Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday July 22 2009
The unofficial practise days are over and today it starts to be more serious in Pociunai, as the official practise days including briefing, tasks etc . are about to begin .
The weather was spoilsport during the first 3 unofficial days with storms and heavy rain, but the “high” has arrived !
Competition director/meteo in Lithuania , is Vytautas Maciulis.
Stewards are Dick Bradley and Raimo Huoviala and the jury president is Peter Ryder with as members Ross Macintyre and Vytautas Sriubas!
19 Different countries and over 90 competitors if I count the 2 pilots in the 2 seater class each.
For official practise day 1 from the EGC , today , the weather looks indeed a bit more promising with 2 tasks set , one AAT with 4 areas for world and club class [ 224 km. / 344 in 3 hours] and one for standard and 2 seater class [ 302 km. /444 in 3 hours].It is nice to see that they also have a weather-woman in Pociunai ,when the director ,is too busy, but it seems her English is not too good, as she seems to have said while introducing herself!
The weather is very different these days. In areas as France , Spain , Italy ,even Slovenia , the weather for soaring is excellent. Germany, Switzerland and Austria had severe storms with hail and heavy rain, causing a lot of damage. A competition in Sweden started on July 18 and still has only one flying day! But yesterday the area around Luesse /Roitzschjora was good again with a nice first practise day;545 km for young Dutch pilot Afred Paul Alfers.
Here in Holland and Belgium we are between sun and thunderstorms as well, but….next week will be good again ….is what they predict.
The planet Jupiter was hit by an unidentified object according to CNN. It seems the object, maybe an ice bloc or a lost comet, had a cross section of about 80 to 160 km. but the crater was a big as the planet earth in total ,according to NASA scientists !!!!! It seems that this unidentified object moved with a speed of 50 to 100 km per SECOND! Good it did not hit our planet! Even better to hear from one of the scientists that Jupiter , the biggest planet of the solar system and 11 times bigger then “earth” , seems to be “the heavenly vacuum cleaner” for around flying objects, being a potential danger for us and other close by planets.
In Holland , in Nijmegen about 42.000 people are “walking” for 4 days , the famous ” 4 daagse “. On day one about 350 people had to give up. Friday is the last day and all walkers get flowers then and it is ONE GREAT party in Nijmegen and surrounding , giving a huge financial and economic boost to these areas!
It seems that one English walker is ,or might have been diagnosed, with the Mexican flu, so he is in quarantine and out of the “race”.
See you NOT on sunday, but on Monday july 27. If you want to follow the EGC please look at www.pociunai.lt
Cheers Ritz