Post 1.392 on November 21 2022.

NAMIBIA:
With 5x a 1000 km (1x FAI), 3x 1.100 km und 1x 1.200 km on November 15 , it turned out to be one of those good/better days in Bitterwasser.
‘The season has now really taken off. With almost 50 guests Bitterwasser is very well visited already at the beginning.
The participants of “Flying with the Youngsters” already got their money’s worth on the second day and were all able to record flights over 1000 km. “

Veronica had that same day, the same perfect gliding weather with distances from 1.282,00 km. [911,19
FAI] …1.151,50 [1000 FAI] in the Eta,….1.129,37 [827,42 FAI] ,….1.050,63 [773,26 FAI] ,….1.102,89 [693,72 FAI] ….1.035,14 [721,46 FAI],….and 3x more 1000 k.

Great -Total-Namibia- Day, as Pokweni and Kiripotib showed 1000 km flights as well!!!
Many happy guests, champions and “students”.
There will be for sure MORE great flights over the Namibia season you can see them on the OLC or WeGlide. I will follow the very special ones, but I congratulate EVERYBODY with their 1000, that magic “number” already for years in soaring.

One of those SPECIAL flights is the one from Bruno[Gantenbrink] on November 17.
Jonker Sailplanes used it to praise him quite rightly;
“Yesterday “the legend” Bruno Gantenbrink flew again the fasted speed in the category “bigger 1000 km” 1041 km from Veronica (Namibia) with a speed of 148 km/h in the JS2 Revenant 21m new self launcher from Jonker Sailplanes.”
Great effort, certainly when you know he is not the youngest anymore. Seeing him at many comps in the past , he must be now in his early eighties.

And one of the guests from Soaring Safaris in Bloemfontein shared;
“Soaring safaris South Africa, wow. Get up. Look out of the window, do breakfast, arrive at the field. The team have the covers off and the glider washed, go to briefing, put fuel, oxygen and task into the glider, the team tow it to the grid. Get in and fly. Love it”.
Soaring Safaris

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Info ; For the 2023 EUROPEAN season.

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Info for this overseas season;
Long, long ago in the early eighties, when we visited Tocumwal for the first time as guests from Bill Riley at the SSC [ Sportavia Soaring Center] , we got flyers like below with promotion for flying over there. Ingo as instructor, was, with respect, the main attraction. But the airfield, the WW2 hangar, the people in town and the staff from Sportavia made us so happy, that we came back every year , bringing more and more people.
As you know we took over half of the business …50 %…. in 1994, together with Jeff and Margie.
From guests to owners was a huge step. In 1997,as …on that sad day on January 5, Jeff our partner unexpectedly died in a midair, we had to do it by our selves [ full owners] with of course help of most of the staff who was there already for a long time.
At that stage , it really was and even became more, a famous soaring paradise for pilots from all over the world, till November 2006 ,……when the then sole owner Richard, auctioned it all in one go.
There are still people who think we sold it by auction, we would have NEVER done so.
Mid 2005 Richard , who slowly became a partner , took over and after a year it was not what he wanted/hoped for and organized the auction, whilst he promised me to never ever do so. [ I was already scared /worried he could do so!!!]
We had lived for more than 10 years at the camping area with many others and were just ordered to leave!!!!!!Of course we lived in a beautiful house as well, but the caravan always stayed a favorite spot AT the field!!!!
Close to the white gum-tree in honor to Kees Musters [R.I.P. December 27 in 1987 and Dennis,[January 3 1988] planted on the funeral day of Dennis on January 10 1988.
I left Australia , back to The Netherlands.
Whilst writing , I still feel sad!!!!
But,….I still have contact with a lot of happy guests/mates and had unforgettable and lovely years in Tocumwal….. that stays FOREVER…even when we lost everything!!!!!
So I hope this flyer works as well for Sharon and Lumpy , the owners nowadays, who really have put a lot of effort in building it all up again.

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OLC news; OLC – onlinecontest.org
A vision has become reality – OLC-Live has started.
The innovation to bring logger data and the internet together and thereby generate a worldwide daily updated ranking was the basis for the development of the OLC more than 20 years ago. Already at that time, the dream was born to be able to present the sport of gliding not only daily updated, but also live. It was not only about a pure presentation of the current positions. Rather, the live presentation should be integrated directly into the current daily ranking.
This vision has now become reality.
Read more: https://www.onlinecontest.org/…/segelfl…/cmsnews.html…

The young WeGlide entrepreneurs started already with a new way of sharing flights and are doing a great job.

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News from FAI Sailplane Grand Prix
“The FAI Sailplane Grand Prix is currently engaged in the 11th series of national contests with the succesful completion of 7 qualifying national contests in Europe . The next contests will be held in Australia and South Africa during January 2023. The final of the 11th series will be held at Pavullo in Italy at the end of August 2023.
The FAI/SGP management team are pleased to announce the schedule for the 12th FAI/SGP series of contests.
The national contests for the 12th series will take place during 2024 and the 12th final will take place in 2025.
Bid documents and conditions for organising a national event will be published in December 2022 on sgp.aero “

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News from FAI – World Air Sports Federation;
“German pilot Conny Schaich crowned IGC Champion Pilot of the Year 2022 after glittering competition results .
Conny is the current world champion in the Standard Class, winner of the 2022 FAI Women’s World Gliding Championships at Husbands Bosworth, United Kingdom, where she achieved the highest percentage in comparison to the maximal possible points over all the other current gliding world champions. This result shows her dominance over the world’s best female glider pilots in her class.
Full story on https://bit.ly/3tKp4zm
Congratulations Conny….so welll done!!!!!

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Out of the blue we had another weather record this year 2022.
After a hot summer, many the hottest- ever- October- days up to 20 dgr. C, we got an unexpected northerly stream bringing us snow, icy temperatures up to minus 10 last weekend.
The coldest -ever-November-temperature in the Netherlands.
No not as much snow as in New York, but snow and the first die-hards went speed skating on natural ice already on 1cm thick ice, by sprinkling water over a running track.
We Dutch have been born on bikes and skates!!!!

Lot’s of snow in The Pyrenees as well as you can see on this picture shared by our former guest long time ago, Olivier.

Clearly the winter sport holidays can start.
F1 is over, with Max as glorious winner and a farewell to great driver Seb.
But world-soccer starts now . I am interested in seeing the scores, but due to ALL what happened in Qatar, not so much in the matches.
Though I was proud on the Iranian soccer- heroes to NOT sing the National hymn.
I also still believe that sport is and must be sport and politic is politic.
But nowadays everything seems controversial.

CU next week
Cheers Ritz