courtesy; Fritz Schweikart
Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday April 24 2011 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
The Memorial Service here in Alphen to remember the 6 people who got killed in the shopping mall, was sad, modest , very impressive and something to be proud on again.Life continues now also here in Alphen but for the family of the victims , a heavy period lays ahead.
Talking about Memorial Services ; Joan Escott, Don’s wife was very impressed with the turn up in Tocumwal. She said that Don would have been pleased and for sure would have been astonished as well.From different sides I heard it was a “good farewell”, for good old Don.At least it gave her a lot of support in these difficult days.
Prievidza had a great Cup Race. On Wednesday, flying day 8, German TC Uli , finally flying himself, this time in the ARCUS, won another day and climbed up from a bad second day on which they got ZERO points, as they exceeded the maximum altitude with more then 100 m., to a spot with the first 10 in the mixed class. On the last day he flew the ARCUS to a 2d place with a speed of 122km over 388 km making him 10th overall on the final result.
Winner in the mixed class;Pavel Louzecky….. with a great marchin on the runner up; 8214 and 7536 points. Pavel flew a Ventus 2C /18m.
Sebastian Kawa is “HOT” and ready to be excellent in the next EGC. He won again;700 points now ahead on the runner up in the 15 m. class. On the last day he did it again and won the COMPS.
UK pilot, Ge Dale seems to have found the rythm from last year and won another day , being now on top of the club class list in the DG 100 G. On the last day he was 4th but not loosing too many points so he WON the comps ;8189 and for runner up and great pilot Frenc Tamas, 7929 points. Great 4th place , by the way, for young Vytautas from Lithunania, he is ready to be good in the EGC soon in Pocunai.
The by now famous area for good weather in the Alps, kept it’s great wave-weather. On Wednesday , a Hornet flew 704 km !!!! This time from Füssen in Bayern.
Great to see Leonardo Brigliadori back in the air flying an LS 4 and…he is still good; 545 km. from Alzate Brianza SW of Sondrio up to North of Bolzano.
Yesterday an ASW 20 flew over 1000 km from Wiener Neustadt not bad either. And an ASW 27 from Timmersdorf also in Austria had a good 1000-km-day as well.
The last week more pilots entered the Dutch CAE NLS Nationals , so when the list was closed yesterday, we had 44 participants. It is going to be a great competition and you can atleast follow the scores as they are in an international language on www.nkzweefvliegen2011.nl But …of course I try to make time to write all the exciting news in this blog as well.
Unbelievable but true!!!! Holland has at the moment the highest temperatures in Europe,26 dgr. IN SPRING, warmer then Greece and Spain. We even deal with code red!!! Code red??????? Yes it is so dry here so early in the year that firebrigades are on high alert and planes circle above special areas, as protected peat-moar-areas.Also lots of Easter-fires have been cancelled. Even the rescue services on the beach have been asked to come earlier as this weeken all beaches will be overloaded with people , only…the water is 10 dgr, a bit cold to really enjoy…..or?????
Unfortunately the weather in the South of Europe is less good at the moment.
Too much to do and guests over Easter !!!!! So enjoy Easter to the fullest and if you have the same stunning weather as we have; enjoy that even more!
HAPPY EASTER !!!!
Cheers Ritz
courtesy Vanessa Johnson