Spain at the airfield of Ocana. First day was May 18, last monday.With 23 competitors , one from Ireland, 4 from Spain and one from Portugal , a nice bunch of pilots with Russell Cheetham and Jill Spreckley as the most well-known under them. Today they start with day 3 and it seems not the best day, we will see tonight!
The Austrian Gliding Grand Prix started as well. On May 17 12 pilots were ready to go for the max amount of points. Under them several top-pilots as Wolfgang Janowitch, [ 14 points] , Heimo Demmerer [15 points] , Eduard Supersperger [ 20 points] and Fridolin Hauser [12 points] from Switzerland. With another 4 days to go a lot can still happen. Will keep you informed.
No more news as the sun is shining so nicely, that I have to go outside to enjoy the weather.See you on sunday,
cheers Ritz
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com