The “left overs” from hurricane Maria, reached Europe and though Holland and Belgium were hit,  specially the N. part of Germany and Poland had the worst bit. In Germany  6 people were killed , mainly due to falling trees. Berlin and Hamburg had a rough time without electricity. It’s a bad hurricane season with HUGE damage bills worldwide and even worse too many killed and too many who lost EVERYTHING.
By the way, on Sunday night we had in the East of Holland the first frost!!!1.2 minus!!!!The forecast for this upcoming weekend is 20 dgr. C PLUS .

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With 2 comps in early spring , one in South Africa’s Potchefstroom and the other Down Under in Warwick [Queensland] the competition season 2017/2018 has started.
Both comps had to deal with WET spring-weather, hence not a full week of soaring.

In Potchefstroom , after 3 day’s of soaring [ “Day 3 started with 12.000’ base … got lousy but then picked up and infighting all the way to final glide which was very cool and fast 90km out ” by Arne] and another rainy day on Thursday ,[ “The air today is cool and there is still a lot of moisture from the north west as the front is now sitting over Potchefstroom so that there will be no chance of a task today” ] they only had 2 days to go.
Those day’s could be  VERY interesting.
Look at the overall scores in 18 m./open class; 1. Oscar with 2.093, 2. Laurens with 2.070, 3. Arne with 2.062, 4. Attie with 2.058 and 5. with 2.054 points Uys Jonker.
The card’s were not yet shuffled, BUT,…the weather should co-operate as well.

Laurens ready to go.
shared by Laurens picture courtesy Bennie Henning.

What happened?
The Friday news after launching part of the gliders for small tasks:
“Oh dear – what a great pity. 
We managed to launch the 15m. and 2-seater classes gliders, and then it was agreed to stop launching, as there were a few 15m. gliders landing, and the sky was getting darker to the north west of the airfield and an approaching storm. Although conditions were much better out on track, it was then a matter of the gliders that had landed, if they had another launch whether they would get away once airborne again, and so it was finally agreed to cancel the tasks for the day for all the classes. It is likely that once the storm has passed, conditions will re-generate, but the ground will then be wetter still. 
We live in hopes for tomorrow, but there is no guarantee that it will good enough – we will see. So more news in the morning.”

“Towing back to the hangars with sinking hearts.”
Shared by Arne.

All hope was set on the last day then:
BUT,……Saturday’s message;
“After a heavy storm with some hail, it has been decided to cancel the day. The weather is just not going to allow all the pilots to get airborne before the next downpour, so very sadly after only 3 days’ flying, the 2017 SA Nationals are now over. ”

AP Kotze won in club class with 2.170 points in the St. Cirrus on 3 out of 8 days.
Best in 15 m. was Mark Holliday in ASW 27 with 2.101 points.
Nothing changed to the 18 m./open scores I mentioned ,so Oscar won just ahead of his brother Laurens;2.093 points.
The 2-seater-win was for team Schaap/Taljaard in a DG 505M/20m. with 1.816 points.
Congratulations to the NATIONAL CHAMPIONS from South Africa.

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In Warwick, on the other site of the world, the weather was a not much better….. they tried hard on Friday to create day 3. Small tasks but in vain. Only 2 days and 3 winners with not too many points;
State comp-winners;1.Justin Sinclair with 1.373 points in Sports class,2. Mike Codling in club with 1.596 and 3. Ivan Teese in 18m./open with 1.782.

No worries,…as for quite a few of the Warwick pilots , the first Nationals in down under, were about to start and they straight away traveled from Warwick to Goondiwindi ;
The Sports Class Nationals in good old Goondiwindi between October 9 and 18 with 37 pilots in club, 15 m, and open class.
On the practice day already very bad news!!! The Chronicle had breaking news;
 “An experienced glider pilot has been killed in a crash near the Queensland-NSW border this afternoon.”
Good old Simon, the warmest, most jovial guy in gliding died after , what witnesses saw, his JS 1 spun in to the ground, after he was released.
RIP Simon.
I share the words from Anita [Taylor] , words so  spot on:
“Simon, who would, and often did, go above and beyond for his friends… and there were many…. who always called it to your face, and always with a smile and always with unconditional regard….. who would look out for others, simply for the joy in being able to help …. big, in every sense… as will be the void.”

Here the official words from the GFA, I praise them for doing this ,even when it is TOO often at the moment:

“With deep regret, we inform members of The Gliding Federation of Australia that on the afternoon of Monday 9th October 2017, we lost one of our members in a single glider accident in a paddock close to Goondiwindi Airport. The deceased member is Mr Simon Brown, an experienced glider pilot and member of Gliding Club of Victoria (GCV) and numerous other gliding clubs. Simon is well known to many pilots across Australia.

GFA Operations and Airworthiness investigators were immediately mobilised, and are now assisting Police and Coronial authorities. Organisers of the Goondiwindi national championships provided valuable immediate assistance.

Mind you the beginning of this season is terrible for my Aussie mates. 3 Gliders with 4 people died after a crash in a short time.

On the Goondiwindi-practice-day , most choose to talk and be together to come to therms with this very tragic loss.
They started today with a 3 hour AAT in open/18 m. won by Tom [Claffey] with 352 km. and a speed of 117 km./h. and as runner up Lumpy Paterson from Tocumwal.
In 15 m. a 2.30 AAT was set and won by Adam[Woolley] with 345 km and a good speed in his Ventus 2 from 132.5 km./h. The Trotter’s were runner’s up but with 50 km.plus less.
In club Jim [Crowhurst] flew in his ASW 20 a distance 350 .55 km. during a 3 hour AAT in 3 hours at the dot!!
All scores from today are preliminary.

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 Newsy news !

——The Chilhowee Soaring Association announced their October fest between October 20 and 22. The spot to be, as Sarah and Jason are the organizers !

     

——Gariep Dam Gliding shared the next message:
“Good Afternoon to all the Pilots out there. Some exciting news to share with all of you. No more lack of electricity at the Clubhouse and Hanger. We have new solar Panels and a new Inverter system installed. So now we have sufficient power. Also on top of that a solar geyser was installed. So now permanent Hot water for everyone.
See you all soon as we can’t wait for the Gliding season to kick of this November.”

      

As shared by them.

—–They will be only flown in the beginning of next year ,but when you want to fly your own glider at Vitacura in Chile at the WORLD FINAL  of the  Sailplane Grand Prix in Chile, you have to send your glider now. That’s what the European pilots are doing right now.

17 Qualified pilots during the series and 2 wild cards for Rene Vidal and Carlos Rocca both from the organizing country Chile.

       

Hope they arrive without damage.
As shared by the SGP
and
the last one by Giorgio Galetto with his text:”Pilots from 8 different nations to load the frame. 9 hours of hard job under the supervision of Spindelberger”

——Bahia Gliding in Brasil. Good to see they are busy enough this season and some nice flights as well.628 km.  and a 500 FAI triangle in a St Jantar is for sure good fun. It’s just waiting for a 1000 km. flight this season they came close already, with 983 km.

—-HOT WAVE… no not as in warm but pretty good; Kinross [Scottish Gliding Center] and Aboyne [Deeside Gliding Club] the wave mecca’s in Scotland . Edward Downham flew in the ASH 25/EB 28 1.100 km. [ max. height 5.184 MSL, 4427 AGL ]from Kinross , which is situated South of Aboyne.
John Williams flew 936 km.  with a speed of 152 km./h. in the 20 m. Antares and from Aboyne Roy Wilson flew the ASH 31/21 m., over 624 km. with a speed of 156 km./h.

—–World Solar Race from Darwin to Adelaide.They started last Sunday and drive over more than 3000 km. in car’s on solar-energy only. Universities/students try to be the best in 2 classes, single seater’s for speed and “the cruisers”  for efficiency.
There are 3 teams from Holland ; one in the efficiency class ….a family car with 5 students from the Technical University in Eindhoven who  try to win like they did last time and the students from Delft and Twente are again in the race to be the best in the speed class.

—–HARVEST time in Australia; One of my [soaring-] friends Gerrit Kurstjens did well in Holland ,but does even better in Australia. On their site, Kurstjens Farming Australia,  they showed this picture and,…he and Pam still have time for gliding;

“We’re ready for harvest.”

And to finish this fabulous picture, AGAIN from New Zealand and shared on FB,  by GLIDE OMARAMA from COLAB CREATIVE !!!

With the text;
“I still can’t believe we pulled it off! 3 gliders in formation ridge soaring Mt Cook.”
pictures from this dual tow were taken from a helicopter. Great stuff, I remember dual tows from our field at Toc. pretty impressive.

“Taking off on filming work“

Cheers Ritz