Post 1.444 on Wednesday August 30.

Uvalde pre world and 18m NATIONALS
14 August 2023 – 25 August 2023

In my last blog, I was worried IF they could fly during the last days because of a “hurricane hanging around” . They did not on August 22 and 23.
But there was still hope.
August 24 Task 10 on flying day 6;
18 m; 3.15 AAT....with a rather late start , between 2.30 and 2.45 PM and after a muddy happening to get the gliders on the grid,but they were there and could fly.
David Greenhill in his AS 33es was the best with 424 km and a speed of 113.64 km./h. Sean Fidler was runner up and leads overall with one more day to go.
24 started and 19 finished.
20 m; 3.15 AAT…..Not everybody wanted to fly with the low cloud base. Only 1, in the ARCUS M, tried and …finished. Adam did not fly in his borrowed glider. Good decision.
“Pasi & I decided to abandon the task today, there was CU to 5000′ over the start line with very weak climbs, on track, blue skies. The ground is very wet, so the day never got going within 30-50km of Uvalde. We were limited to airfields as we didn’t dare land out today, it’d take 10 people to walk out the glider & probably a few days to do it if we got it wrong.” more in Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
open; 3.15 AAT...those long wings fly nearly always, so also in Uvalde. 4 of the 5 participating gliders flew! Keith had another winning day ….476 km with a speed of 118.84 km./h…..and Bruce was runner up in his borrowed ASH 31 MI.
“Today was a pretty huge day for me. For a couple of days of rain and showers the glider had been parked outside, with full covers on, so there were some mud splashes to clean up, covers to dry, and still the normal preparations of ballasting and washing. As I was unscrewing the hose fitting from the wing underside, I inadvertently undid the brass fitting that holds the water bags and dump valve in place in the wing. It twisted very slightly inside the wing, and try as we might we couldn’t get the thread to start to screw it back in!” poor Bruce but how he fixed it you can read in Taylor’s Gliding Page
After all the “fuzz” Bruce only lost 9 daily points on Keith.

August 25 task 11 on flying day 7; LAST DAY!!!!!
18m; 376.59 km…..good to see Bif Huss on the daily top again. No I don’t know him but a few years ago he won out of the blue the USA Nationals and he looked as a very interesting person when I read about him and saw the pictures. So this day was won by him; speed 129.18 km./h. And moved up to spot 4 , just not at the podium. [6.566 points]That podium was for Sean Fiddler who was only 13th on the last day but held on.
Winners and champion of the USA 18 m NATIONALS;
1. Sean Fiddler in ASG 29 with 6,748 points. Also winner of the Charlie Spratt 18M Trophy!
2. Sean Murphy in JS3 with 6,716 p.
3. Jerzy Szemplinski in ASG 29 with 6,595 p.
The winner of the Charlie (Lite) Minner 18M Speed Trophy-, was Gary Ittner.

20 m. class; 358.92 km….the DuoDiscus with Adam and Pasi was the best again; speed 115.85 km./h.
They won with quite a margin this pre- worlds competition.
1. Adam Woolley and Pasi Pulkkinen from Australia and Finland in Duo Discus XLT with 5,987 points.
2. Pete Alexander in ASG32MI with 5,843 p.
3. Barry Jaeger in ARCUS M with 5.564 p.

open class; 409.65 km….And finally…… it was Bruce’s time to shine! He won the day; speed 115.53 p/h ahead of Keith with 112.22 km/h and Jim 108.44 km./h.
Winners in this class;
1. Keith Essex in EB 29R with 6.952 points.
2. Jim Lee in JS1 /21 m. with 6741 p.
3. John Cochrane in EB 29 with 6670 p.
Bruce was 4th but here he is for the last time on this competition;
“Finally, after getting soundly thrashed all comp, today I managed a day win! I felt really good, as it was mostly a long, slow dribble. Very many clouds not working, and very many short, broken and weak climbs, so it was a satisfying win.
It’s been an unusual competition here in Uvalde, with only very rare sessions of what I consider to be “normal” south-west Texan weather. Who knows what really is normal now. And next year? What will happen then, and will I even be here? Who knows that either…” much more in Taylor’s Gliding Page

And I finish with Adam and Pasi;
“The last day went to plan, we just focused on coring the weaker thermals fast, taking a few climbs a few turns higher to ensure we never had to turn back (for an airfield, the fields are still super wet), looking long down the legs & using the cloud shadows to ensure good streeting, then finally, eased onto final glide carefully as per the skysight guidance.”Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

THANK YOU to both Adam and Pasi and to Bruce for sharing their interesting and good daily reports AND pictures.

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Junior Nationals in the UK
Gransden Lodge, United Kingdom,    19 August 2023 – 27 August 2023

Unbelievable we are here suffering from huge amounts of rain and they fly every day. Small tasks that’s true, but they fly!!!
“A great week so far at the UK Junior Gliding Nationals being hosted by Cambridge Gliding Centre, some incredible flying by some very talented youngsters in weather that is being unusually kind allowing task flying every day.” shared by Gliding
August 23 Task 5; 140.04 km….George White who won task 3 and 4 won also task 5 in his ASW 20.
104 km./h and from the 40 young ones who started only 3 did not finish.
August 24 Task 6; 146.46 km....Sam Coole, from the Lasham Gliding Society in his Discus was the daily best; 90.52 km./h. Henry was 3d and consolidating his overall spot at this stage.
40 started and 29 finished.
August 25 Task 7; 157.13 km….a new face, on the podium, flying a Discus ;Theodore Nellis. Speed 125.57 km./h. Runner up Ollie Wheeler in ASW 20 had 117.16 km./h. So Theodore was pretty fast.
41 started and 37 finished.
August 26 task 8; 141.99 km….They just continue…8 days out of 8….Well,….only ONE pilot finished! George in his ASW 20. With a speed of 46.78 km./h. he gained 275 points. Runner up Henry was out after 115 km and gained 208 points.
August 27 task 9;120.04…BUT, they had to cancel the last day. There wasno window to fly the full 8 out of 8 days. NO WORRIES.
Good champions anyhow.
1. Henry Inigo-Jones in LS8 with 4,468 points.JUNIOR CHAMPION.
2. Toby Freeland in ASW 20 with 4,305 p.
3. Ben Edkins in LS 8 with 4,172 p.
4. George White in ASW 20 with 4,137 p. He was out on day 1 and lost 467 points on Henry that day.

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FAI SGP FINAL XI
24 August 2023 – 2 September 2023
PAVULLO

For sure another final great race with only top pilots, 19 of them.
2 From the UK, 1 from the Netherlands and 1 from the Czech Rep. , 3 from Italy, 3 from France, 3 from Poland and 6 from Germany. Among them also the youngest participant, MAX MASLAK. Only 20 years old!!!
I wrote about him a few times in my blogs; about his 1000 k’s in Namibia and his participation in the German Juniors.
On August 24 and 25 they could practice , on August 26 they had a rest day and the opening at the Place of the San Bartolomeo Church in Pavullo city.

All important people were there too.

The 7 races started on August 27 …..
RACE 1; 154.47 km....
BUT….the day had to be cancelled.They had a full week of good weather and on the morning of day 1 it was 7/8 of clouds and there was NO WAY to fly. The weather was not good for a few days . We know El Nino, El Nina and now I learned about the Genua “low”/depression . Another weather-phenomena which over the last couple of days created code RED in the middle part of Europe, with scary weather.
As CD Brian said; “The weather is ALWAYS the boss. We are the servants of the weather and we just have to do the best with the weather we get“.

Race 2; CANCELLED…..the weather in Mid Europe and the Alps is a “disaster” at the moment. Understandable they do not fly. But….as always there is hope for the next day.
Brian said….”the depression is still over the Apennines and moving slowly more East. It will improve tomorrow and they hope on 4 good days from then“

Race 3; After 3 cancelled races due to severe weather circumstances., they hope to fly today. The word cancelled is NOT YET there.
Next week more! In between you can follow the race when it is on, via a live stream
https://sgpfinal23.sgp.aero/live

AND

When you don’t know exactly what the GP means you can look at the next page to find all in’s and out’s.
https://sgpfinal23.sgp.aero/about

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Polish 51 st Junior Nationals and OSTROW GLIDE.
Ostrów Wielkopolski Michałków, Poland
16 August 2023 – 27 August 2023

I have been at MANY comps and nearly always the Polish- team- members belong to the toppers. So …good to keep an eye on them. They had their Junior Nationals last week and as they have all difficult names ,I only look back at the event.
In Standard class, they had 24 pilots. They flew 5 out of 11 available days. Jakub Kaczorowski in LS 8 was the overall best junior with 3,657 points. THE VERY BEST, he won EVERY DAY!!!!!
For sure we are going to hear more from him. I’ll try to remember his name.
In Club class they had 4 out of 11 days and 14 participants. Grzegorz Socha in an Astir CS won overall. He won 2 days and was 2 days runner up. 2.750 points for him.
In the 18 m. Regionals they had 7 days and  Karol Staryszak was clearly the best with 4,939 points. He won 5 daily prizes!!!
The senior Club Class Nationals for qualification was won by another well known pilot; Stanisław Wujczak in a Mini Nimbus B. He got 3,262 points which was ONLY 4 points more than runner up Mirosław Izydorczak in ASW 20.

Jakub’s winning glider LOT, was “popular”.

The photographer of the great pictures is; Martn Levitzky

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—– a great picture from Rieti from the C.C.R, shared by CD Aldo and courtesy Martin Pirker

—–Proud news from Schempp-Hirth abour the 1st EGC in Leszno in Poland;
“In some very variable weather conditions ranging from poor to super fast days , the Schempp-Hirth team is proud to announce that the Ventus-3T is again European champion thanks to Lukasz Wojcik from team Poland!
Lukasz is new European champion, followed by Peter Millenaar (The Netherlands) on JS3 and Sebastian Kawa (Poland) on Ventus-3T.
Congratulations too to all the pilots on Ventus in the top 10 of the overall score. Wolfgang Janowitsch (Austria) finishes 4th, Lukasz Grabowski (Poland) 7th, Bert Schmelzer (Belgium) 8th. We thank them all for the trust they put on this glider.
Again and again, this kind of event would be impossible without the many volunteers and professionals engaged We, the pilots, owe you, as usual, a lot!“

——-News from the Perlan Project; Interesting to see that Matthew Scutter from #TeamSkySight is now again in Argentina; he travels a lot. He is there to support the Perlan 2 on their Mission.
https://perlanproject.cloud/VirtualCockpit.html that day August 23 you could follow them on this link, maybe it’s still there. They mentioned;
“Currently on aerotow… for 50,000ft “
Perlan is back in Argentina preparing for another crack at FL900 (almost 30km high!).
SkySight is proud to be producing wave forecasts for the Perlan Project – and they’re viewable by all the Perlan fans at home via https://perlan.skysight.io/
When Perlan is flying, you’ll also see the glider itself in real time overlaid on the wave forecasts.
A few days later on August 25 he wrote;
“Perlan 2 was somewhat successful yesterday with the 11th highest ever glider flight at 60,000ft! But perhaps more impressive was the probable world record “Most Expensive Aerotow”, with nearly two hours hanging on behind the Egrett into the mid 40’s.
There was a good possibility of stratospheric wave today, but the Perlan 2 is not dissimilar to a military helicopter with about 2 hours preparation and maintenance needed per flying hour, so back-to-back flight days are almost impossible. We are watching to see what the next days bring.“
Interesting how Matthew after being a good young pilot, then JWGC champion, then good in WGC’s and many other also European comps, then involved with his SKYSIGHT, now is in ARGENTINA to help PERLAN with weather prognoses. TOP!!!!
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding

And……yesterday the message was :”Instead of flying the highest glider flight, or even taking the most expensive aerotow ever, we’re doing glider maintenance in the most remote location ever… some very complex gremlins being chased down. Derigging is a challenge – the glider is about 1000kg all up, and the inboard wing panels are 160kg each.”

——–Formula 1 in The Netherlands from Zandvoort. WHATADAY!!!!!! When you have not seen it try to find it somewhere on the “net”. Max won, maybe his best race ever, ….he is a great ambassador for our country , so is Andre Rieu who with 80 people of his orchestra played AT the grid and sung the Dutch National anthem. The king was there with Maxima and 2 daughters, more than 300.000 over 3 days ,looked in Zandvoort to the performances in sun, wind and rain, also from Fernando Alonso, who at his age was 3d!! And 2,3 million looked at TV here in The Netherlands.

Nobody was allowed to enter Zandvoort by car , so either they came by bus, train or bike. Look at this.

I am NOT a chauvinist, but a real lover from sport and the day even became better with EUROPEAN GOLD for both our male and female hockey players ,with a ticket for the Olympic games AND in the evening the 3x 400 m at Budapest at the World championship showed a race in which Femke Bol as last runner did what nobody expected, but maybe only hoped for. AT the finish line she passed Jamaica and GOLD was in the pocket.
As said WHATADAY!!!!

Enough news .Next week more about the FAI SGP and finally there are less comps, so my arms and poor head get some rest.
I start straight away with a nice walk.
By the way DOWN UNDER they have flown from Kingaroy [East] already over 500 k tasks and it ‘s still winter there. On June 12, midwinter Toc-Lumpy, flew in his JS3 /18m] from Kingaroy a 500 FAI triangle and 604 OLC km.’s. Not bad it shows that you can fly all year somewhere down under.
Cheers Ritz.

To finish a picture from those EVER CREATIVE ASK 13 organizers.

WeGlide mentioned on this event;
“The annual ASK13 meeting in St. Crepin is one of the highlights of the year and high on our bucketlist! This year, 24 ASK13 have gathered to race through the Alps and share the enthusiasm on vintage gliders.”

And because they are SO BEAUTIFUL here is 1 more!!!!