Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday January 9 2011 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
The weather has been pretty poor lately. Even in Holland where the snow has melted because of heavy rain, so “hurray” no snow anymore here.
Neither pilots in Australia, or Namibia or South Africa have flown 1000 km. tasks in 2011 till last Friday and mind you this is HIGH season!!!!
I was impressed with the nice 510 km. flight from Grant , flying from Temora on day one from 2011, in a Slingsby,T59-D Kestrel. Was this maybe Richard’s Kestrel, flying in Tocumwal for a long period in the past before it was sold ?
On November 14 2010 the first stage of Canberra Airports $350 million terminal upgrade was complete and opened it’s doors to the people of Canberra and the Nation.
The work done on the airport is unbelievable. Stage 1,created the birth of a new terminal, and the project was called; AIRVOLUTION!!! As Stephen, who flew with us at Sportavia in the past, said; “Canberra was easily the worst terminal in the country and to fully exploit its potential , would mean razing it to the ground and re-building it from the foundations up. Thus the term Airvolution was coined.
Chairman Terry , also a former guest at Sportavia, is proud and with his team responsible for the biggest and most important change in the airport’s history.
The new terminal will be totally finished in 2012. This month they begin with the construction of the Western Concourse Terminal Extension.
For those who want to see it and want to know more about it , look at ; www.canberraairport.com.au
Received news from the JS 1 dealer as newsletter 4 is out now in pdf. There is also a link to their facebook site with regular updates;
You can find the Facebook page via de following link
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jonker-Sailplanes/188010050668?ref=ts
Also found on Facebook the link from Sven to
SA Nationals 2010, one day in the JS1 cockpit
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2F&h=05b4d
Also received news on the Perlan project . They have started a new project and are building a new plane for that. Read for all the latest;
http://www.perlanproject.com/project_phase_1.php
http://www.perlanproject.com/photos.php
And received news from Erik about ” stages” in Vinon. We talk mountain-flying now! They offer different kinds of courses , mainly changing in the degree of difficulty.
“Decouverte de la montagne “ ,discover the mountains, specially for those pilots who do not have , or want to brush up their mountain experience. You fly with an instructor and the price to do so , is interesting.
“Stage de grand vols”, the BIG flights for experienced pilots , with one of Vinon’s top-pilots as there is , Alain Poulet , who flew from Vinon to Fes [Moroco], an intercontinental flight of 1500 km. and who has flown more then 30.000 soaring hours!!!!, but also with Didier Hauss who I know from several WGC’s as well as Gilles Navas and Belgium pilot Paul Janssens.
You can ask for information at the email address of well known pilot Regis Kunts
mailto:vinon-soaring@wanadoo.fr or look at their web site;
http://www.vinon-soaring.fr
Life continues, on Thursday finally longer flights over 800 km. in Corowa , still struggling pilots not with showers but with dry thermals, wind and to low temperatures in the beginning, later however great clouds up to 3000 m above ground .
Lot’s of pilots practising in Benalla for the comps.
Great practise for Tobias Geiger who flew a SUPER 750 km. triangle with a speed of 100 km p/h in and LS 4 last Thursday!!!!!
Nice flight from Peter Rafael as well, from Bendigo Gliding Club who must have enjoyed his triangle of 329 km.in the wooden glider Maupin-Woodstock 11.9.
Good to see Ib and Ole back in Corowa for their annual soaring. Danish record -flying will start again. Hope the weather stays so good now as last year!
Thanks Ole for your comment!!!! I had to laugh as well!!!
And…then on Friday and Saturday the weather improved everywhere, 1000 km flights for Bitterwasser and Kiripotib on Friday and nice long flights from Tocumwal [852 km.] Gariep Dam [821]and Corowa [770 km], nice declared 750 triangle for Pepe and a 750 for Ib on his first flight of the season. Not bad!
For those that are interested the WA state comps start today [Jan. 6] at Beverley in Western Australia. To see the list of entries and results see www.waga.org.au
Tuesday was practice day one and lift was about 7kts to 8000ft under Cu. Yesterday we were washed out! Today there’s a cold westerly blowing about 25kts to contend with, hopefully things will improve in coming days. The comp is a dry comp run as one class using the old National Club Class handicaps from when the nationals used to be a single class.
The Nationals in Benalla are about to begin, will keep you informed.
Just spilled my cup of tea over the desk. GRRRRrrr….. All paperwork wet, but luckily nothing over the computer! Less lucky was the pilot who spilled coffee over the communication systems in the cockpit of his Boeing 777, flying from Chicago to Frankfurt with 255 passengers and crew. The pilot had to make an extra landing at Toronto Airport in Canada, as due to the coffee , the emergency-signals had started and refused to stop!!!
Lot’s of you know the good quality of my eyes to see distance. Always the first to spot a finishing glider. Have the beginning of cataract now on my right eye, not too much to worry at this stage. A bit of a nuisance though.More investigations in February.And…Holland escaped disaster as a huge chemical plant burned down with thousands of liters poisonous and toxic material. Fire Brigade was busy for over 30 hours, lot’s of explosions and fire that high as not seen before in Holland and big dark clouds going with the wind up North to where we live and then “they ” say that there is no extra pollution in the air. Can’t believe that, to be true!
That’s it for now, good to be back in the normal rhythm. Cheers Ritz