ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN   SUNDAY FEBRUARY 3 2013

ritzdeluy@hotmail.com      www.soaringcafe.com     www.glidinginternational.com

After loosing the entire  blog with pictures and all, I try again .

Holland;
The first month of the year has just disappeared. I only spend a few days in Holland but was part of the weather over the last days, when we had the hottest days for the date Jan.29 and 30 with plus 13, measured in the Bilt THE place for meteo measurement in Holland!!!!
Earlier in Jan.  it was weird as we had temperatures from minus 18 in the E. ,  up to plus 15 in the S. of Holland; a difference of 33 dgr.
With only 55 mm. of rain January was pretty dry as well.
This was totally different 60 years ago when parts of the SW from Holland were hit by severe flooding after the dyke’s broke. 1800 People got killed and it is a very black page in our history book.

Very different weather in Canada as well as I heard;
—“Currently -35C here with a windchill of -45! –“
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/mb-35_metric_e.html

Chile;
It was good to see Thomas back on the highest spot on day 4 in Vitacura.With the Diana 2 he flew fast over 437 km. with an average speed of 140 km./h. This day was flown over the mountain area and he got the full 10 points.

As seen by Varislav and shared on FB.

On day 5 the weather looked “as a piece of cake”, but turned out very different for some, due to the incoming cirrus creating problems specially on a lower level .It cost Tilo a lot of points as he had to land out . He was not the only one as only 5 from 11 made it back home. Amongst them the winners both from Chile,  for day 5 Carlos [ 6 points] and Rene [4 points]  who are both topping the overall list with 29 points!!!
Still 6 pilots in the race to win this Grand Prix together with Carlos and Rene; 4 from Europe; Tilo and Patrick both of spot 5 with 17 points, Didier on 4 with 18 points and Thomas on 3 with 23.

Day 6 was a different story. It looked like an easy day in the morning, with a task of 355 km. but,…it turned out different than expected or hoped for. ZERO points for all , [though Didier flew still 211 km. ] but,….with hope for day 7.

Day 7 was a short one,  in task and time as most pilots flew the 151 km. just over one hour. Patrick Puskeiler was the fastest with 134.4 km./h. Start was at 15.15!Didier was 2d and Thomas 3d. Quite a lot of penalty points on that day.
With one more day to go the overall scores look still good for Carlos with 35 points, Rene with 34, Thomas with 30 and Patrick is back on 4 with 27 points.That’s ONE more than Didier on 5.
What will the last day bring?

Last day from the GP, showed with a 305 km. task that Carlos clearly was the best. With a nice speed of 131.km./h. he raced to another 10 points, winning this Grand Prix with 46 points. Rene, who was 5 km./h slower won the 8 daily points, so the final score for the top 3 is;Carlos 46 points, Rene 43  and Thomas with 38.

Narromine;
With a 22 kt. head -wind Adam [Wooley]  decided to abandon his flight last Thursday, but still flew 0ver 800 km. 30 Year old Ben decided to continue and flew a declared 1023 km.task on not even the very best day!
Here is what Adam had to say about it;
—“What an ordinary day, but what a spectacular day!
4hrs into a 22kt headwind saw progress slow.BUT,…congratulations to Ben Loxton on his first of many declared 1000km flights.–“

 

Ben , very happy after his flight.
Courtesy Adam Woolley.

And more news from Adam who is an eager blogger as I am.
“Magnificent day! For the first 4hrs, we both battled into a 30kph wind in poor weather. Once the weather gods turned on the weather, it got extremely good, extremely fast!
I had the cirrus up to 143kph for a 200km leg!! 406:1 for 50km glides, just extraordinary. Unfortunately the switch was flicked at 1530, rather than 1330 when I needed it .”–

Adams Standard Cirrus at Narromine.

Narromine;
Also in Narromine the 2 seater Nationals , important for the next 33d WGC , where the 20 m pilots will fly together with club and standard class, finished with 8 days and good flights. The Maddock- family,  in the duo discus topped the list with dad Mike and son Nick flying.  They are the new National Champions and,…maybe we are going to see them in Räyskälä !
Terry Cubley and his mate in the DG 1000 ended on spot 2 and CHAPEAU for not the youngest couple anymore Harry and Wendy Medlicott in their ARCUS on spot 3.Good on them!!!They won day 5 and the last day

Father Mike and son Nick , the new 20 m. CHAMPIONS.
Picture courtesy Adam Woolley

Also great weather on Thursday in Benalla, Corowa  and Tocumwal.With a nice nearly 800 km. flight from Graham , my “instructor” in the simulator a few weeks ago,  in his ASW 20 from Benalla.
Over 800 also for the Corowa pilots who had to fight with a tough wind and had to rush home to be in time for a sand storm. As Jos said in his comment:
“On the last leg from 300 km. the wind was in the back with 50 km./h ., so I was  home, pretty fast.”
And a 750 from Tocumwal in the ARCUS.

And in the “Alpine Flyer” from the Mount Beauty Club I read ;
–“The Mt Feathertop bushfire created a lot of traffic on Mt Beauty airfield. On Monday 28 January there were 3 fixed wing water bombers working for DSE, we had 6 gliders in the air and there were also about 10 hang gliders and a Dragonfly ultralight tug operating on the airfield. The operation went reasonably smoothly despite this amount of traffic but it demonstrated the requirement for good lookout and radio communication. Air Traffic Control on the day would have helped however.”—-

 And to finish the picture by Mark Bland from his Libelle on Jan.22 2013 flying to Mt Feathertop.
The club class Nationals in NZ at beautiful Taupo start soon,  more on Wednesday.
Cheers for now Ritz