Alphen aan den Rijn     Wednesday September 1 2010     ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

September 1, means summer is over , meteorological spoken I mean , as we might enjoy a nice after-summer, who knows. So autumn starts , something we felt over the last week in several parts of Europe. The Alps from Bayern not far from Munich had SNOW at 1300 m!!!!! That is VERY unusual for the end of August!!! That low it still melts but higher then 1800 m. there is already real snow!!!!
“Our”August was the wettest since 1906 with an average of 170 mm instead of 62 mm.It was also cooler then normal with an average of 16.8 dgr. C instead of 17.2 dgr. and more dark,  as we had “only” 165 hours of sun instead of 198 hours.

They did not succeed to squeeze  another day out ,during the 18 m Nationals in the UK . They waited till nearly 4 PM and had to scrub another day, their last one. Mike Young is the winner in 18 m. class and the Regionals were won by Kim Tipple. The worst thing is that on Monday the nicer weather started!!!! Our meteo here advised even a holiday to the UK !!!!!
We had more fallen trees and damaged roofs over the weekend ,but is pretty good here now too.

The Masters , the very first for Belgium,started in St. Hubert. From August 28 till September 5 20 selected pilots  fight for the honnour. Quite some top pilots do so as Rene de Dreu the former  young European champion , but also Patrick Stouffs who flies since ages. The Schmelzer -brothers are there as well as is dad. And some of the French speaking Belgium toppilots, as Jean- Luc Colson, and Yves Jeanmotte as well as French pilot Louis Bouderlique.
In fact ONLY the best 10 pilots from Belgium according to the IGC list have been invited as well as ,  5 from the Club of St Hubert and 5 wild cards!!!
 On the the first day a task was set but nobody finished some did not even start. Yves Jeanmotte [ President of the ACRA] flew 53 of the 148 km. and was the best, so NO day. In fact the same weather- description as above in  Holland.
On Monday and Tuesday the weather slightly improved  ……but …was still not good enough to fly. Maybe tomorrow!
Gliders with a handicap between 98 and 110 BGA handicap [discus to 18 m. gliders] are allowed.

The OLC showed for the end of August  perfect flights from the mountains in France and Italy. Serres la Batie showed 4 over 1000 km flights in a Stemme, LS 8 , LS10 and DG 8oo, flights were over Aosta,the Mecca [ in my time] for wave,  while Vinon had one as well. In Italy flights up to 727 km from Trento and 609  from Rieti.
And….indeed the weather improved over the UK with flights up to over 500 km. from Booker and around 400 from Dunstable, where a few of my ” Sportavia-soaring-friends “fly and Lasham, with some SSC friends as well. AND…..This weather is slowly arriving here!

Just back from Amsterdam , so enough to do. See you on Sunday,

Cheers Ritz