Post 1.558 on December 24 2024 AND ……1 blog to go on December 31.

——-Nice picture from Matthew Scutter’s Gliding
He flew in his SZD-56-2, DIANA 2, FES, 885 km . from Narromine ,where they fly the CHRISTMAS CAMP!
Don’t know if his co-pilot managed to fly with him.

——-Not all is good in Australia at the moment ; The Mount Beauty Gliding Club where I have been too, lovely airfield, is hit by smoke from the Grampian’s Fires. It’s that time of the year again and it has been HOT!!!
Mathew said , flying from Narromine, he had problems with this smoke as well, mind you that’s more than 600 km!!!!!:
“Very interesting day flying yesterday – a perfect day from Lake Keepit, ‘unfortunately’ I was in Narromine!
The trough system was 150km north-east of Narromine, with a long slog through low, blue windy conditions to get to the magic of the trough and 13,000ft cloudbase. I extended towards Lake Keepit on the first leg to allow the later starters to catch up so we could fly together. Awesome conditions but quite broken and incoherent trough system.

With it being the last day of good conditions on the horizon, I was determined to max out the day and risk landing elsewhere if required to do so. The smoke from the Victorian bushfires pushed in much stronger and faster than I expected and the risk was looking to become a reality.
I have never done a full range test on the FES before, I measured the maximum climb altitude at ~7000ft, but theoretically the range is longest at low power level flight.
97km from home at 1300ft AGL in thick smoke with a marginal horizon and a 20kph headwind component, I started the FES and an HOUR later I arrived back at Narromine with ~15-20% battery remaining.
I suspect this may be the longest-ever FES self-retrieve – I have the larger 5.5kWh batteries, and the Diana 2 is the lightest 50:1 glider, which makes it a perfect pairing with the FES.“
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding
There is often” ” something to learn” in his blogs.
He flew 861 km till the smoke moved in spoiling his task.
“Longest ever engine run. 96km with 80% used, into a 25kph headwind.” on https://www.weglide.org/flight/507859

—–BITTERWASSER;
In the past I have written a lot about this 1000 km- camp ,as it is so valuable!!!!!
Young ones have the future and it is fabulous to see how Stefan and Simon, still young themselves , inspire, the even younger generation!!!
World-class coaching in Bitterwasser
The world and vice world champions of this year’s 18-meter class gliding world championships, Stefan Langer and Simon Schröder, have chosen Bitterwasser as their next destination. Following their successes in Uvalde, Texas, they are now taking on a special mission: as part of Wilfried Grosskinsky’s 1000 km camp, they are passing on their knowledge to young up-and-coming pilots.
At the invitation of Bitterwasser and Wilfried Grosskinsky, the two top pilots are currently in Bitterwasser, where they are coaching young, talented pilots as part of the renowned 1000 km camp. With their experience from international competitions and their successes at world-class level, they offer the participants valuable insights into flight tactics, route planning and performance optimization.

By now most of you know how we once arrived in Australia [ if not you can scroll down, if you wish] and that we lost our son [worst moment!!!] divorced around the year 2000 and later the business [bad moments]
No reason to love it, earlier to hate it , I often heard.
BUT, NO, I still love Australia.
Australia but mainly TOCUMWAL has been very good to us. We sometimes complained about the wrong decisions in our eyes by judges and the shire, but all in all we really belonged to the bigger growing Toc family.

Mind you, I travelled more than 30 times up and down between the Netherlands and Melbourne and had no problem with it. That I can’t do that anymore is sad ,but with my age,… OK.
Our “latest news” every day on internet in the nineties , was some kind of highlight in the soaring world and from every where in the world we got new glider pilots.
Of course Bill, from the beginning [with Ingo] and later Don and Jeff had a good management strategy already.
When the guests arrived at our office and they were new, they straight away knew, who Ritz was and they felt at home!
You can ask them!

Sportavia’s slogan ” learn to fly in one week” attracted many pilots and of course that was only possible due to our excellent instructors. Dessie [Russell] still from Bills time, helped us often. Don and Jeff and Eddie and of course our “biggest attraction” ….a bit disrespectful….Ingo belong to the very best. Later we had guest instructors too and when everything “failed” ” we always had Richard Vincent as a great “back up”!!!!!!
Eddie could read the weather, as the very best and in the high season we took temperatures for the briefing in the Tug and the tuggies we had, always loved it. Early wake up,….NO WORRIES!!!
His briefings were always TOP.
Ingo did briefing’s too, but I heard he sometimes was a bit optimistic. He looked through his own eyes and his own skills, to it.
He out landed sometimes, but mostly he flew exactly the task with the belonging weather and arrived long before the other pilots finished and they only knew because they saw his glider already in the hangar.!!!
We had tuggies from all part of the world and most of them were good to very good and most earn good money now as pilots with big airlines.

“Good, better, best “the affiche from Don [R,I.P.] and Jeff [R.I.P.][ running the business 8 years ahead of us] with a picture of a strawberry, the back of a beautiful naked female body and a glider was bought by all leaving customers ,also the Japanese.

Running a restaurant was the biggest job. Our[ later] co owners ,the Bodey’s , Glenda and Ross, took care of that and did a great job. It was difficult, as chefs are not the easiest people. One day with a full house ,George had to fly to Oaklands to fly in a chef to cook for the guests. I can tell you stories about them but I won’t. Luckily we had a few VERY good ones too.
One ,had to prepare regularly over 100 meals on a 3 dollar Wednesday-evening, luckily he had prepared meals for the army earlier. People also from town and far around, arrived for their meal and as we had not enough chairs in the dinning room, they ate outside around the pool or on the grass in the back garden of the WWII hangar.
Good old Bill and is family shared many nights and Bill looked around ,…..SO VERY PROUD!!!!

The cleaning ladies were good too. With overseas guests ,Maria and Charlene, were so kind to take a baby kangaroo, they fed after “mum” died and a koala or Aussie bird. Guests loved that.
With 8 units and 10 rooms in the WWII hangar they were busy enough. On top of that a bar, an outside pool , the sun room for breakfast and a briefing room.
It’s not all there anymore, but the briefing room in the WWII hangar is till in use by Lumpy and his team from Tocumwal Soaring Centre
One of our Finish -long- time “frequent flyers”, flies with Eddie and with Lumpy nowadays and over the last 3 weeks , he was very positive;
“It is so good to see what Lumpy has done in Toc. It starts to remind a bit of the old good times at Sportavia and the atmosphere is nice .“

The briefing room still has the same colour but nice new chairs and a new slogan on the wall; the Texas reminder. [Lumpy flew his first WGC and even won a day in Uvalde!!]
The old chairs were bought by the BIG STRAWBERRIE at KONOOMOO. We have been sitting on them whilst eating our strawberries! Tocumwal Soaring Centre

Our office in early times with only ladies, later mostly with George and Peter [Brutus for friends] who worked day and night, was busy with bookings, welcome and farewell moments and ALL that had to be organized and that was A LOT. Too much to write down.

One of the special moments in life was for me being” part” of the Sydney to Hobart race, . We flew with a few soaring-mates in a Citation Jet and our vintage Albatross from Tocumwal to Hobart.
We looked, at a very special spot around a rocky mountain ,to see the boats reach the harbour. Then quickly to the harbour to see it dock ; WINNER that year was George Snow and his crew. He flew gliders with us and his brother Terry [R.I.P.] belonged to our friends. We were invited on the boat, the Brindabella, and had bubbles and all kinds of great sea food.
What a moment that was!!!!! I did n’t even sail but we sat at the WINNING BOAT, we just were invited by lovely people and saw how it all worked . Magic Around Christmas and New Year this All happens again .

The “family-feeling” at Sportavia, was strong ,as most guests returned a year later.
That family feeling was also strong at comps!
The same pilots returned and it was ONE BIG family!
I spend more time in that period with Sportavia guests and comps guests ,than with my own family.
The bubbles in the early evening and the port with tea to finish the day, were “standard” but not too good for my health.
The gliding world has enriched my life enormously!!!
A lot of those kind people invited me to their home town/country and this way, I saw a lot of the world AND many new gliding places!!!
Also in Japan. [3] I am proud we had so many guests from Japan and with a few I am still in contact.

So you see I love Australia through SPORTAVIA and the gliding world.
But honestly I travelled a bit too and it is one of the most interesting and beautiful parts of the world.
THANKS!!!!!

Some thank you’s.
—–-Ritz your blog is/was the best in our Community! — nostalgisch.
Thanks Ritz for all the years !!—
thanks a lot!—
–—–“Man oh man” loads of respect how you reached the gliding community ALL over the world”
——Since 2006, your blog has served as a repository for international news
and information about our sport, and it remains widely read by glider
pilots around the world.”
—-– Though I do understand , it’s so sad you stop writing your blog. It always had interesting news and stories and it was the easiest way of following the soaring world.”
—–-“Thank you for your Blog „soaring.eu“; I will miss it!”
—–“Rietje and her alter ego Ritz, are meanwhile engrained in the collective memory (and the hearts) of the global soaring society. You go, girl…!!!”
——“Congrats on your upcoming “retirement”. I’ve enjoyed following along since we met at Uvalde in 2012. Enjoy your free time!“
–—–I was honoured to have known you.

CU next week for the last blog….indeed “an end of an era” with MY THANK you’s!!!!

cheers Ritz

HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS TIME!!!
May we live in peace all over the world!!!!!
The secretary general of the NAVO Mark Rutte said ;
“If you want peace ,you have to prepare for war“.
It does n’t sound good to me , but he is right.

Great picture from Jonker;