Egon Rehn in the Quintus M. as shared by Marcel Cavilha Juppa.

25 Pilots gathered in Formosa in Brazil for their 56th National Championship in 3 classes and in combination with the Copa Sul Americano de Voo a Vela 2014. They flew for 6 days!
They started with pretty good weather and in open class the 8 pilots got on the first 2 days,  3 hour  and 3.15 AAT-tasks and on day 3 a racing task. Egon Rehn flew with  great speed over a distance from 444.5 km. ;164.4 km./h.

 

      

Great skies and finishing gliders as shared by Marcel.

Also day 4 had good weather with in open class a 3 hour AAT, won with a speed of 150.5 km. h. , by Henrique Navarro in the Nimbus 4T. With that “win”  he moved to spot 1 overall , 14 points ahead of Egon.
The ” fight” in this class was interesting to follow.
Day 5 was a racing task from 356.4 km. and Egon was the best that day, but only by 10 points.
So day 6 , the last one with another 3 hour AAT, was important and it was a difficult one with several out landings! In the 13.5 m. class only 1 pilot finished,  in racing class 2 and in open 4.
Henrique finished as 2d ,  Egon 4th , so the ”  fight ” was over and Henrique won with a total of 5561 points , followed by Egon with 5458.
3 Of the 6 days were won by Henrique, Egon won 2 out of 6.

For the scores from the other 2 classes you can look at www.soaringspot.com 

The Copa Sul Americana was won by Argentinian pilot, Luis Colombero in an ASW 20. Mauricio Delfabro [Argentina] was runner up and after 6 days he only had 37 points less.

A couple of days after the comps , on Sunday, the weather was still good as Felipe Dantas showed with his flight in the Nimbus 4T; 631.69 km. It looks like he flew his glider home in an OUT and NO return, but when I checked I heard it was a “fun-flight” to LEM [ the airfield of Luis Ed. Magalhaes].Must have been GOOD fun!

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The FAREWELL FLIGHT from the MD 11 from KLM on November 11 2014, was sold out in 3 minutes. Enough fans for this last flight world wide  in a beautiful  MD 11- passenger- plane . The 3 engine plane will start from and land at Schiphol Airport. Nice price as well; 111 Euro. I was TOO late!!!
The end of an era. The last regular flight will be from Canada [Montreal]  to Holland on October 25.

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 Our European summer season is over and lots of gliders are already on their way for the overseas season. Australia showed already some good -early-spring-weather. It even became better with a 739 km.[500 km. FAI triangle]  flight by David Jansen from Kingaroy last Saturday in the ASG 29/18m; nice speed as well speed 120.22 km./h.

Also our Israelian mates had a top – Saturday with flights up to just under 500 km. in a DG 505/20 m. A total from 7 flights were added by the pilots from the Negev Gliding Center.Not bad.

An other interesting flight was flown by Jim Payne, this time in the new ARCUS M from Dennis. From Minden he did 5 test flights and shared;
“ This flight completes the FAA Phase One flight test (5 flights and 5 hours) of Dennis’ new Arcus M. It can now soar more than 50 NM from Minden.”

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Last Monday  the OLC finished year 2014 and on  that day we knew the CHAMPIONS from 2014. No secret that Jim Payne with his LONG flights was the world wide winner.He also had the best flight .
Looking at all flights Klaus Engelhardt had the most ,80 which was a total of 51.791,11 km., and the highest score; 52.209,88.
Bitterwasser won as “busy airfield with  long flights”as 134 pilots flew a total of 710.940,28 km. in 913 flights. Runner up Puimoisson had 576.419,73 km. with 269 pilots who made 1533 flights.
AND…this year the Gliding Club from Victoria was according to the OLC stats, the ” best”  club just ahead of 2 Dutch clubs de Gelderse and the Amsterdamse.
Congratulations to all, as well as to all individual pilots winning in each of their countries. WELLDONE!!!

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AND,…..it’s spring in Australia ,…time to run/chase the roller clouds again at Burketown in the N. of Australia .
The  Burketown region will host its first morning glory festival later this week.The first pilots have arrived and the first clouds have been “flown”.
As you know this rolling cloud formation can sometimes be several hundreds of kilometers long, it’s pretty rare and not too much is known about it.But all my friends who have been chasing it were “over the moon”, when they did so. Sometimes it’s waiting and waiting, but when the phenomena is there they “use” to the fullest.

This picture from Burketown was send to me in the past by Jo and Tony Tabart.

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And to finish….do you remember ” A bridge too far”?
Operation MARKET GARDEN, was remembered  by many here in Holland!! Also a few of the still living International veterans were invited. This operation to free Holland in 1944, was unfortunately stopped by the Germans when they bombed the bridge in Arnhem.That was a disaster for the people in the N. who entered the hunger-winter.  Eating flower bulbs was a way to stay alive, but sadly enough a lot did not survive.
What I heard the festivities  were MORE than impressive. The regio around Arnhem as Oosterbeek and Groesbeek, shared in the memory-festivities, as the bridge at Nijmegen over the river Waal,  coming from the S. direction Arnhem ,was conquered  by the Allies, the next one over the Rhine in Arnhem was one too far . A lot of brave men , around 15.000 died in these actions.
This is MARKET GARDEN 70 years later as seen by my sister in law Henriette, who lives in Groesbeek.

  

Parachutists over the Ginkelse Heide.

Next week back with more news.
Cheers Ritz on Wednesday September 24 2014, one day after they took a biopsy from a little suspicious spot on my left eyelid, so I look now  more or less with one eye.