DUTCH NATIONALS AT TERLET with 6 out of 12 day’s;
On Wednesday it was raining in the morning, BUT still enough to do at briefing as one of the Dutch Juniors , Jelmer Vis, received his prize for being the best in the Ventus 2A in the combi class, the day before. Good on him.
Jelmer tells the “rest” how he did it!!! With CD Ton to the left.
They are a real nice bunch of young enthusiastic and eager pilots, as you can see.
The Dutch gliding future!!!
As shared by Dutch Junior Gliding Team.
pict 1; Happy young Chappies, Lars Groot and …..pict 2.;2 sons Thijs and Hidde of 2 dad’s Rien and Tjeerd….. both Rien and Tjeerd fly the nationals already for years and,…also this year;
Juniors Thijs Bastiaanse and Hidde Reitsma, the new generation, “like father like son”!!!!!
last picture as seen by Mira van Aalst.
Unfortunately Wednesday was cancelled. Most stayed for the day as , they knew the quality of a good BBQ in the evening. So only 2 day’s to go but it’s already more than some other years.
Thursday they carefully tried to squeeze a day out. Tasks were set ,but …in the end, they had to scrub the day.
Task 10 on Friday LAST DAY;
as shared by the organizers.
Glorious ,but also “dangerous “looking skies, so short tasks to have atleast another day and be back before the expected thunderstorms would arrive.
We had a nasty one here yesterday evening with loud thunder, no rain , but fire brigades racing out after the first BIG BANG.
18 m…189 km.;
Difficult day in the office and some “motored” home. Those without an engine had to go for it and the best still were the best , though Jelmer’s day was not too flash with a 5th place and a speed of 66,65 km./h BUT he was back!!!Sikko, Hans [Biesters] and Steven formed the last daily top 3. So the DUTCH CHAMPION is STEVEN RAIMOND, with 4.392 points . He won 4 day’s !! Silver was ready for Sikko ,who won the last 2 day’s[!!]; 4.204 and for the bronze with 3.585 points , the 5th place was no problem for Jelmer [Wassenaar].
With Steven, Sikko and Jelmer . I had all 3 as TC in my team at different comps .
As shared by the organizers.
open…185 km.;
7 from 10 finished and Ronald [ Termaat ] showed his class and won the last daily prize, his 2d this week.
Peter Millenaar is the new Dutch champion in open class. [4.416 p.] Peter was 4th on the last day but he won 3 days and was runner up on 2 day’s.Maybe he likes the Quintus better now than the Ventus 3. We have to wait and see ,but I guess NOT!!!!
On spot 2 Ronald with 4.184 and on spot 3 Mark Wering with 3.844 points.
With Peter, Ronald and Mark.
As shared by the organizers.
combi…166 km.;
The young ones/ juniors did well and the son’s from the father’s won the day in the Duo Discus XL! They moved from 4 to 3 so bronze for the boy’s Thijs and Hidde. [3.442]
The other junior, Lars, unfortunately was out after 72 km. and lost his 3d place overall, to drop to 4. [3.425]
Who was runner up?My former junior in the 2005 WWGC in Husbos, Robbie Seton, who had a great start by winning task 2 and 3 and by being runner up on task 7. [3.940]
And,…then the new DUTCH CHAMPION in the COMBI class!!! TEAM PETER BATENBURG/Bouma in the ARCUS T. [4.041]
With team Batenburg/Bouma on spot 1, my former junior Robbie to the left and the new upcoming juniors on the right.
The prize-giving- ceremony to honor the champions was at 8 and after,..yes PARTY TIME.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL !!!!
Rookies of the year; Thijs Bastiaanse and Diana Schuit.
By the way the comps ended on Friday. On Saturday they flew from Soesterberg [Aeroclub from Amsterdam] 593 km in LS 3 and 710 in ASW 22 BLE
To finish the NK, 2 great pictures from Mira van Aalst; Ronald with his finish in XT on the last day which he won.
———–
——OBGN [ Open Belgian Gliding Nationals ] from St Hubert in Belgium.
With only 2 day’s in club and combi and 3 in 18m./open, they desperately need MORE days to make it a valid competition in 2 classes.
And,..no luck on Wednesday, cancelled.
On Thursday I noticed NO GRIDDING, so another “lost” day. Such a pity!!!
BUT,……
On Friday it was UP IN THE AIR again and HOW!!!?:??
combi…434,54; Cousins Dennis and Jeroen “tackled” the big task together each in an LS 8, starting, flying and finishing together,…both 1000 points. After 3 day’s of flying there is a difference of TWO points between the cousins!
club…308,54; 2 LS 4 gliders in the top and only 3 from 8 finishing but 1000 points for Benoit and 991 for Bernard. The 3d finisher in the LS 1d flew 5 hours and 39 minutes [speed 54,57 km./h.] 2 Pilots flew over 100 km.
18 m./open …501,89 km !!! With a early start, Pierre left in the “mighty EB 29” AND he was back first too. A great race , as the 500 km. was done by him with a speed of 110.29 km. /h.
Bert jr and Tijl were runners up with 96,59 km./h and 92,40 so quite a difference.1000 Well deserved points for Pierre.
Only 4 finishers in this class and Wim lost his 1st place overall by out-landing after 485 km.
With hopefully 2 flyable days to go the overall scores after 4 day’s in this class ;1. Bert jr ..3.032. 2. Pierre ..3.003 and 3. Wim with 2.845. 4. Tijl has exactly 100 points less.
Great picture from “Wild-looking boy’s” Piere and Arnaud, ready for Pribam !!!! 
🇧🇪
As shared by Pierre.
Saturday; turned out to be the last day as Sunday had to be cancelled. They needed 4 day’s for a valid competition and they succeeded ,…only just……in 2 classes.
What happened on the last flying day 4 and 3 hour AAT’s, so a GOOD day again !!!
combi…4 hour AAT;
With nearly 400 km. Daan Spruyt won the 1000 points in his ASW 27 in time 4.04,55!!! With 20 km. less, but in 4.02, the Keiheuvel mates finished ….first Jeroen ..then Dennis and Jef. Critical for the title was that Jeroen had 2 more points on the last day AND,….with the 2 points he had already ,Jeroen is the new BELGIAN CHAMPION in this class;3.814 points and Dennis had as runner up 3.810. Jeff followed on 3 with 3,750.
Jeroen;”The past week we flew the Belgian Nationals in Saint-Hubert, as usual together in team with Dennis. We’ve been crowned as Belgian Champions after four days of flying, the weather wasn’t always a friend but after all we can be satisfied! ”
With Jeroen in the middle, Dennis to the right and Jef to the left ,with his son Leon, a future champion!!!
Picture shared by Gitte.
club…3 hour AAT:
Pieter Lievens flew 257 km. in time 3.21 and won the last 1000 points of this OBGN in the St Cirrus. He moved from bronze to silver! [2.692]Champion in club class is Benoit Evrard in the LS 4.[30. 88] He won 2 day’s and on one day he was runner up. On the last day 3d.
Pieter Lievens as vice champion in the Belgian combi class.
as shared by Pieter.
18m./open…4 hour AAT;
1000 points for Francois Delfosse in the ASG 29 for 455,87 km.in time 412.51. He was followed by Tijl and Bert ,Wim and Pierre. What does that do for the the overall scores?
Bert Schmelzer jr. is the new CHAMPION flying the new VENTUS 3.[4,006] The last day’s he took over , the overall lead from Wim. Wim had an outlanding the day before, when the toppers finished. But he could hold the 3d place!![3.817] Silver for Pierre and Arnaud de Broqueville with 3.945. Tijl was 4th.
Belgian champion in 18m./open Bert jr.
———-
——FAI SGP in Usman in Russia;
As shared by the organizers.
Not the best weather there either.Only 3 races till Friday and 4 cancelled days,so ALL hope was for Friday and Saturday the last 2 days.
BUT……Friday was cancelled too, so only Saturday to go!!!
AND,….this last race , number 3, changed the total situation.131 km was set with a regatta start at 13.45.
Petr finished on spot 8 only gaining 2 points. Not enough to keep the lead he had for 2 day’s. He finished on spot 3 overall with 11 points.
Evgeny Zlobin got the 11 points for the last day [1 point bonus] and won the SGP with 16 points.
Vladimir Radovski is the runner up with 12 points gaining 8 points on the last day.
Only 3 races were flown.
And the next FAI SGP started already last Sunday in
—–Boras FAI SGP …Sweden;
They started with 9 pilots , one from the UK , 2 from Germany , one from Norway and the rest from Sweden on Mai 27 [going till June 2]
Race 1; A short yo-yo task with challenging weather. Stefan mentioned ONE “good thermal” from 1.4.
3 of the 4 “strangers” straight away topped the scores after a very tricky day. Jon Gatfield [ASG 29ES] from the UK got the 4 points the German pilots Stefan Langer[Discus 2CT] and Christoph Limpert [ASG 29ES] the 2 and ONE point.
Jon, Stefan and Christoph race 1 winners.
As shared by the organizers.
Race 2; 172 km. but the weather did not co-operate. Scrubbed.
Race 3; 123 km. was set AND flown by all but some got penalties. David Gustavsson in the LAK 17 “got” the 8 points and Boerje [Eriksson] as runner up 6.
Today big task; 344.72 km.
more next week.
Looking at neighbor country Norway,…they had several over 700 km. flights yesterday.
Day 2 winners; David, Boerje and Stefan.
As shared by the organizers.
————-
——OSTROW GLIDE 2018….practice before the 35TH WGC for small ships which is from July 7 till July- 21 -2018
The Swedish and French pilots arrived already early, as always VERY serious about practice before a WGC..
Parallel with this Ostrow Glide for club class the Polish 15 m. Nationals….May 24-June 3 2018
Practice is in progress and not too bad weather;
As shared by Per Carlin from Team Sweden.
Unfortunately the”nice” weather moved away and there was no task 1 on day 1.
But then it turned in to good and better.
Club; has 41 participants and 8 ‘Foreigners” from Sweden, France and Germany.
Practice for the WGC was this day[task 1 2 hour AAT] best done by Tomasz Rubaj; 250 km in 2.20. Only 27 from 40 finished so a tough beginning.
task 2 was 335 km and again Polish winners,Marek Sawczuk [120 km./h.] and Jakub Barszcz [115 km./h] in ASW 20 f and SZD 55 ,.Per Carlin [LS 1f] from Sweden was on 3.
Task 3 with 317 km. was also in this class tough, BUT had one finisher;Tomasz Rubaj !!!! What a hero!!!!
He needed 5 hours to come home but he DID!!!!1000 well deserved points for him.So lot’s of out-landings and the Swedish team shared some pictures.
task 4 yesterday; a big one….3.30 AAT and very ready for the WGC is Tomasz who won for the 3d time;250 km. in time 2.20.A total of 27 from 40 finished.
After 4 day’s Tomasz leads with nearly 200 points. [www.soaringspot.com]
As shared by Per from team Sweden
15 m. Nationals; 25 participants,Sebastian Kawa was on the list but did not fly his GP 15 SE.
7- Not- Polish- pilots in this class.
So task 1 on the 25th was a 2.45 AAT. Polish pilot Lukasz Błaszczyk [won the first day with 334 km in 2.46. [Discus 2A]
Task 2 was a 406.89 km. race and we all know already that Polish pilots are good and at WGC’s have a very good TC, so this practice shows another top pilot from Poland on spot 1 with 127 km./h.;I call them the Lukaszes as there are several, but winner from race 2 was Lukasz Grabowski.[Diana 2] Like the day before , nearly all finished!!
Task 3 was another story ; 411.17 was set and NOBODY finished!! But still 1000 points for Leszek Staryszak who “nearly ” was home with 336 km.
Task 4 a 3 hour AAT was set for the pilots from the Polish 15m. Nationals. Lukasz Grabowski won the day with 297 km in time 3.09. Good to see French top-pilot and TC, Eric Napoleon on spot 3 for the day. 20 from the 24 who started, finished.
After 4 day’s Lucasz B leads with 39 points over Lucasz G.
————
——Last but not least this great picture shared by Matthew Scutter’s Gliding on April 29. The picture is made on April 28 at 21.21 in Planeurs d’Ille-et-Vilaine
Fabulous shot.
Matthew also shared this LAST NEWS!!!! And yes it happened before in 1990 when one year later the WGC was moved from Minden [Nevada] to Uvalde [Texas], I was involved in that one as TC and in Sweden from in 2006 when the WGC moved from Uppsala to Eskilstuna [I was the champion-editor there] BUT NEVER about a month BEFORE the WGC!!!!!
————-
Global warming;The normal average temperature in this time in the year is for Holland around 19 dgr. C.
The last day’s we had over 30 dgr. C, so tropical temperatures in Mai and,…. still spring.
With up to 54 mm of rain on one day, severe storms , code orange for wind and hail, land slides and flooded cellars and houses, the climate change is very feel-able and visible here.
They say,….we have to get used to it!!!!
Cheers Ritz