I found this great picture this morning on my FB site . It’s shared from Soaring Club House by Robert Fadini; just beautiful.
Soaring Clubhouse is a page for sharing Soaring and glider related photographs and video’s. A place for soaring pilots to share their activity through pics.
What a great week we had , with lovely weather !Not only here in Holland but on a lot of places in Europe. Just nice autumn weather and not only to sit on a terrace or in the garden , also for flying.
On Sunday flights up to 260 km. were possible and on Monday the skies looked fantastic here.
I thought that those who would be so lucky to have the day off, could have a ” ripper-soaring-day”. And they HAD !
At 8 AM I looked at the OLC AND,…..the world wide scores were topped by 8 DUTCH flights!!! What about that and in SEPTEMBER !!?
425 km. [371 km.FAI triangle] in a St Libelle by Hinse Osinga.
459 km by young Robin Smit who had to swallow a bit when he was about 200 km. OUT, but made it home in the St Cirrus.
450 in the LS 4 ,” a real racing day today” was what Sander Terpstra called it.
What happened more in that week ?????….enough!
Puimoisson was good for flights up to 959 km. in a Ventus cM 17.5 m,., on September 1. Not bad so late in the season even for the mountains.
700 km. flights by the German pilots on September 4 in the Discus and Ventus is not bad either. It looks like a good German autumn camp over there with lots of keen pilots, among them their TC Uli and Wolli Bayer .
One of the pilots Walther said ; ” what a day and that in September ” after his 830 km. flight in the DG 800/18 m. on September 3.
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The Qualifying Grand Prix in Spain [ La Cerdanya] started last Friday with 15 pilots from different European countries as Germany [ 4 including Tilo] , France [ 3] , the UK [1] , Poland,[ 1] Czech Rep. [ 1 ], Italy [2] and of course Spain.[3]
What happened till now?
Pictures shared by Philippe de Pechy, who flies CT and VV with of course Tilo.
A relaxed CD Brian with UK pilot Mike.
As shared by the SGP on FB.
They had one practice day with 199 km. and a regatta start at 3 PM, with 2 finishers,8 [virtual] out-landings and some pilots not flying . Some got penalties and that’s better on such a day then on a real GP day.
On Sunday the ” real thing” started with a 177.8 km. task. A day on which all 15 pilots started at 2.50 PM , all of them finished between 4 and 6 PM, but there could only be one the best and that was Kai Lindenberg from Germany, who got the 10 points.
Werner Amann , about 3 seconds later , got 8 and Tilo, about 36 seconds later, 7 with Philippe following with 6 points.
From the 15 pilots 7 got penalty points or warnings.
Kai flew with a TOP-speed of 148.3 km./h. in the ASW 27 , whilst the last one coming in finished with a speed of 57.4 km./h in the St Libelle. But ,…he made it!!!!
As they wrote in their special report about day 1’s SGP news;” The leaders were able to use the edge of the convergence to run back to the east with sufficient energy to make the last turn without stopping to gain altitude.”
Great scenery as shared by the organizers.
Day 2; 173.5 km . with an other pretty good weather forecast, after the thunder and lightning on the evening of day 1 had disappeared. Still however, some drops of rain during the start.
As shared by the SGP organizers.
The start was at 2.30 and the first up in the air were the 2 ladies Jill [Spreckley] from the UK flying the LS 8 and Eva [Mensan] from France in the Pegase.
An other good but difficult day , with a much more technical race than day 1. A slow day and you had to be a patient pilot . Those ingredients fitted Werner but he got penalty points for a too high start, [62 m.] so Fridolin Hauser won day 2 [5 points] with only 4 finishers and the best speed was 72.9 km./h.
La Cerdanya , for sure a place to race but not so much last Monday.
day 3;
Day 3 about to begin after a humid foggy early morning.
Picture shared by the organizers and Philippe.
Day 3, started , with lots of low clouds, as some called it ” typical British smog”.
A task was set from 198.5 km. but later changed in a B task and even C task from 139.9 km.
WHY??? Have a look at this picture from Philippe.
They were launched but a bit later , just before the regatta start, there was the message from the organizers;
Pace plane is in the air and Brian send by radio : “due to safety conditions, race is canceled”. Some thunderstorms are surrounding the race area and turn point 1 is already a dead end.
As they wrote in their daily report which you can find on the SGP site http://www.sgp.aero/
” The race was now between the two storms, and the count down for the start line started at 15.30. During the countdown we watched as two storm cells started to merge to the east of the field and this could only be bad news for the race, so at 5 minutes to the opening of the start line the decision was made to cancel.”
Day 4 is today, but no task as yet.
For the latest, they continue till the 13th, you can go to ; http://www.sgp.aero/spain2014/broadcasts/live-tracking.aspx?contestID=6066
Next Sailplane Grand Prix will be in Australia flown from Lake Keepit between November 16 and 22 and then between January 3 and 15 2015 in South Africa – from Worcester.
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Jonker Sailplanes published their latest newsletter and I share it with you;
“—Jonker Sailplanes is proud to announce our improved 18m sailplane, the JS1C-18 EVO. This dream sailplane that evolved from the JS1-C18 model was recently revealed at the 33rd World Gliding Championships in Leszno, Poland.
The JS1C-18 EVO redefines handling in the 18m class, offering both an improved roll rate and superb control at slow speeds. The increased wing loading, combined with new tip aerofoils and 3rd generation winglets, also gives JS1C-18 EVO the edge at high speeds.
JS1C-18 EVO offers the serious competition pilot a performance advantage while remaining suitable for every pilot due to its handling qualities.
The design of the JS1C-18 EVO started in October 2013 with our Chief Aerodynamic Engineer,Dr. Johan Bosman redesigning the outboard wing using the latest Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) design methods.
It was planned to have the improved outboard wing sections ready for the WGC of July 2014. Within six months the project went from a paper design to reality, with 2 sets of the new outboard tips making their debut on the gliders of Uys Jonker and Attie Jonker.-–”
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The weather starts to be pretty good in Australia.Also in the mountains and in the Alpine Flyer , with all the news from Mount Beauty, I could read that August had some excellent thermal flights and also perfect wave conditions up to 10.000 ft.
August is, as they call it , ” a good indicator” for the upcoming summer.
Last Sunday WGC pilot Craig Collings flew in his ASW 20 227.9 km.
Let’s hope Australia has a good and safe season and a bit later South Africa and Namibia as well. Worcester [SA] had already a great wave and ridge day on September 7. ” full airbrakes in the late afternoon to stay below the TMA running in and out of Villiersdorp” was the message from Sven going with his flight on September 7.[290.45 km]
Dieter Dundee has left Germany last Sunday and is settling down in Tocumwal for 6 months and catching up once a week with Ingo for a VB at 4. They love to do that and speak German on the veranda of the ” Schloss”.
The Toc. crew called the weather last week; glorious and the town-beach in Toc at the Murray river is already popular now! After the weekend some wild weather was passed by.
And as you can see Dundee arrived “home” in his 2d country. Here with Eddie from Sportaviation who shared the picture.
and
The always popular Murray River White Beach as shared by the Toc. Residential Air Park.
Wild weather passing by. Shared by Sportaviation.
Kingaroy had already flights up to just under 500 km. and August counted already 50 flights on the OLC from Kingaroy where more or less the Aussie season starts.
In October the 34th Club and Sports class Nationals will be flown from the excellent new gliding site of Goondiwindi. All the info on; http://glidingqueensland.org.au/comps/info.php?comp_id=2
The Corowa – fans will bring their gliders for shipment soon as the packing date for 4 containers will be on September 19-20 and 21 2014.The containers will leave from the harbor of Rotterdam on October 1 and arrive in Melbourne on November 11 and the first possible flying day will be then from Corowa on November 14.
Pilots can fly till February 19 and they can use their gliders in Europe again after April 11 when they unpack again in Venlo.With their experience over the years and the fact that Grietje and Francisco are there with packing and unpacking, this is a very safe and great way to fly your own glider overseas.
All info about gliders for rent and daily prizes are on
http://www.australian-soaring-corowa.com/fleetANDrates.php
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When you like to read about GLIDING you surely read the Gliding International and I must say the latest issue is a ” topper” again. I loved the 2 articles by Aldo Cernezzi . One about his participation in the Rayskala WGC in his 20 m. glider and one from his way back from Finland to Italy, visiting several manufacturers, as HPH and Schempp -Hirth.
The news that Sebastian is going to be a contestant in the 13.5 WGC in Pociunai [Lithuania from August 1-15 in 2015] in 2015 was new to me and he seems to fly there and promote a Polish glider the GP 10 by Peszke from Krosno. Robert Downe looks with a critical eye to all the classes after the profusion of the FAI classes.
Elke writes about the ” long down -wind” and interviewed Gordon Boettger about that. Great pictures go with the very interesting story.
Gravity waves;an atmospheric research by Germans in the New Zealand skies.
And much more as Major Advances in battery technology, remote control towers in Sweden, the Perlan Project, newsy aviation news about what happened in the world.
In the ” three liners”, I was sad to see that Hank Meertens died age 70 in July. Hank was in the past, the president of the Australian Gliding Federation, chairman of FAI’s CASI committee and representative of the IGC for years and on top of that a real nice guy. His wife died about 6 weeks earlier.
And to finish a great picture from 3 juniors lining up on a great soaring day in the USA,….. a day the hangar was completely EMPTY, for the first time this season !!!WOW!!!!
As shared by the Harris Hill Soaring Corporation.
Picture by Noah Reitter one of the pilots, together with Evan and Eric.
Enough news so CU next Wednesday.
Cheers Ritz on September 10 2014.