As shared on their gallery at www.fccgliding.sk
THE FCC 2015 is over now and…it was a great one!!!
Wednesday evening April 22;
Of course I was looking forward to the scores of the Prievidza Flight Challenge Cup from that day .
They had to postpone the start from 10 to 10.45 but no worries all could still go for the A task,…the looooong one for mixed class 614 km.
At 11.24 their start line was open.
I was in Finland when they set a 1000 on the first competition day at the Europeans and such long tasks create special vibes/jitters, by all on the ground and in the air.
A WOW_FACTOR_PICTURE shared by the Czech Rep Gliding Team.
What happened?
On such a forecasted good day you know that not everybody will finish, but you expect and hope that at least half of the pilots can do so.
The mixed class had to start and had the longest task[614.5 km.] ; 7 from 28 finished!
Winner was Pavol Cerny [Ventus 2cxt] with a relative late start at 11.56.He flew around with a speed just over 100 km [102.7 km./h] the only one doing so.
3 Polish pilots among them Sebastian finished as well with 87 km./h.
Son Radek was IN, dad Petr Krejcirik was OUT, but….only 13 km..
With one day to go Sebastian was 1000 points ahead of the runner up Pavol and Radek moved to spot 3.Not necessary for him to fly but for sure he will, that’s Sebastian.
In club class a 500 was set and for a pilot who never flew one ,…a good/nice goal. But ….that did not happen as they ALL out-landed. Some came close , very close, 493 from 501!!!! Good on Czech pilot Petr Panek who did so.
37 Pilots flew over 400 km.
Per and Erik , 2 from the Swedish pilots-on-a-mission, lost more than 150 points and Gunnar even over 500.
With one day to go they are on 3-9 and 13 now.
Roman is exactly 400 points ahead of Pawel Wojciechovski from Poland and Per is on spot 3 with about 600 points less than Roman.
In 15 m. class it all went more or less as hoped for and 17 from 40 managed to finish the 549 km. ,among them Christophe, so he is still on top of the 15m.-pact with more than 300 points on Lucasz.
Best speed was 106.2 km,./h .
Christophe was 3d and Lucasz in the Diana 2 was the last finisher on spot 17.
Another 11 pilots managed to fly over 500 km.
one of the finishers on Wednesday as shared by www.fccgliding.sk
April 23 LAST DAY of this exciting “fight” for the Flight Challenge Cup 2015 and what weather they had!!!
With 11 out of 12 days in the mixed and club class and 10 in 15 m. class , they started with a 320 km. 253 km and 301.8 km racing task for their last “duty”, on a beautiful sunny morning.
The first launch was postponed with 15 minutes and and for the last time the tuggies brought the participants up in the air at 11.15 AM , for ,…maybe some ” cat and mouse games” ,…but mostly for a good last flight/race of the comps.
At 1.15 PM all gates were open.
Mixed class; With the one but best speed of the comps , 132.7 km./h. [ he flew 134.5 km./h on day 5] Sebastian finished his 2015-FCC on spot 1 for the day AND….. no surprise ….from the comps; 8951 points.
Pavol [ 7761] nearly lost 200 points on this last day but managed to keep distance [ a bit less than 200 points ] to the number 3 pilot young Radek.[ 7524] On 4 it was Lubor Kuvik . Radek’s dad finished on spot 9.
Little “Sebastiana” is ready to follow daddies tracks. She knows already how to keep the cup.
But ,….then of course she has seen it SO many times.
As shared by the organizers in their gallery.
Club class; a few surprises in this class. Roman finished on spot 4 for the day, but had enough points to keep the champions-spot number 1.[8503] Good on him!
Pawel stabilized his runner-up-spot by winning the last day, so he finished as number 2 [8060]
Only number 3 Per from Sweden who with his mates did so well for a few days, did n’t do so over the last days and Per lost his 3d place to Ondrej who had 7816 points in total. Per finished on number 5.
Good to see Stanislav on 4!!!
Polish pilot Jakub, in the BRAWO, still on spot 3 overall after 6 days, finished as number 7.
As shared by the organizers in their gallery.
15 m. class ;2 Czech pilots flying an LS 8 were the daily best; 123 and 118 km./h. They started about an hour LATER [ 14.14] than pilots as Christophe.[13.17] But Christophe lost only 100 points on this last day by being 9th.
So he is the deserved champion with a total of 8330 points.
Lucasz remained on spot 2 [7918] but lost on this last day about 200 points by finishing on spot 20.
Pavel remained on 3 [7877] and Gintautas unfortunately dropped from 4 to 6.
Czech pilot Martin Piskacek climbed on this last day from 6 to 4 .[7637]
As shared by the organizers in their gallery
———-
The AZ Cup 2015.
Tomas [Suchanek] had his 3d daily win on Wednesday- flying day 6- and he did not even finish to get that prize. Nobody finished but Tomas was the best with 195.2 km. from the set 246.5.
In 15 m. they flew day 4 . No finishers either but also in this class they were close.187.7 from the set 205,1 km.
The next day [April 23] was cancelled .
With 6 days for the “mixed” pilots and 4 for the club class, it was already a valid competition but of course they wanted to add more days.
They did; Day 7 , a 2 hour AAT, was won by Alena with 240 km. in 2 hours at the dot,… so both Tomas and Alena had 3 daily “wins” in the mixed class . It ALL had to happen on the last day as Tomas had more overall points; 5062 for 4837.
In club they had their day 5 and Jan was 3d.
AND,..DAY 8/6, the last one yesterday had in each class a 2 hour AAT again. But it was not meant to be. The day was cancelled. Prize giving was at 6 yesterday.
Champion in the mixed class; Tomas Suchanek, with Alenea Netusilova as runner up after 7 days of flying.
Champion in the club class; Lan Louda 3917 and runner up with 3897 Rostislav Friq, winner on day 4, both flying ASW 19!!
Another lady did well in this class. Hana Treslova [St Cirrus] ,she finished on spot 3.[3830]
———-
In between not only competition pilots have fun flying, others… not so much interested in comps, have fun as well.One of Germans young top-pilots Patrick Puskeiler enjoyed flying from Kings Land in Romania. He calls it paradise there and flew 909 km last Wednesday.
On Thursday a good flight in an ASW 24 from Aosta;772 km.
Also good to see a 670 km. flight from good old Rayskala yesterday in the ARCUS.
And worth while mentioning too; From Nagano in Japan a flight from 651.9 km. in the Ventus 2c/18m.And I am not sure if Kensi is the Kensi I know, but he flew from Itakura 413 km. in the DG 400/17 m..
1.333,98 km …..1.008 FAI TRIANGLE in the DUCK HAWK!!!! This happened all last Friday.
“Outstanding Spring ridge day at Blairstown! The Duckhawk is simply an unbelievable machine with a full load of water. Was running the ridge often in excess of 120 knots. The transitions were mostly on the money and pretty efficient, which worked out nicely. The ridge got quite soft at the first turnpoint at Harrisonburg… got lucky that I dug out of that one. The second turnpoint up on the plateau was tricky too… couldn’t find a good approach to it. But really fun day. Thanks Jim for towing, Phil for the weather forecast and Bill for giving me the opportunity to fly this fantastic glider!” as said by Daniel Sazhin in his OLC comment.
More good flights on this top -ridge-day; 6 x a 1000 plus in a Duck Hawk, LS 3, LS 8, [Baudouin Litt and his comment on the OLC…Left Perry yesterday morning for this one! Long exhausting 12:30 drive, but had a good night in the cold. What a shock these temperatures difference! Not what I expected for the day, with soft wave and blue to the south. My optimization was far from perfect, but gave me the occasion to revisit a lot of places. Still a very good day and worth the trip ] , Discus 2, Glasfluegel 3 and a LAK 17 fes/21 m. [ Comment on the OLC; Incredible day at the ridge, simply said: a STRONG day, third flight in my new Lak 17B fes 21m, we can say it was a real shake down for the ship! Could not resist to stop some times in thermals averaging 800 to 1000′ averager] AND 726 in a Schweitzer!!!!
As you know you don’t need expensive gliders to race the ridges, all these are fancy enough. You need , as you can see, the desire/intention to use such a day to the fullest.
Nearly no flights from Australia last week. NSW , certainly the Hunter Valley-area, is sadly enough hit by terrible storms , and heavy flooding. Several glider pilots live in that area I wish them and ALL OTHERS all the best.
———–
TRAGIC, very tragic , the news from Nepal and the countries on it’s border.The huge earthquake has hit Kathmandu and it’s surrounding, on a very populated area and I am afraid the death toll will rise day by day. Also mountain hikers and climbers [at least already 27] busy with their sport, are hit as the earth quake triggered avalanches on the Mount Everest and areas around it.
———–
On a better note…some asked me to publish when I will be in Tocumwal again. Just got a present; a ticket to Melbourne leaving on November 29 2015 and flying back again on January 16 2016. So I can spend a nice holiday in my beloved Tocumwal AND visit Narromine [JWGC] and Benalla [PRE WORLDS] as well for a few days.
CU there!
Anzac Day Parade in Tocumwal on April 25.
One of Australia’s most important national occasions. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.
I always got tears when I looked at the parade.
as shared by the Tocumwal Foreshore Market.
———-
That’s it for this Sunday
Cheers Ritz