Last Wednesday they had long tasks in Horsham and the scores were not yet in, when I published.
They are now, of course!
A good day it was….up to 9 kts and 7500 ft and “chasing clouds“.
Club had a 3.30 AAT and Grant [Heany] from Tocumwal flew in his St Jantar a distance of 347 km in time 3.36. Good on him.
Craig [Collings] from the Mount Beauty club was runner up in his ASW 20. 361 km in time 3.34. He was the only one flying …just…over 100 km./h.
15 From 17 who started finished!
Andi Benton from the Beaufort Gliding Club flew 5 hours and 33 minutes in his Astir C 77! BUT,…..he finished. TOP!!!
No flying on Thursday! 2More days to go. Yes,…when…..COVID would not have hit ??????

15m./standard class;464 km….All 8 who started, finished in this class. Daily winner Gordon Trollip, in his LS 6 [handicap 1015] ;108.64 km./h.
4 Flew over 100 km./h.
No flying on Thursday.

Open/18 m.; 553 km. 8 From 9 who started flew the task.
Terry Cubley won the day in his Ventus 2CXT/18 m.;120 km./h.
Michael Durrant, who won flying day 1 and 2 in his 19m. Jantar, was 5th on this for all classes 1000 points-day.
No flying on Thursday.

AND,…no flying on Friday…tasks were set…. and Saturday..no tasks set anymore…. . COVID -19 HIT!!!!
As in Victoria 13 people were tested positive , a new lockdown for 5 days, started on Friday night at 0.00 hour. To be back home in time they all had to leave.
Also the 30.000 people,…half of the normal amount…, who were allowed at Flinders Park to see with their own eyes the tennis matches ,were not welcome anymore either.
Bloody covid,…but, indeed, the world has to be CAREFUL. There are so many different variations at the moment.

So the final , by corona interrupted …scores are in
st./15 m….
1. Jack Hart in the Mosquito with 2.963 points.
2. Tim Shirley in ASW 28 with 2.934 p.
3. Daniel Summers in LS 3a with 2.933 p.
I guess those pilots REALLY would have loved 2 more days of soaring to REALLY see the final results.
Ryan Driscoll who was 4th took his glider on Friday for a goal flight to Benalla :”A little dash back to Benalla to save some time getting back to Melbourne before the lockdown at midnight tonight.”
18m./open...
1. Michael Durrant in Jantar/19 m. with 2.663 points.
2.Terry Cubley in his Ventus 2CXt with 2.618 p.
3. Rolf Buelter in LS 8T with 2.603 p.
Also in this class CLOSE scores for the top 3.
club class.….
1. Grant Heany in the St. Jantar with 2.147 p.
2. Craig Collings in ASW 20 with 2.125 p.
3. Robertson and Ryan in the Janus CM with 1.925 p.

After 4 days the Geelong Gliding Club won the Team Cup with 852.36 points.

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A 11 minute video on youtube.com,”Recit de vol… De la Bretagne à l’Allemagne” episode 3, about Tijl Schmelzers 1.250 km. flight ,is just excellent.
The first declared 1.250 in Europe without wave!!!!
It has been released on February 2.
They look from all aspects to this flight, clearly explaining the day from start to finish. It’s really a pleasure to see it and a “lesson” for all who hope to make such long flights.
It is spoken in French, but with English subtitles.
Hugo Corbillé Gliding and his team created this video. They did more of these flight reviews. Good on them!!!

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My good mate Bruce [Brockhoff ,several times national champion soaring in Australia and many times Aussie WGC competitor] has 2 gorgeous daughters Belle and Brooke.
Last Friday afternoon ,I saw on TV how Belle became world champion ,together with Jarryd Hughes during the world championship pair-snow-boarding in Sweden. In the final race first Jarryd had his scary high flying speedy race which he won and then Belle had to finish it off, which she did in style and with class!!!Great to see it here on TV.

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The AUSTRALIAN 2-seater 2021 NATIONAL competition is ON.

Narromine is the place to be. But for you at home….still for few days
http://www.narromineglidingclub.com.au/2021Narromine2Seat/TwoSeat_Tracking.html
OR https://soarscore.com/ then just click on the day.
“The Competition is still currently scheduled to run from 13 February to 20 February inclusive, and will be subject to all appropriate COVID-19 safety protocols.”
Unfortunately the first day had to be cancelled due to rain. It seems true, “If you want it to rain just hold a National Gliding Competition.”

There are 9 teams flying; 3 in ARCUS M, [Keith Gateley and Adam Woolley …Allan Barnes and Harry Medlicott and Justin and Greg Smith]..1 in ARCUS T, [Butch and David Jansen] 3 in Duo Discus [1 XL] [Miles Gore Brown team, and 2 Hunter Valley teams] and 1 in ASG 32. [Brad Edwards and brother Bill…they do not only fly but make music sing and play guitar as well] and team Ron Sanders fly in the Nimbus 3DM.

Due to rain no task 1 , but task 2 was set and all were in the mood for some good flying during a 3.30 AAT. Scores were close in the top and only 4 from 9 teams finished, but there was a winner; 2 of my long time friends Butch and David in the ARCUS T; 1000 points for 376 km in time 3.40.
The singing brothers Edwards ,in the ASG 32 , “got” 996 points for 363 km. in time 3.34. Both were the only ones flying over 100 km./h. But it was a very blue and not really strong day!
Team Miles another longtime friend, did well with a 3d place in the Duo Discus X; 350 km. in time 4.02 and the other finishing team, 2 more friends for ages , team Ron finished with 340 km in time 3.58.
The first “not-finisher” was our old Duo Discus from Sportavia GIE. It was bought for a nice price during the public Sportavia-auction, years ago by the Hunter Valley club. A really good glider and it still seems to be good!!!
For sure there will be a good reason, but I wondered about the relative big difference in start time between 13.35 and 14.16 on a blue day.

Task 3, a 2.30 AAT was a prey for the Edwards brothers with 239 km in time 2.33.
“A blue and windy day today meant conditions weren’t easy, but with some excellent strong climbs Brad & Bill Edwards outperformed the pack and brought the ASG 32 home on top.”
Nobody flew , even with these fancy gliders ,over 100 km./h…..
93 km./h was the best by the winners ,,so a tough day in the office “.
7 From 9 were IN, and till now 2 other good mates, Keith and Adam were unlucky with 2 “outlandings” in the ARCUS M.

Task 4, a 354 km set task. AND, the ones who were out on the first 2 days , Keith and Adam won the day now.
Keith; “After 2 days having to use our engine to get home we finally had not just a finish but a first place to boot. All by 5 seconds. A great day and motivating us for the next 4 competition days.”
They started together with Harry and Allan, …more good mates….,and landed together both in ARCUS M and got 1000 and 999 points for speed of 108 km./h.
Keith and Adam followed up a good advice ;” Advice from a friend, set an altitude alarm to slow down & “don’t suck” today!“
Allan; “We had a great start with Woolley and by the first turn had scraped him off 2000ft below. Must have been pretty close to the front but then had a slow patch on the 2nd leg where we had to use 3kt. The main gaggle caught us up about the 2nd turn and then we ran with them all the way home.”
Team Ron did well in his Nimbus” ;105 km./h.
Brad and Bill lost 52 points but are still on 1 overall with more than 200 points. At 2 is now team Ron with ONE point more than Butch and David.

Task 5….flying day 4..a 3 hour AAT. Task was changed to B task..30 minutes less.
The advice given to Adam and Keith seems to be better than good, as they won the day again. Another 1000 points in their pockets, for 372 km. in time 3 hours at the dot!!!!
Allan and Harry were runner up . They had some problems in the morning:
“We had a couple of engine problems – first the water pump failed and the engine overheated, so we landed, and then the engine wouldn’t start at all. After the flight we found a loose spark plug lead. So we took an aerotow just after everyone had started. Had a great run down to the first turn of the AAT, averaging around 150kph with a 20kph tailwind. Next leg was good too, then the into wind leg I was a lot more cautious and stayed high. Conditions softened right off at the end of the day and we ended up working 3 kt, but finally got onto final glide at the back of Trangie and came home with height to spare but right on time.”
Mind you, good old Harry is not the youngest anymore….but still going strong.
team Ron lost some points by being 8 for the day and dropped overall from 2 to 4. No worries , with NO rain and NO covid, still a few days to go.
You can read it next week.
Task 5 was flown today so scores are preliminary.

I gave you some links to follow the gliders ,here is another one they advised for today;
Live Tracking from OGN (Variable reliability)
“Just click on Todays task under 2021 AUSTRALIAN 2 SEAT NATIONALS
Note that because of varying levels of FLARM visibility sometimes aircraft can disappear for several minutes. So its not always accurate. if you click on the aircraft you can see in the details the time since last fix.
Although some aircraft have better flarm setup and remain visible.”

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Great flight last Monday by Marcus [Geisen] and Uwe [Thiele] . Very late in their Worcester season, they flew together in the ARCUS M a distance of 1.168 km. with HUGE speed….173 km/h.
Uwe flew in the past a lot of seasons with us in Tocumwal. We called him the “kilometer–eater,” as he always tried long distances . He started early in the morning, straight when it was possible and landed at last light.
Nice to see NOW in retrospect, , how many great pilots ..indeed lovely people…flew with us in the past.

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Winter seems to be over, with temperatures above ZERO now. My goodness me , it was so cold here. We had a regional cold wave with 5 days in a row under zero and at least 3 of those days minus 10.But I must say the blue skies and hot sun felt GOOD.
The weekend was full of ice skaters. Every lake canal or frozen water was good enough to skate OUTSIDE.
It’s so typical Dutch and people just dream of it and now it happened.
No marathon comp or 11-cities-race as the ice is even with the minus 17 not everywhere reliable, but lots of fun but also many broken arms , hips and legs. I heard more than 30.000!!!!
Part of the fun.

The winter seems over now….first however, code red again last Monday due to freezing rain. We had minus 15 last weekend and the upcoming weekend it will be 15 dg.C PLUS!!!What a huge difference in temperature within one week. Within 2 weeks the difference was 34 dgr.
Spring on the horizon…..maybe 20 this weekend…LIKE!!!!
Not yet in the USA where they suffer from extreme cold in the Mid and South. Texas, where I had 2 great summers at the WGC in Uvalde in 1991 and 2012 was one of the hottest places I have been too. Now they are sitting , with millions in the cold….. power fails, roads are ice and lots of snow!!!!Already 20 people died….Feel for them!!!!

Hope you had a lovely VALENTINE day. In the Netherlands florists sold 152 million roses. Not bad is it?
That’s it for now.
Cheers Ritz
Nostalgic weekend ice and skating is so typical, TYPICAL Dutch, EVERYBODY loves it. So do I , but I am too old now for skating and that freezing cold!!!

AND One more because they are so beautiful.