Coming back from a lovely relaxing holiday, I quickly checked what had happened last week. First of all of course, the EGC in Vinon and surprise, surprise, after the very nice sunny practise days , the start of the comps was weather-wise less good.
Vinon during the practise days as shared on FB.
Practise days normally don’t say anything, but I was pleased to see the practise days at Vinon just before I left. The toppers showed up in the top and it looked in advance like a GREAT competition with fierce fights between them.
As shared by our Belgium friends during practise!
After a cancellation in the beginning of the comps, day 1 on the 10th of June was pretty bad for former European 15 m. champion Steven Raimond. I hoped and believed he would be in the top 3 from this EGC , but on day 1 he had to go “au vache” after 55 km. , after a pretty late start. Loosing nearly 600 points is not too good and it even get’s worse for Steven as on day 2 he “meets the cows again in the field” , now after 21 km and a start time like most other pilots.
In between the 3 French pilots Louis Bouderlique, Christophe Ruch and JD Barrois, form a strong pact against the rest of Europe in this class, winning nearly every day.
Steven however re-invented himself and was after 5 days on a better daily spot, 6 and 6 and 2! No secret that the 3 French are after 5 days on spot 1,2 and 3 overall.
By the way, NO 1000 points-day till than!
Good to see Henrik [Breidahl] from Denmark on spot 4! It only needs one day with mistakes for the 3 French or “meeting bad weather” and,…. ??!! But that’s not what we hope for and on top of that they lead already after 5 days with 500 points !
Guess their TC is satisfied and proud on his men in this class.
In 18 m. they had in the first 5 days 2 x a 1000 points-day. In this class it is Russell Cheetham, Sebastian Kawa and Didier Hauss who were flying theirselves in the top.
Russell won the 1000 points on day 1 , Didier on day 2 and Sebastian won the next 3 days in an ASG 29/18m . Something different for him this 18 m competition-flying, but ,…..it is soaring, he is good in soaring , so what ever class ,….Sebastian is just good; after 5 days he leads with 200 points , but also here the French [Didier and Christophe Cousseau] have a strong pact and are trying to go for the gold.
Russell lost 300 points on day 2 and 400 on day 3 so he dropped a bit in the overall scores. He is after 5 days on spot 11.
In the open class it is a well-known name Michael Sommer who leads after 5 days in the EB 29 and it is interesting to see Luciano[Avanzini] in the Quintus behind him and Killian Walbrou from France on spot 3 in the JS 1-C. Michael won 3 days and flew on day 5 a distance of 415 km. in time 4.04 during a 3.30 AAT. About 30 km. more than runner-up Stefan Beck.
Ronald Termaat who flies his brand new JS 1 in the open class , keeps a blog and here is what he said about day 1;
—-“First day of the EGC. Not too bad coming 3rd. But it was a mistake to come back too soon. It was a bit difficult. Even to get high before the startline. Together with Erik [Borgmann, who was 2d in “my” team in the Borlange WGC] we flew to the first sector where I flew a bit different route and we lost each other. Going up northwest I took a big detour to stay under the Cu’s and away from the mountains. Third sector was bad. Overcast and some rain. The JS1 is going fantastic. What a good glider in open class as well. The two JS1’s in open class ended up in the top 3. Only Michael Sommer in the EB29 was a bit faster.—“
“RT phoning home” on day 4 , when he is the daily winner with a speed of 122.9 km/h over the 366 km task, climbing to an overall 7th position.
Yesterday was day 6 in each of the 3 classes and the next tasks were set ; AAT’s from 3 hours in 15 and 18 m. and 2.45 in open!
A day you had to have patience and good info from the ground about the weather and for the French the local knowledge was a not to forget PLUS.
In 15 m. there is no measure on the 3 French 15 m. pilots, Christophe and Louis both got the 1000 points and JD 19 less. Than the German -2 , the Lithuanian LS 6 and Phil Jones from the UK all in the 900 points region. A few out landings as well , also Steven , so this is definitely not HIS competition.
In 18 m. it was Jaroslav Tomana who started pretty late but won the day with 335 km. in 3.02. The French followed and very nice to see Uli Gmelin as pilot instead of TC at an EGC. Good pilot as well, on spot 7 after 6 days!!! From the 20 pilots only 10 finished and the last one getting finish points was Sebastian, who is 2d overall now after 6 days with Didier Hauss on spot 1.
In open it was again the outstanding Michael , in the outstanding EB 29, who won the 1000 points. He started as last pilot , p.e. 30 minutes after the 2 Dutch boys and flew 364 km. in 2.49. Ronald and Erik were on spot 3 and 4 just before the 2 UK pilots. Ronald is gaining a few more points every day being on spot 4 now after 6 days.
12 From 22 outlanded, amongst them Peter Hartmann, Alberto Sironi and Luciano Avanzini, a pity, but it is not over yet!!!
Glider Q, the Quintus Erik Borgmann is flying for the Dutch Team.
As shared on FB.
Todays tasks;15m: 367 km., 18m: 396 km., Open: 440 km.
The International Party seems to have been a great success yesterday and as you know, that’s a VERY important part of a competition.
I told you about the flooding in Germany and other parts of Europe, this is how you keep your glider dry!
Gliders hanging on the ceiling to avoid the HIGH water.
And here is Arne Martin again; I asked him to be my guest when there were interesting stories.
Looking at the OLC you “see” a lot, but a story behind it sometimes gives you a totally different view on a flight, so here is
—-” Another amazing flight in Norway yesterday:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3048413
Not any formal record, but crossing the mountains between western and eastern Norway has always been a challenge, as there’s quite a stretch of unlandable terrain and the weather is rarely good enough on both sides on the same day. There have previously been some flights which
have crossed them one way and landed at the other side.
But yesterday Jo Inge Bjørø did the ultimate challenge by taking off from the west coast of Norway, crossing the mountains to eastern Norway, and returning in the same flight! That won him a pallet of beer from a bet”.—“
Got a nice mail from Rolf from the Geelong Gliding Club in Australia as well, here you go;
—“A quick note to let you know that we are not completely in Hibernation here.
Every June Queens Birthday weekend members of the Geelong Gliding Club venture
to the Grampians (the Victorian ones, not those in Scotland) as guests of the
Grampians Soaring Club at Ararat. We go there never loosing hope to encounter
elusive wave conditions and this year we were lucky. Two days, Sunday and Monday
we had wave, Sunday up to 20,000 ft. I’ve attached a picture taken at app.
16,000 ft from below the Lenticular.
There are more pictures at:
http://www.gliding-in-melbourne.org/new/component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,37/?g2_itemId=5425
Talking about Australia here is some news I got fro Jo about the next club class Nationals in Waikiri.
—“just a note to let you all know that entries are open for the 33rd Club &
Sports Class Nationals that are being hosted by the Waikerie Gliding Club
in South Australia. The event will run from the 2nd to the 11th January
2014 with an official practise day on the 1st January.—“
The competition website can be found here: http://clubandsportsnationals2014waikerie.blogspot.com.au/
And,…talking about wave, here is a picture from Arne Boye Moller as shared on FB, from wave in Denmark.
Nice lentis on a monday afternoon over Arden in a DG-1000 doing a 300km FAI at 104.5kph.
And one shared by Sven Olivier in S A, with his story for those who are not on FB.
Flight level 195
But not real lennies
Lots of fun
—-“It was VERY cold – I was dressed for 25 000 feet though, with clothes I had last worn in Sweden in 2006 – thermal underwear and very thick socks – but not the electric socks- and a thick woollen cap and neck cover. I only wore thin gloves but next time I will go for the socks and thick mittens. Your body still requires adjustment and I landed very early (at 15h00) as I had too much to drink before and during the early parts of the flight.—“
Pilots are good with gadgets and use them when possible, also in soaring as you can see on the pictures by Tjalling, who flew in Husbos in “my” JWGC team.The go-pro nicely on the glider gives great results. He flies at the moment in France [Les Mees]
The next EGC in Ostrow is doing great PR and to support them here is what was written on FB;
—“On Wednesday, 12th of June a press conference took place at the airport in Ostrów. The press conference was regarding of 17th FAI European Gliding Championships organized by the Aeroclub of Ostrow. The competition will run from 5 to 20 July. The organizers informed that over 130 pilots will compete from 24 European countries plus Argentina, Australia, Japan and the U.S.A. During every day at the airfield more than 1,000 people will appear. The competition will take place in four classes: Standard, Club, World and 20meter two-seater. The Polish representatives will participate as titled champions as Sebastian Kawa (currently successfully representing Poland in Vinonsur Verdon in France in the 18-meter class), Janusz Centka, Tomasz Krok, Lukasz Blaszczyk. Aeroclub of Ostrow has already proven that it can efficiently and effectively organize air events at the highest level: good location, no dangerous areas for glider pilots in the sky, over 20 yea…rs of tradition and experience. It encoruaged FAI air international organization to inclined to organize the European Championships in Ostrow. This is great promotion for the airport and for the whole region. Mrs Joanna Mucha, the Minister of Sport and Tourism took a honorary patron of the Championships. The partner of the event is the city of Ostrow Wielkopolski and the Marshal of the Wielkopolska Region. The European Championships will be streamed live on the official website of the portal http://egc2013.eu/, wlkp24.info and cable television Proart. Tracking system will be used for tracking routes gliders presented at the entrances to live with commentary and current information and results will appear at the event. Enjoy this time to Ostrow Wielkopolski. .—“
Last but not least, the A 350made it’s first test flight and it was successful. The new big A 350 is the concurrent in the future for Boeing’s Dreamliner 787, a new generation of airplanes, lighter, using less fuel and hopefully better for the environment .
That’s it for now. On the last day of our nice holiday, we had a bit of a mishap as a jeep hit the backside of our car standing still for a t- intersection-look-out and we 5 girls all had pain in the neck and a head ache, I still feel it a bit, certainly when writing too much, so next time there will be more!
cheers Ritz