Post 1.455 on November 15 2023

The WGC site for all the news; https://wgc2023.com.au

Narromine slowly “fills” with overseas pilots!!! On November 28 till December 1 with the opening on December 2 and the first day of flying till December 16.
A total of 79 pilots will enjoy the hospitality of Narromine to the fullest, I am sure of that, as I always enjoyed it too.
Of course their crews and TC’s will experience the same. Lot’s of die-hard Aussies will spend a day or 2 to be part of this “show” as well. Also locals, friends and family will gather. That’s what world championships are “made/meant ” for.
I hope that due to the cyber attack on the Australian harbors there will be no problems with the containers. I hope they have ALL arrived already and are cleared.
ABC had the next news;
“—Goods coming in and out of Australia are at a stand still because a major port operator DP World has shut down land operations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Fremantle.
—The federal government is helping respond to the incident.
—The National Cyber Security Coordinator; the situation could take days to resolve, which the ABC understands could lead to significant freight delays.”
GOOD TO KNOW!!!!!The problems seem to be solved, but 30.000 containers are waiting now to be dealt with.

AND,…..Here is the CONTEST DIRECTOR – Mike Durrant important person for the comps.
Welcome to WGC Narromine 2023!

On behalf of the Australian gliding community, it’s my pleasure to welcome all competitors, spectators, and organisers who will be participating in the 37th FAI World Gliding Championships in Narromine in November/December 2023.

It’s not often that Australia has the opportunity to host the Worlds, so we’re very excited to be running the event this year, and I feel hugely privileged to have been appointed to the role of Competition Director. We expect around 80 pilots from around the world to travel to Narromine and compete in what we expect will be sensational weather conditions, so it should be an absolutely spectacular event!

Of course, running an event of this nature is a huge team effort. We have a team of over 50 volunteers from across Australia (and the Czech Republic!) covering all aspects of the competition, from administration and events through to scrutineering, tasking, and flight operations. There isn’t room here for me to name and thank everyone who has been and will be contributing their time and expertise to the competition, but it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge Deputy Competition Director Beryl Hartley. Beryl was absolutely key to bringing the event to Australia, and she is continuing to do an extraordinary amount of work on the ground to ensure we host a successful competition.

We’re pulling out all stops to make this a great event – our catch cry for the competition is “Safe, Fair and Fun”. We hope that the Australian gliding community will support the event either by coming along to Narromine, or by following the competition on Soaring Spot or LiveGliding.“

And a tip from Adam;
“HOT TIP: try to always fly a MC3.0kt final glide into any Australian field, we have some gnarly sink in Australia & if you set off on your MC0.5kt like in EU, you’ll probably find yourself coming up short. We have big lift in Australia, but also the other side of the coin too, for long periods of times...”
When you have never been in Australia don’t expect to fly every day a 1000, so have a good look at the weather first to don’t land out on day 1 like in Benalla in ’87. The wind was much stronger than originally forecasted.
Back to Benalla for a moment:
104 from 108 pilots OUT. Open class [with 21 pilots] had a 556,4 km with 4TP’s, 15 m [ 43 pilots] same but with 444,8 km and standard [ 44 pilots] a triangle of 437.8 km.
Open class pilots / heroes Ingo Renner,[1000 points] Ray Lynsky from NZ [ 983 p] ,Marc Schroeder and Gabriel Chenevoy from France [ 962.949 p.] managed to finish, winning at least over 200 points more than the rest that day as Dutch pilot Gerrit Kurstjens on a great spot 5 got 786 points for 514,6 km..
Some crews arrived late in the night some the next morning, and in the past I wrote already that one of the cars AND trailer were “out” due to huge damage. “Our ” trailer; Sorry the trailer is for no good” was the remark at 7 AM after they knocked on our door.
It was a real hectic day!!!!
Erik ” Herbie” Moser wrote in his magazine “Good finish” about this day 1;
“A new world record was set with 104 landouts…. . Could this be a sign of things to come?“

Talking about the USA;
“Team USA is heading to the WGC in Narromine NSW, Australia shortly. Representing the US in the Standard Class are Sarah Arnold and Tom Holloran; 15 M Class, Rick Indrebo and Tim Taylor and the Club Class, Mike Westbrook and Tony Condon. Pete Alexander, Team Captain, will be posting tasks, conditions and photos and John Good, daily reports. Find current information here on our FB site, Instagram, and of course” https://www.ssa.org/us-teams/

Back to Narromine again; I know that a few overseas pilots/crews are going to visit our former venue Sportavia as well, ahead of the event to collect a glider, a trailer or just a visit now they are in Australia.
Some are former friends of “our” Dennis and visit his grave in Toc.
After having lived there for over 10 years PLUS at least an extra 10 summers,” I keep going” for Tocumwal !!!!
Good to see that Lumpy and his team have cleaned the hangar and put their own stamp now on the building.
www.tocumwalsoaring.com
To find the TSC [in the past SSC] easy, here you are;

——News from Benalla;
“The 2023/24 National Gliding Championships, Open, 18m, 15m and Standard classes will be hosted by the Gliding Club of Victoria at the Benalla Airport from 16 – 26 of January 2024.
GCV will be operating full time throughout December and January. Launching and weather briefing will be available daily for those pilots who wish to arrive earlier.”

–—–News from the UK;
“On Saturday 24th of February 2024, the BGA Sporting Conference is returning to the Holywell Park Conference Centre at Loughborough University followed by our Annual Awards Dinner at Burleigh Court Hotel at Loughborough University!
It’s going to be another great day, and for those who are staying on for the awards dinner, a fun evening too! We look forward to welcoming you, whether alone or with a group of like-minded friends!
As ever, the Sporting Conference is FREE to attend!”

—–FAI Sailplane Grand Prix has announced the new calendar;
And here we go for series 12 of the SGP! We will welcome you during these qualifying national events:

– Spain, Santa Cilia early May 2024

– Norway, Starmoen mid May 2024

– Germany, Aalen end of May 2024

– Italy, Varese mid June 2024

– Slovenia, Lesce early July 2024

– France, St-Sulpice mid July 2024

– Australia, Gawler early January 2025

– Netherlands, Terlet mid May 2025

– USA, Estrella date to be announced (will be Spring 2025)

World Final:

– France, St-Auban end of August 2025

“Welcome to the first Qualifying Sailplane Grand Prix in The Netherlands to be held from 11-17 May 2025 at airfield Terlet.
The Dutch feel pretty good about their involvement in this 12th series, so they should;
“For an event such as the SGP you need to have a club that understands the value of it, a club with competitions and cross-country soaring in their DNA.
This is why the SGP is in good hands with the Gelderse Zweefvliegclub .
On top of that they make already a lot of “noise”, read good PR ,about this upcoming event in Mai 2024.

——Since the beginning of November ALL 4 Namibia venues are active; Bitterwasser, Pokweni, Kiripotib and Veronica.

November 10 the first Namibian TOP day; 18 over 1000 km flights, 2 over 1.100 km. Indeed,…..When the weather is there and the pilots, good gliders and “champions”,…… that’s what happens. GOOD!!!
2x a 1000 FAI TRIANGLE!! From Kiripotob Austrian pilots Wolfgang / Gunter Steuer in the ARCUS M ; 1.115, 63/1.015,64 FAI TRIANGLE and from the UK David Pilkington with Tilo from Germany also in ARCUS M.; 1.081,94 / 1.027,74.
November 11 [beginning of carnival here] was another top- Namibia- day! 10 over 1000 km flights and 1 from Worcester in South Africa; Sven [Olivier] in his JS 1.
The season is “on steam” now!!!
Wolfgang even flew his 2d 1000; 1.116.99/1004 FAI TRIANGLE!!!!

——Henrique Navarro mentioned;
“Sunday I beat 3 Brazilian Records in the 15 meters class: (i) FAI triangle distance; (ii) FAI free triangle distance; and (iii) 3 TP distance.
Total flight was 803 km at 120kph and the glider was the super Ventus 3TS “N1”.“
So another good day for him.Congratulations.

——In between comps were/are in progress again.
The one in NZ from Taupo, the Central Plateau Contest November 2023, just finished with a good number of days not all of them good; 5 out of 8 in open and in racing class, though the last day was flown by 1 pilot in open .
With 7 pilots in open and 6 in racing they started on November 5 with their first day , then 3 days “no flying” and 4 consecutive days with 2.30 and 2x 3 hour AAT’s and a 2 hour AAT in open.
Winner in open with 3.694 points was David Jensen in a JS1, winning 3 days.
Winner in racing was Geoffrey Thompson in LS 6A with 1.096 points.

—–The 2023/2024 State Gliding Comps at Lake Keepit [November 11-18] started with 2 reasonable practice days and on November 12 the 19 pilots in open got a 2.30 AAT. Some pilots I know from long ago and of course from the WWGC in 2019.
Open;
task 1 2.30 AAT 2 of the pilots I know in this class had an airspace violation, which is not a good start.
Daily winner; Greg [Kolb] in his 18m Ventus 2CX flew around with 96 km./h over 242.53 km. for 880 points.
A day with no clouds ,but bright and with lift.
November 13 had task 2 another 2.30 AAT won by Richard Frawley in an 18m JS3. 293 km in time 2.30 so a nice speed of 116,78 km./h.
Nick {Singer} in his JS1 was runner up. Nick is one of the Keepit instructors and a good chef …for friends….in the clubhouse when necessary. I loved his meals.
About the same conditions but weak lift.”the weather is similar to yesterday, they are expecting that conditions will be such that climbing will be difficult and average best heights won’t be very high.
November 14 task 3; 318.89 km won again by Greg. Speed 114.69 km./h.
6 from 20 were out.
November 15 task 4; 3.30 AAT...393 km in an ARCUS M by Justin Smith was the best result; speed 112.32. AND,…the first 1000 -points- day!!!!
Our former colleague in Sportavia , so long ago ,Mathias was runner up in his JS 3… good on him. Brad [Edwards] was 3d and Greg was 6th
More next week.

Club class;
task 1 ; with 8 pilots plus 1 HC had a 2.30 AAT won by Michael Strathern in an ASW 20….84 km./h over 221 km.
Task 2; 2.30 AAT and won again by Michael….249.66 km. in time 2.38; speed 94.51 km./h.
task 3; 268.26 km set racing task. With 93.33 km/h Michael was the best, so already 3 consecutive day daily winner.
Task 4; 3.30 AAT…NO new news…Michael was the best ; 378.67 km in time 3.36 so a speed of 104.89 km./h.
Good to see the St. Libelle flew a nice distance too,[ 225 km speed 64.39 km./h] as well as a St. Cirrus [ 217.93 km speed 62.27 km./h] and Grob 103sl.[ 300.58 km ,speed 84.60 km./h]
2 were out.
More next week.

That’s about it. Not long and there will be more news fro my site on the WGC as I have many family members [4] and enough friends to inform me.
So keep reading,stay tuned.

Cheers Ritz