The 3d WGC for 13.5 m. gliders in co-operation , during the first week, with the e-glider class showed all pretty small tasks for the gliders.
September 4;
13.5 m; 2 hour AAT...won by Uli in the Mini Lak, followed by Thomas in Diana VersVS ; 131 km. in time 2.02 for 145 km. in time 2.27.
5 From 10 out-landed and after 2 flying day’s Uli leads for Peter ; 955 for 925.
e-Glide;167 km…4 day’s and 4 flights in this class; best speed 80 km./h. for German pilot Markus Uhlig in HpH 304 eS , followed by Luka Znidarsic in Ventus 3 FES /18m. with 79 km./h.
After 4 days this Ventus 3 and HpH lead ,but still no scores!!!

September 5;
13.5 m….1.40 AAT; won by Ukraine pilot Vytautas Maciulis in his MINI LAK; 160 km. in time 1.56. Alberto and Peter were runners up all in MINI LAK.
E-Glide…167 km; won by Tilo in his Discus 2C FES, followed by the Schempp-Hirth Ventus 3 with FES , both 18m, with 97 and 99 km./h.
In both classes …2 OUT.

September 6;
No task in both classes but a picture from day 5.

September 7;
13.5 m…208 km...NO finishers. Vittorio flew 184 km and the runners up , Thomas and Alexander flew 140 km.
E-Glide; 216 km….and YES here we noticed finishers on THEIR very last day. Except for one they all finished!!!! HpH 304 eS with young German pilot Markus did well with 77 km./h. The runner up Luka in the Ventus 3 flew around with 74 km./h.

E-Glide stops now ;” This evening at 7.30pm we had the prizegiving ceremony of the e-Gliding competition at the flagpoles. All the competitors were very happy and satisfied about these days in Pavullo with good weather conditions on six race days, excellent food and beautiful landscapes.
The Contest director, Aldo Cernezzi, would like to thank all the staff and all the participants. The President of the Aeroclub, Roberto Gianaroli, awarded the winners on the podium. After giving the awards pictures were taken of the podium with all the magnificent cups and the big group of all the people involved in the competition.
A very good dinner with “tagliatelle” and finger food was served to conclude the last day of e-Glide! Tomorrow the pilots will leave and return to their countries but the WGC will go on till the 14th September. “

The story on Luka as shared by the WGC 2019;
“ From early youth Luka was passionate builder and designer of many free flying models. Soon he become the winner of his first nationals as the youngest competitor. Luka participated on many international gliding competitions, including three World gliding championships. He achieved 1000km diploma, 3000 flying hours, on more than 30 different sailplane types. He is today the WINNER of e-Glide in Pavullo flying Ventus 3 FES “LZ”. Many congratulations Luka! “

September 8;NO TASK!!!!
“No compulsory briefing. No task today due meteo conditions .“

September 9;
318 km....Finally a good day and 8 from 10 flew it on the first 1000 points-day. Alberto [Sironi] was one of the out-landers, unfortunately, [after 277 km.] loosing over 500 points.3 Italian pilots in the top Vittorio,Thomas and Stefano. Best speed 103 km./h.

September 10 yesterday;
2.50 AAT;

It turned out a” terrible” day for most. Not for Stefano and Uli , however, as they both finished,…all others were OUT!!!
Stefano got 700 points ,the last one, number 10 …zero as he started his engine before start; so a virtual outlanding on starting engine.OUCH.
Uli leads overall with 3.358 points and Stefano is runner up with 3.225 p.

Not yet tasks for today! More next Wednesday.

Sebastian Kawa never entered these comps in Pavullo, due to damage on his glider during the practice week. As more and more pilots fly with all types of engines here is his story to learn from; as shared by Easy Memory Item
“Atterriaggio duro – Hard landing!
For the first time in his career Sebastian Kawa damaged a glider in a hard landing. An investigation of the events should help to avoid such events in the future!
“What happened was very surprising to me. For the first time in my career, I damaged a glider on a hard landing. A very unpleasant experience with the new GP14 on the steep slope of Puvallo! The terrain in the Apennines is not exactly inviting for landing in many areas. Almost every suitable, flat area is urbanized, the valleys are V-shaped and in the middle there is a narrow brook. Fields, if available, are on steep slopes. Thus, it is very difficult to find a suitable landing site.

What happened?
About 30 km from the finish line, I was still at high altitude and made the decision not to take any risks and start the engine. It was just a training day, where no points had to be collected. After the start with electric engine some hours ago, still 75% of the electric power was available. I could easily come home with that. I thought about how to use the remaining energy most effectively and turned knob to start the engine. Nothing happened!
I still had enough time. After a short look around, I saw no less than 10 possible landing fields – all in mountainous terrain, all on the steep slope! So I took off my sunglasses and tried to get the engine running. At first I thought I did not have enough energy to extend the pylon and turned off the navigation display. I rebooted the system and tried cranking again. Nothing happened!

My options dwindled ..
After another 15 km, only two suitable fields were in sight. Very steep, but slightly larger than the previous ones. Since the further course of the valley was not visible, I decided to land on one of the two yellow-brown fields next to a farm and a paved road. Unfortunately, it turned out in retrospect that this field was bumpy, which added to the other difficulties!
I’ve landed on similar steep hills before. On some glider sites such as Jeżów Sudecki (Grunau) or in Bieszczady there are streeps with slopes up to 11%. Even with an ASH 25 I landed (in Bieszczady) on a slope as steep as this one in Apenines. However, it was prepared landing site with smooth grass! In Italy the situation was different. The surface of the field was rough and there were trees in the approach sector. In order to land in such a field, you must be approach even with a light glider at a speed of 130 km/h in order to be able to fly uphill parallel to the ground. Fast airplanes need even more speed! I have dumped all water already so I crossed the line of trees with exactly 130 km/h and felt a hard bump just before I expected to fly for a while uphill to loose speed. The plane jumped at a steep angle loosing speed almost in seconds.

With no speed it was not possible to change anything in the situation, I saw the treetops below me again. You wait ! The next moment I was back on the ground and sliding several meters on the fuselage after glider lost it’s undercarriage. Amazingly no more damages were seen. Later I found out that instrument panel pulled two screws from the floor and belly was cracked. Very little for such landing.
Not recommendable!
My situation was worse. The same moment I hit the ground I felt a strong backache and had big difficulty getting out of the cockpit. I lied down on the wing to ease it off few minutes, a bit of relief occurred, fortunately I was able to move and feel all my limbs. Actually, this action was not right, because in such a situation, I would advise anyone not to move that much – unless you’re sure the spine is intact.
I consider it unlucky to hit such an uneven slope what was invisible till last moment. Looking from above waves, if have same colour are indistinguishable. Fortunately, the GP14 is a light and very strong glider, so it helped to get away with only a small damage.
Most important finding: even if the engine still worked at the start, it can fail at any time. It was the case with my landing in the Apennines. After the engine cooled, it did not start again because the pylon did not touch the limit switch.

Never rely 100% on the engine! Electric or digital systems fail instantly without any prior signs of wear or malfunction so it would be better to have two sets of electronic gear. We use two loggers. Don’t we?”

Happy Landings
Sebastian Kawa

Outlandings in mountainous areas / Outlandings with (turbo) engines – what is important?
After a hard landing in the Apennines Sebastian Kawa worked up his experiences and shared with us!

Decide early and have more options ready
Must land in mountainous terrain, it is usually very fast due to lack of options. Faulty starts of auxiliary engines worsen the situation dramatically. Therefore decide early, because: landing out with engine always need more height than without!

Upslope landings can be trained!
There are gliding schools that fly regularly on places with inclined landing strips. Uphill landing can be trained.

You need more speed!
A gradual reduction of the speed a few meters above the ground, which is often seen on flat airfields, does not work when approaching the steep slope. For pull up, to intercept path parallel to the ground, you have to keep your speed until last moment and flare with more energy to fly about 1m above the ground uphill. When practicing on moderate uphill strips if you have speed sufficient to hover about 0.5-1m above the ground for about 50-100m, than it is a good approach. We have very often windy conditions so more speed is required also to avoid sudden drop of speed and as a consequence falling dawn from few meters.

Use the entire length of the field.
The speed reduction when flying uphill is fast. So it is not necessary to be fixed on the lowest meters of the field because it is more dangerous to catch obstacles in the approach than roll on some at the end. In most cases there should be no problem to slow down and stop when going uphill.

Airbrakes – carefully!
Adjust altitude, the point where you want to stop. Then: set the flaps, retract the airbrakes, accelerate – to be able to pull up in front of the rising slope. Many gliders tend to sink a lot even when the airbrakes are only slightly opened. They loose speed instead of zooming up. With less flap, I would not use L -flaps for such approach as they produce more drag than lift, and a higher approach speed, this problem can be avoided ! There are planes, for example PZL 104, which can not flare enough to end parallel to any uphill slope without help of the engine.

Curved landing!
The last part of roll should be used for a 90° turn to avoid rolling back. In the worst case, you would have to remain in the cockpit squeezing wheel brake until help arrives.

Avoid obstacles!
Each approach over obstacles is more demanding than on a flat plane, as the interception angle increases further.

Green in front of brown – and not mixed!
In the mountainous areas it’s better to choose GREEN fields. Green means it’s re-cultivated at least once a year, and probably neither corn nor other tall plants will grow on it. In addition, in a re-cultivated field, the probability of encountering invisible trenches, hills and stones is reduced. Plowed fields are good too but brownish grass means it was not used for a long time and there are tall weeds.

Rules!
The competition rules should allow for a short test of the engine even if you used it for take-off.

As always with turbo’s – fly as without engine!
Even if an engine was used to start, he may well refuse service on the next attempt.

It was the same with my landing in the Apennines. After the engine cooled, it did not start again because the pylon did not touch the limit switch! Never rely 100% on the engine!

Happy Landings
Sebastian Kawa

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ABOYNE in Scotland.

The yearly height and CC- event in the Scottish mountains, the 22d version, was not blessed with good weather. After I left you they continued with small tasks, mostly with no finishers, but the last valid task number 3 had one.
Winner Bob Bromwich in DG 500mb with 605 TOTAL points. That say’s enough is n’t it? A pity!!!!
On one day they reached 19.280 ft.

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Interesting news!

From Holland;
For ALL those who love the EUROGLIDE; here are the estimated data for this big event; June 22 till July 4 2020, with the prize giving included in this day. That’s new.

From Austria;
Preparing for gliding season in Namibia / Kiripotib 😎😎
15 gliders placed in 3 containers. Then lorry to train station Vienna, train to Hamburg, ship to Walvis Bay Namibia, and then last leg, lorry to Kiripotib Soaring lodge. End of January return trip!
Complicated logistic, hat of for Ludwig Starkl, Christian Hynek and Wolfgang Janowitsch to get this organized 👍👍⛅️⛅️

Also Bitterwasser sends a lot of gliders via Germany.
” For almost 30 self launcher loadmaster Sascha Costabel had created space in one of the large steel boxes. On the first weekend in September they were packed with sophisticated suspension systems. Just six 18-meter single-seaters fit into a container thanks to good planning.
Via Hamburg and Antwerp the journey of the seven containers starts to Walvis Bay. The freighter is expected there at the beginning of October – in time for the new flying season in Namibia. “

From …..Australia on September 6 2019;
“On behalf of the GFA board and staff we extend our sympathies to the family and friends of Harry Schneider who died earlier today, with many family and friends by his bedside.
The Schneider family were very influential in developing the sport of gliding in Australia over two generations. Harry was a life member of the GFA and will definitely be missed.”

From Japan;
Nice soaring weather last week in Japan and they used it.
Takeshi shared some pictures from the weather and the field. Most airfield in Japan are situated along a river on the other side of a dyke. I have been in the past at 3 of them, one was Itakura .

From the UK;
Dave Masson [together with Nigel Mallender] flew last Sunday from Lasham a great over 300 km. flight in an ASK 13 !!!!!!!!They flew 328 from the set 340 km and had to land in a paddock rather late, but loved every minute.Pretty good autumn weather there!!!!
You can see the flight on  https://www.bgaladder.net/dailyscores/flightdetails/81740

That’s it for now. CU next Wednesday!
Cheers Ritz [with a light brain concussion and a dizzy head ….hit it in the kitchen on a point of a marble plate laying on an antic cupboard.!!]