Alphen aan den Rijn Saturday April 11 2009
As I will be in Amsterdam over Easter I write a day earlier to say HAPPY Easter to all of you wherever you are in the world.
In Holland ,we always had our first camp with the club in the Easter period. This was in 1967 when I was a member of the ZES, the student aeroclub from Eindhoven. We had the best weather, great flights and to get there we carried behind an old tractor an even older winch over the road and it took us half a day over 70 km. with lots of stress due to angry , umpatient drivers on the road who could not pass us or with difficulty, as also an old pick up with tents and other gear, was part of this Easter Parade.
This would not be possible anymore nowadays.
We as club-members had no field of our own and were during the holidays guest at another airfield. Easter was at Venlo, Summer at Malden [ where I went solo in the Grunau Baby after lessons in the Rhonlerche!] and the last one before autumn at the National Gliding Center Terlet together with the Student Aeroclub from Delft. Fantastic memories !!!
The Pribina Cup 2009 in Nitra [Slovakia] has started on Good Friday, with a practise day ! Lots of well-known to very well-known pilots under the 161 competitors in 3 classes. Great practise for the Europeans and the World Comps in 2010 in Prievidza NE of Nitra.
The competition will be flown from April 10 – 19 -2009.
I hear that there was snow and some showers and even thunderstorms, during practise, but for sure they will have some real NITRA-days as well.
The C kader from the German juniors is having/ had a practise period in Nitra as well.
For all info , tasks and results you can go to ;www.soaringspot.com
I heard several readers had a look at the new site ;www.rietigliding.it and unanimous they found that it is spectacular good! Well done!!!!
Several Australian top-pilots participate in the Gliding Qeensland Easter Competition in Dalby for sports class and club class . They also started on Good Friday , with a practise day and fly till April 18. It is good to see that Dalby is organizing comps again. A few years ago it was closed. Good field with great soaring conditions! Also here you will be updated daily by soaring.spot
On April 7 , last Tuesday , Tilo [Holighaus ] had the “maidenflight” with the new Schempp Hirth two-sitter ARCUS at the famous airfield of Hahnweide. What a good looking new toy and it seems as easy to fly as a single seater. For sure a welcome addition at the gliding fields all over the world.
I am very pleased to see how efficient Tilo took over the business after his dad, Klaus died in that sad glider accident. I knew Klaus pretty well, as well as his other son Ralf , both stayed with us in the past at Sportavia in Australia. As my ex only bought Schempp Hirth gliders, also in the past , we got to know the whole family not to forget “the engine behind a lot of things” mum Brigitte , pretty good. Lovely family!
Another competition has started on Friday in the wellknown place Hockenheim. In 4 classes 51 pilots will fly for the first places, one of them Reinhard Haggenmueller flying in 15 m. class! Look for results and latest news on www.soaringspot.com and for more pilot information to the Hockenheim home site;www.sfc-hockenheim.de/sfc/home.htm
On day 1 tasks were set around 300km.
Lucky me! I just said yes to the organizers of the Rieti comps from August 4 till 14 to be their journalist. In 1984 I was in Rieti as crew , in 1985 as guest during the WGC , in 1991 [I think ] as TC for the Dutch team during the EC , in 2007 as juror and editor for the JWGC, in 2008 for the WGC and now again in 2009. And…I am very pleased to go , it feels like home overthere in Rieti.
Still no good news from the EAC, though negotitians are still in full swing and some pilots live in hope, I heard! Others made theirselves a member of another club , to be able to fly, certainly now the Easter days look good. I still find it weird that just when the season started and all pilots were ready to fly, the base commandant decided to stop any action for gliderpilots to fly. If necessary for safety reasons, IF, then they could have done so end of the season 2008, so there would have been time to anticipate on it for the 2009 season. I am lost here!!!
Wishing you sunny weather , nice clouds, enoughs eggs, a good rest or a great flight… if possible a few …and see you on Wednesday.
cheers Ritz