Post 1.537 on August 28 2024

Wednesday August 28 day 10, task 9.
After the heat from the first week, which broke some long standing records, it was waiting what the weather man would say in the morning. At least about the temperature ,there was no doubt; cooler, “only” 30 dgr. C MAX.
Yesterday Rich wrote;
“The weather tomorrow looks challenging. The low is going to stop right on top of us, causing low clouds, poor lift and rain. If it moves on tonight, we will fly. If something does not change tonight, then we may have our first weather day.”

So what was the verdict from Mr. Meteo for TODAY?!
“The low is over us and it is pretty cloudy now with a chance of rain. The organizers are going to try to get a task in and the gliders are currently staged for gridding at Noon.” US Soaring Teams

Indeed it turned out to be a “weather-day” the first during this competition.
18m class; 3 hour AAT…..cancelled
Lumpy; “Big storms in the 18m first turn point formed before we launched, even though they were forecast a bit further north and not till mid to late afternoon. We went to task B which sent us out in the opposite direction, but the clock was counting down. We had a 3 AAT and it was already 1.40 pm so the writing was on the wall. Day cancelled at 2pm….”
Matthew; “Unusual weather for a racing task (open and 20 only), we are lucky to be an AAT in 18m.Even weirder was the Dutch(!) Airforce doing a beat- up down the grid in a Chinook(!?).I must be dreaming.”
It was quite an event as Arne had a look AT and IN it too. “When Chinooks drops in for a burger and they turn out to be Dutch glider pilots.”
Yes  Lennart Batenburg is a Dutch glider pilot, who lives in the USA and visited the Dutch team last Sunday and came back today for an other visit, this time not by car but through air in “his” Chinook”.
No flying, so good time to do other things, as looking IN the Chinook, a great “toy” !!!!

20 m class; 3 hour AAT…..cancelled…so Sarah and Karl still lead with 66 points for Adam and Keith …exciting!!!
Lumpy on the day; “They then launched the 20m class but by that time the sky had almost shut down overhead the field and I think 5 gliders returned looking for a re-light… some discussion was had and then the 20m class was cancelled.”
“A nice little distraction was a visiting Chinook helicopter from the Dutch Airforce who performed and nice flyby for us.” Tocumwal Soaring Centre

open class; 379.52 km….and 17 started , 10 finished so a tough day!!
Won by Laurent Aboulin [ JS1C/21 m] ; 135.76 km./h. Mind you, he is defending his 2012-Uvalde- title !!!!He then won in a Quintus M, from Schempp-Hirth.
Lumpy on open class;”They launched open class and got the gate open for them, after all the pilots were consulted whilst flying and asked if they considered the task doable and safe ….. good call from the organisers
7 out of the 17 open class pilots had to use their engines by the looks…. Navigating around those big storms I think was the issue and lots of dead air in the middle.“
And indeed , he was correct 7 pilots returned “under steam”.
Team UK had Tim [ Jenkinson in JS1cTJ/21 m] just “in” and Russell just out; 366.17 km.
Michael and Felipe finished AGAIN equal at spot 4 and still lead overall; Felipe 8.571 points and Michael 8.474 p with Attie now on 3 with 8.201 [moved up from 5] and the 2 French pilots on 4 and 5, just ahead of “our” Francois[ 8.022 p.]

Looking back at 2012.
Along the road driving to Uvalde, I quickly took a picture;

One of the first things I noticed after arriving back at Garner field was the CONCORDIA from Dick Butler. Dich wrote the whole history of this glider in many issues of SOARING CAFE. It was a very popular subject.

I wrote about the Concordia on July 22 in 2012
“One of the HOT items in SOARINGCAFE of course was and is the Concordia. Dick’s stories about the progress of this magic project,  got lot’s of readers! I look forward to catch up with Dick again after many years and to make my OWN picture of the Concordia. What a fabulous project he started!!! What I heard the glider flies super and I hope Dick will have great safe and fast flights in it.
As said before I look forward to the difference in performance in open class this year. It will be VERY interesting.”
And other news that day;
The gliders have been added to the pilots now and at this stage I counted 4 JS1-B gliders in open class flown by the Aussies and ……what Aussies former WGC champion in 1991 Brad Edwards and topper Bruce Taylor AND…. another 2 are flown by the Goudriaan brothers, who both fly WGC’s as long as I know them! So 4 JS1-B in open class !!!!!!
Further on Tilo and his men worked HARD , very hard!!! 7 Quintus M gliders are competing, 2 x EB 29, 2 Antares 23E, 3x EB 28, 3x ASW 22 BLE, 1 ASH 25, 2x Nimbus 4T and the Concordia!!!!

It was 38 dgr C and the South African team had their own pool AT the airport.

Talking about the SA pilots here are Attie and Uys on the practice day.

More about 2012 tomorrow.

AND more news tomorrow about the UVALDE-WGC.
They expect an “iffy” day, what ever that means for Uvalde.
Cheers Ritz