37th FAI WORLD GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIP
Szeged, Hungary
24 July 2022 – 5 August 2022
The briefing on day 1, last Sunday, moved from 10 to 12. They had thunderstorms overnight and with that, a long time of dry weather ,stopped.
The weather for day 1; tough wind, clouds and 24 dgr. C. but supposed to get better at noon. So hope for a [small] window!
Task 1 on July 24; Unfortunately they had to CANCEL the first competition day.
The weather for Monday seems to be better so…over to….
Hope remains for ALL pilots to become world champion.
And all went back to the tie-down area.
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Task 2: on July 25, with blue skies and thermal activity …3m /s up to 2200m.
Expected first launches: 11:45
18 m. upfront ,then 20 m and open class.
They moved the launches with 15 minutes, but then at 12 ,they all went on track.
They use PEV(Pilot Event Marker) Starts. This means that 5 minutes before a pilot intends to start they need to activate the event marker on their Flight computer. This then starts a 5 minute countdown after which they may start for an 8 minute window.
No PEV means that they automatically get a 50 pt. penalty.
This way they try to avoid gaggles and pilots following each other.
Perfect!!!!
As shared by the organizers.
18 m; 407 km.……the first 1000 points were for Italia’s Davide [JS 3] who won the day with a speed of 134.25 km./h. .That was 2 km. faster than Dutch pilot Jeroen[JS 3] ; 132.07 km/h. who really flew good.
Petri from Finland was 3d. I won’t start again about how he arrived with his parents in Tocumwal when he was around 6 years old. BUT,….Every time when I see his result I think how is it possible!!!! Time flies AND Petri now flies an AS33es in a WGC!!!!!
From 42, 40 finished, and those 2 Swedish pilots nearly were “home”.371 and 3363 km.
4 pilots in this class were out of the PEV window.
20 m; 380 km….a Swiss triumph meaning 1000 points for team Rainer Cronjäger / Guido Halter [ARCUS T] ; speed 124 .71km/h. after a late start. Just a tad faster than Polish team Jakub Barszcz / Lukasz Kornacki in the Twin Shark;124.11 km./h. On spot 3 Czech team Ivan Novak / Petr Krejcirik in Arcus M.
The early birds started at 13.36, the later ones at 14.14[the daily winners]
Somewhere I read that the 18 m had difficulties with the weather in the beginning, as it was not so good over the field, so a late start in 20 m sounds the way to go. All in retrospect, …..indeed!!!!
Only 2 Aussie mates in Szeged, 2 lovely guy’s Allan and Harry flying the ARCUS M. They were last today, but I am sure they will love every day, just by being there.
open; 416 km.…outstanding performance from Felipe and Michael in their EB’s; 133 km./h. for 1000 and 995 points. Great result as well for Belgian pilot Daan who in his EB was 3d; 126 km./h.
All 22 pilots finished, the last one flew 4 hours, but Zoltan was IN!!!!!
There are 9 EB 29’s in this class and 11 JS1’s.[21 m] 1 ASH 31 MI and 1 EB 28.
All points of course are still preliminary.
Newsy WGC news;
—“There are 3 Twin Sharks flying in the world championships in Hungary.”HpH Sailplanes UK
—“One of the tow planes – A turbine Čmelák (Zlin Z-37).I’ve seen on the tracking yesterday a 60 second climb average of over 8m/s @ 150kph !!! Almost better than a winch launch!” South African Gliding Team
—#WGC2022 Task annullata” the Italian gliding magazine Volo a Vela about day 1.
—“Gwennie Jones from wing cleaning cloth (New Zealand 2007) to British Team Captain (Hungary 2022) in 15 years!” quote by Steve Jones.
—In 18 m there are 42 entries, biggest class and 21 are JS3. 4 are JS 1 and 11 Ventus 3 gliders with 4 AS 33es and 2 ASG 29’s.
—-John Good the TC of team USA is a great writer/blogger as well, here is part of one of his stories about glider shipment!!!
“I alluded yesterday to the problems of shipping gliders to Europe for this contest. At WGC2022, the Jonker brothers (Uys and Attie) have fallen victim to this situation: they (characteristically) prepared tuned and tweaked examples of their JS-3 design to fly in the 18-Meter class here. These went on board a ship weeks ago, with delivery promised in a German port well in advance of this contest. The ship apparently was held up in one or more ports along its way, and now these gliders are predicted to arrive (at a port around a thousand miles from Szeged) this coming Tuesday. Fortunately, Jonker gliders are now found all over the soaring world, and it appears Uys and Attie had little difficulty arranging examples they could borrow. Uys has decided to stick with the one he has borrowed; Attie has secured an arrangement (with the concurrence of the contest organization and all Team Captains) that when (if ?) his arrives he will have a one-time chance to decide – irrevocably – whether he will switch.
https://www.facebook.com/ussoaringteams/posts/
So that was the first day in Szeged. Some will be very pleased and some a bit disappointed, BUT it’s only day 1. AND,…they flew.
CU on Wednesday again.
Cheers Ritz