Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday March 2 2011 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
The 2011 IGC meeting will be held this week in Lausanne on March 4 and 5 and all important and very experienced people are on their way to , or should be by now, in Lausanne. A lot of issues will be put on the table as well as bids for the future WGC’ s and EGC’s. I wish them all 2 excellent days full of good, exciting and wise decisions, but also a lot of fun . It is great that so many of them involved in gliding spend their [ valuable ] time to be at this plenary and take part in committees and working groups , in which they work hard over the year. Thanks on behalf of all glider pilots ,who just can sit back, follow the news at the FAI site or via twitter and hear at home from the delegates what to do. If you look at the agenda……..FULL!!!!
From Vermont in the USA , Rick Sheppe has arrived in Lausanne and for the TWITTERFRIENDS amongst us here is his message;
—Rick will be on twitter during the meeting using hashtag #igc
Luckily he informs people who are not familiar with twitter also ; like me. Have to learn that as well, but being on Facebook was already a beginning.
To see the full agenda look at; www.fai.org/gliding/igc_plenary11
On the pictures a few of those hardworking and well known officials,Dick Bradley from South Africa [treasurer] , Roland Stuck ,[ vice-president] Tor Johannessen from Norway [ president of honour] and Marina Vigorito Galetto from Italy,[ alternate delegate], all of them present in Lausanne.
Terrible to hear that at least over 5000 after-shocks have hit Christchurch and that people with their losses and fears are still going trough very though times.
Time will heal and there will be restoration and building of new houses, as I saw in beautiful Napier where in 1931 such an earthquake hit , but that does n’t really help the hurt people now.
Also in Napier, the cathedral collapsed as well as several houses and shops in town, that fantastic ART DECO village. When I was there last December I visited the cathedral and spoke with the priest in it. I made a picture from the monument in town and a memory on what happened on that black day.
In Christchurch 154 people have been found dead now and still more then 50 are lost!!!
On the picture you see how Napier looks now and how the church looked in 1931 !!!
Still fantastic soaring weather in Australia. What about Alan Barnes’ flight [ FAI triangle over 700 km!] from Jondaryan last Sunday; 736 km. again in the LS1f !!!!!
He is now about 20 points ahead on Terry Belair , the other Australian kilometer -eater, as best Australian pilot flying in Australia on OLC.
Tragic to hear from Bones, our former tuggie and now captain on a “flying-boat”, a Mallard, flying for the Pearl business from Paspaley in Darwin, that a turbine goose being ferried from Saudi to the USA ,crashed just after take off on a taxi-way at Dubai. All 4 skilled pilots died, as the plane caught fire straight away.Bones knew one of them pretty well.
If you have been flying in an amphibian even once it “get’s you”, so I was extra sad to read it. I know/ have seen that a landing and/or start on water is pretty difficult, more then starting on a runway on “wheels”. We owned an Albatross a few years ago , after buying it from the USA -owner ,while staying in Minden for the pre-worlds, who ended up in the end in Uvalde in 1991. So be careful when you fly WGC’s you might go home with something “special”.
“Our ” former ‘Grumman HU16 Albatross was flown by 3 pilots from Santa Rosa to Hawaii and from there to Brisbane with 3 stops one in Noumea. From there to Tocumwal , I guess this was 1998; Bones got his training in it later in 2003, making it easier for him to get a job in such kind of planes .The Albatross is still in the hangar at Tocumwal Airport. Here are the pictures. Thanks Diana.
Pictures from the Mallard in the next blog, as Bones is still in Broome!
Compliments to the crew of a C-130 from the RAF, who in the middle of a desert in Lybia , 300 km south of the Mediterranean Sea coast and in the middle of a sandstorm , dared to land during a secret mission on a runway nearly invisible as the lines were covered with sand, to pick up 150 people stuck at an oil business where they worked. Under them one Dutch guy who ‘s reaction was that calling it “an exciting adventure” was too romantic it was more “a Hitchkock-thriller”. Only later they found out that the plane flew on a height of aprox. 30 meters to avoid the radar and the pilots pulled up again over the Coast line on their way to Malta. Chapeau!!! [source AD]
Dutch tulipes for the crew !!!
And….now spring has started we look back here on how winter was and it was COLD. Normal average temperature is 3.3 dgr., this winter we had 2.4 and December was since 40 years not so cold with MINUS 1.1 dgr to an average of PLUS 4. My Scandinavian and Canadian friends will laugh now, but …for us, it WAS cold. Normally we have 28 days with frost , this year 52 !!!!! And….I am not the only person here in Holland who is pleased that spring has started now. Let the sun come and higher temperatures , gosh it is already there !!!!!…Cheers Ritz