Post 1.447 on Wednesday EVENING September 20 2023

After spending 25 summers in Tocumwal, [ since 1984] avoiding the Dutch cold and living for just over 10 years over there, you must forgive me that I am still enthusiastic and fond of that little town on the Murray River, in Australia. Less than 3000 inhabitants and on the border of NSW and Victoria, but IN NSW. When we visited first there were only 1250 people living in town.
We started as guests with the Riley family as owners…Bill Riley [R.I.P.] was the founder of the SSC…then still as guests we got to know Don Escott, [R.I.P.]Jeff Close [R.I.P.]
We took over from Don when he retired and worked together with Jeff BUT, when Jeff unexpectedly died after a mid air collision, we were “all alone”.
After being for 10 seasons guests, running the Sportavia Soaring Center with a good team for another 10 years, was TOUGH but a great “life style” and I can only think back of it with huge pleasure. Our guests were the most interesting people from many different countries , …I still have contact with a lot of them….our staff was good and always helpful to all of them. The chef’s in the kitchen sometimes were a problem, but we really had good ones among them, creating food one day for 150 people sitting everywhere at the premises, as the dining- and breakfast room was too small. Glenda was the “engine” behind all of them.
OF COURSE Ingo Renner was “gold” for Sportavia already from the beginning with Bill. The nicest instructor and person in the world. As well , to be honest, as the best” marketing tool”.
Peter During “Brutus” for his friends helped us out in the office for several years and he was gold as well, absolutely reliable.
Our tuggies and instructors were TOPPERS.
As in every business there were up’s and downs but more up’s than downs for me.

Lumpy Patterson, since a few years the new owner of “our” SPORTAVIA hangar, [it’s now called Sportavia Tocumwal and they are doing well] has the time of his life in Tocumwal too. Certainly now with the airshow.
I know the “buzzing” feeling of an Airshow at the field and it gives energy, a feeling of being very proud and very involved.
On Thursday he was already busy to get planes to Toc;
“Great day in the office, getting planes to Tocumwal for the big air show on the weekend !
Awesome weather for the trip to Maitland and return
Cruising along with the team from Paul Bennett Airshows“

Australia will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
At the 2023 Tocumwal Airshow, we will commemorate the service and sacrifice of those who served in Vietnam with flying displays by three aircraft that served during that conflict.
The Royal Australian Air Force Cessna A-37 Dragonfly
The Temora Aviation Museum Cessna O-2 Skymaster
The Tocumwal Aviation Museum Cessna O-1 Birddog
See these historic aircraft display at the 2023 Tocumwal Airshow

A common sight in the country is aerial application using the iconic yellow Air Tractor.
Aerial application is the broad term for a range of aviation activities that include the application of material from aircraft, including spraying of pesticides, application of liquid and granular fertiliser and trace elements, sowing seed such as rice and firebombing of bushfires.
With great thanks to Tocumwal local Mick East, Field Air will be bringing an AT-402 Air Tractor to the 2023 Tocumwal Airshow and demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft as well as the exceptional skills required to operate these aircraft at low level.

I have seen MANY of them during the 10 years I lived at Toc airport. Also during comps in Narromine we saw them often.
2 Of our former tuggies Glenn and Charlie, are now flying these big machines. One of the most well- known Ag pilots in our time/region was Gary Macstead. Still going strong , most probably not anymore as Ag pilot, as he should be around 80 years old now.

The weather was TOP;Blue skies, light winds and 26 degrees, what do you want more for an Airshow.

Of course a glider had to be part of the show as well at the Tocumwal airfield with a few glider clubs/business as most important venues. Lumpy himself flew in his JS3.

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This was not the only great airshow as Romain Fhal mentioned, there was also one in Europe;
“I’m very happy to fly at Skopje Airshow celebrating 100 years of Aero Club Skopje, one of the oldest air clubs in southeastern Europe. The occasion is even more special since this is the first big airshow in Macedonia after the dissolution of former Yugoslavia in 1991.”
This was on September 16. Too late to go too but interesting info.

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—–The Brasilian weather was good last Wednesday for pilots flying records and long distances from the well known airfield Luis Ed Magalhaes.
Claudio Eduardo Schmidt flew with French guest Baptiste [Innocent] in the ARCUS M a distance from 900 km.
Henrique [Navarro] flew a new out and return record over 500 km;
“Brazilian 500km out & return speed record @140kph. Ventus 3TS/15m. “
Just a few days earlier Henrique flew another record;
“Brazilian speed record, 300km FAI triangle @143KPH. Flying the Ventus 3TS with 15 meters tips is just like flying a rocket.”
On September 14 more news from Henrique;
“I just beat the Brazilian speed record in a 750km FAI triangle at 152 hph, in both 15 meters and open class. The Ventus 3 TS with 15 meters tip flies like it has knives instead of wings.”

—–I have shared many pictures from above ,looking over the Tocumwal area, now I share one looking over the Kingaroy area more in the East of Australia.

—–AND,…the season is ON Down Under both in the West and East, also in the South.

—–In the Netherlands the National women day 2023 for pilots was in Soesterberg and 100 flying ladies attended. Many young ones. GOOD!!! I was supposed to say a few words over there, but travelling is getting more difficult nowadays.

That’s it! You are up to date. Not a lot of comps at the moment but the E5 GLIDE started in St Auban.
They fly between 17 September 2023 – 23 September 2023.
More next week. Tilo [Discus 2c FES 18m] won day 1 and Aussie Matthew [ LS8E/ 15m] flies as well. Task 2 [132 km] was cancelled and task 3 on Sept 19 was promising with 265.55 km. Matthew won!!
By the way, last Sunday was a perfect long -distance-wave-day in France for an out and return over Spain France and nearly Andorra. Carl Audissou, flew from St Girons 1.621.14 km in an ANTARES over many kilometers in the Pyrenees.

Cheers Ritz, just back from 2 days in Amsterdam. Very enjoyable!!!!

Post 1.446 on Wednesday September 13 2023.

ABOYNE in the UK
UK MOUNTAIN FLYING CHAMPIONSHIP.
3 September 2023 – 9 September 2023

This is a very popular competition in the UK and already the 26th edition with a “record number of entrants”; 22. Since a few years, I follow them. Interesting!
And I am not the only one, looking at the “likes”.
“The Waiting List for 2024 is now open, as this year’s participants have priority for next next.“
https://www.deesideglidingclub.co.uk/uk-mountain-soaring-championship/

We continue with day 4, task 2 AND a 4 hour AAT; and in his LS6b Jordan Richards flew 344 km with a speed of 85.26 km./h. His 2d win! Good on him. Both days had a 4 hour AAT on the first day Jordan flew 451 km with a speed of 110.96 km./h.
Day 5 task 3; 3.30 AAT….After the fantastic flight the day before, task 3 was in the same direction;” flying out over the Great Glen to reach the west coast and Ben Nevis“.
I had to go to Wikipedia to know more about the Great Glen.
“The Great Glen is a long and straight glen in Scotland. The glen is about 100 kilometers long on land and runs from Fort William on the Scottish west coast to Inverness in the east. The Great Glen follows a major geological fault known as the Great Glen Fault.”

This picture from the task is from my mobile. you can see it it more clear on www.soaringspot.com clicking on task.

BUT ….in the end, the CC task was cancelled ,a pity,……but the ” height-gain” was “on”.
On day 7 they had a CC task 3 a B task from 2.30 AAT , won again by Jordan. Of course height-gain was possible too.Not too difficult to figure out he won this years edition of the UK-wave comps.
1. Jordan Richards in LS 6 b with 2.452 points.
2. John Tanner in Duo Discus with 1.981 p.
3. Robert Tait in Silence 2 Electro with 1.976 p
4. John Williams in LS 8 /18m with 1.958 p.

All in all they had good weather ; 6 out of 7 days were soarable. 3 Of them for good long tasks and 5 for height gaining.
The Deeside Gliding Club mentioned;
“Congratulations to Jordan Richards for winning the UK Mountain Soaring Championships in a dominating style, and collecting the trophy for greatest gain of height over the week (in excess of 50,000ft gained without an engine!).
The visitor season is off to a good start.”
CONGRATULATIONS to Jordan.

“Gliding at Aboyne only exists because of our volunteer tug pilots. It’s also a great way for aspiring airline pilots to build hours.“
I know all about that and can only TOTALLY agree.

—–Last week I showed you many containers ready for Narromine . Cleaning such a container is MOST important. Even the grass from the elastic bands [Velcro] on the covers had to be removed!!The Dutch worked hard, with as many family members as possible, at the airport of Midden Zeeland, were the container was.

There were changes in the Dutch team, some on the list are not going ,some are ,…Erik is “new” too.
Club: Thies Bruins and Roelof Corporaal
Standard; Sjaak Selen.
15m; Erik Borgmann en Jeroen Verkuijl
All very experienced pilots certainly in standard and 15 m. Club is with YOUNG Dutch toppers on it’s way to be very experienced, though Thies flew already a WGC.[France]

—–Jonker Sailplanes shared this picture and news;
“Two BEAUTIES in the sky.
What an extraordinary late summer weekend in the Schweizer Jura! Saturday and Sunday the Jura provided excellent gliding conditions for glider pilots and hundreds of paragliders. Endless energy lines, strong climbs, a high cloudbase and friendly controllers giving green lights to pass through prohibited airspaces made flights between 800 and 900km possible. Here Yves Gerster JS3 RES and Uys Jonker JS3 JET racing up and down the Jura. What fun.”
Read more on WeGlide:
https://www.weglide.org/flight?scoring_date=2023-09-10

Also Bert Schmelzer jr and Rolf Friedli choose to fly on Sunday in those excellent Swiss conditions;
879 in Ventus 3T and 882 km in AS 33es. Bert flew on Saturday 974 km. as well !!!! Mind you September 9 and 10!!!!! AUTUMN…..
Bert mentioned;
“Best end of the season since I live in Switzerland. Really unbelievable.”

——-IF necessary a plane can be a boat too,…preferably not but…as said when necessary!

——One of my soaring mates shared this news yesterday:
“Incredible flight today. I’ve always dreamed of soaring XC in the SCU 2-22 but it takes a perfect day to be able to do it. The thermals dont have to be really strong but they absolutely have to be close together. Today they were and we’ll marked with cumulus clouds. I wandered my way from Sunflower to Wichita Gliderport and the glider is now in position for next week’s vintage rally.
Oh I saw three Bald Eagles today and I ve never had a bad flight when I see a Bald Eagle.”
He “ raced “with a speed of 31 km./h over 93 km!!!! THAT IS THE REAL SOARING!!!!!
https://www.weglide.org/flight/335436 with more news about the flight.

—–Bitterwasser Lodge & Flying Centre; The last containers, the first went already in August, left on September 9 and are on their way to Namibia.

Not long and there is a lot to write about all those gliders now moving over seas and oceans and later arriving in Africa and Australia, for a new season and the WGC in Narromine.

Cheers Ritz..CU on Wednesday EVENING!!!!!!

Last but not least! NEARLY forgotten…..but important for my Aussie mates…Over 40 aircraft will take to the skies at the 2023 Tocumwal Airshow.

Post 1.445 on Wednesday September 6 2023.

FAI SGP FINAL
Pavullo, Italy
24 August 2023 – 2 September 2023
FAI Sailplane Grand Prix

On Wednesday August 30 a task was set for
Race 1, day 4; 129.34 km…..All 19 pilots were more than eager to fly. The cold front was gone but there was still a possibility for rain.
CD Brian said;
“The challenge today is that we are sandwiched between rain, low cloud and airspace. If the cloud does not overdevelop and the rain stays to the west of Pavullo a short and fast race will be possible.’
Did they fly???? YES THEY DID,..an even smaller task ….119 km. but there were winners and it was a good race with nice cu-conditions, though the climbs were only 1 m./s, the cloud base was pretty low and the window “small”.
Stefan Langer won race 1 after a regatta start at 14.50, with a speed of 114.9 km./h.in his ASG 29/18m.
Runner up was Mike Young with 8 points [Ventus 3T] and Alberto Sironi in the AS 33 was 3d.
In my “box” I found the next SGP- news;”After a very exciting race Stefan Langer from Germany won. He was higher from the first leg on and resisted the pressure of the gaggle behind him. On the last thermal, Mike Young (UK), Alberto Seroni (IT), Sebastian Kawa (POL) and Gorgio Galetto (IT) caught up.”

Race 2 day 5 on August 31; 210.52 km.….The organizers message for today about the weather;
“There is a southerly airflow along the coast of Italy that is feeding moist air onto the Appenines. This is bringing unstable air and good soaring condition, but also rain in the afternoon.“
BUT…they had to go to a B task from 168 km. New faces on the top spots ,though Stefan ,of course, was there 1 day earlier too.
Speed by Sebastian who won the day; 104.02 km./h …Stefan 102.01 km./h and Tilo 101.01 km./h.
Competition Director Brian Spreckley said, ‘We expected it to be difficult, but not this difficult.’
The full story from day 2 on; https://sgpfinal23.sgp.aero/news/r2

The difference between number 4 Erik and number 5 Alberto was SMALL: 100.08 km./h and 100.06 km./h. and in points ONE.

Race 3 on day 6 on September 1 and 1 more to go;310.22 km
The meteorological autumn has started on this part of the world, but looking at the distance it’s a good autumn -day.
“Fine conditions with light winds and thermals to over 2000m.”
Let’s wait what happens today?!
10 points for somebody who really loves SGP soaring; Tilo Holighaus. In a cab to a party somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but close to Uvalde [2012] he told us , brother Ralf was there too, he really loved this type of flying.
He won but JUST; 105.5 km./h and 105.3 km./h for Max [Seis]. ….both flying a VENTUS 3. And “our” Erik did well too; 3 with 105 km./h. A real race between them. The first 10 all flew over 100 km./h.

Race 4 on day 7 and the VERY LAST DAY starting with 18 points for Stefan, 17 for Tilo and 14 for Max.
“For the final day of SGP Final Pavullo the weather is fine again and a 248 km task has been set.“
More stable, dry thermals , they fly over the mountain tops where they expect a convergence line according to CD Brian.
I looked at this last race with very clear comments from Benjamin Neglais and as it is in Italy, Stefano Ghiorzo explained all about the mountains and ridges. So easy to follow it then. Good job from them.
The first time I saw this , was in Rieti a long time ago,when Art Grant with his “deep” voice was the commentator and he was good too, it then was an eyeopener for me, nowadays it’s pretty normal.
With some excitement in the voices we heard and saw “47 km. to go to the last/3d TP on top of a mountain,on this last day for Alberto [Sironi] in MA “. But he was much lower than runner up Thomas [Gostner] in GT, who tried to stay as high as possible , but Alberto reached it first. Ben and Stefano really hoped for lift for Alberto.[1600 m] otherwise the “followers” could catch up. He got it ,but was it enough to stay upfront???
Unfortunately Stefan made a “mistake” , got lift again, is still in the race but might be out of the “top”.[ Indeed this was said!!]
Alberto followed a different track than the others . He flew all by himself more east of the track straight to the last control point….but still missing 100 m to make it!!!! Is there still enough energy to keep the height. Some were not high enough to just glide home. They fly not fast 150 km./h and GT closes in
I am not going to follow this every time, it’s to scary for me, not good for my heart.
“We have a nice finish” said Benjamin ,with a happy voice ,so I felt it bit more at ease.
Above 850 m OVER the finish line is compulsory, so penalties might spoil the last flight from Alberto and maybe from Thomas.
Have to wait for the final results now! Pfffff…..The referee will be busy.
1 Point extra on the last day!!!so 11 points to gain.
9 PM is the dinner and prize giving in down town Pavullo and there will be a WORLD CHAMPION as they call it.

It turned out totally different than expected. Indeed there were penalties and what for penalties ???
Alberto got 274 sec.as penalty ,Thomas 84, so the winner for 11 points was German pilot Hermann Leucker in JS3.
“The last race is over and it was crazy with the 3 main challengers (Tilo Haulighaus, Sebastian Kawa and Max Seis) falling at the back/ flying the wrong task . Stefan Langer could have had an easy win but he missed a critical step on the 3rd leg and the gaggle passed him. Finally, the daily winners arrived very low.”
In the end Stefan , “who might be out of the top”, got ONE point on this last day, meaning there were 2 pilots equal with 19 points ; Stefan and “our” Erik Borgmann.
But then extra rules start and as Stefan won day 1, he got the GOLD and Erik the SILVER.

World champion;
1. Stefan Langer in ASG 29 with 19 points.
2. Erik Borgmann in JS 3 with 19 points.
3. Hermann Leucker in JS3 with 18 points.
4. Tilo Holighaus in Ventus 3 with 17 points.
5. Alberto Sironi in AS33 with 16 points.
6. Sebastian Kawa and 7. Max Seis both in Ventus 3 had 14 points.

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–——The change of season has started;
YES,…it’s that time of the year again. The meteorological autumn started on September 1 and Down under the spring time. The weather is already pretty good there, in fact you can fly through the year in Australia.
Spring has announced itself with fields full of the yellow canola and the bottle brush starts to flower. It looks a bit like a red-gum- flower.

—— Gliders for the Bitterwasser season have been shipped to be in time for their season, more or less between November 1 and January 15.
“Looking forward to the season by Hannah
On August 22, 2023, the first four gliders were loaded into the container in Waghäusel.
The anticipation of the season in Bitterwasser and the togetherness had arisen very quickly, which facilitated the loading in strong heat. In the end, each plane had its place and is now waiting for departure. In the middle of September it is then so far! The Arcen will then make their way to Bitterwasser. The remaining containers will be loaded on 09 September 2023 in order to arrive in time for the start of the flying season.
(Text and pictures Hannah Schweckendiek)

——–The German Team is very busy with the shipment of their gliders to Narromine for the WGC down under, during the first 2 weeks in December.

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–——Also the Polish team is sending a HUGE container with 6 gliders to Narromine, as you can see on the above picture from Lukasz. They have a different system, they move some kind of iron pallet, with the gliders on it, in the container.

–—the Dutch container is cleaned and packed last weekend. With Francesco from Corowa this was an easy job, as he has shipped many containers . He specially was flown in to pack the container, to have NO problems with arrival. Sometimes when things go wrong, that can be very time consuming.

—-The French team starts also with the cleaning of the container. VERY IMPORTANT, for Australia. Not their first time!!!!!!

—–Closer by the “UK Mountain Soaring Championships started at Aboyne, and they are hopeful of good wave soaring conditions. As always the Deeside Gliding Club is the host!
They started last Sunday and though they did not fly every day till now Cross Country ,they for sure went for height.
Day 1 was straight away a good one with both elements CC and height; a 4 hour AAT and “the club two seaters are already at 14,500 feet and we will be launching the grid very soon.”
Jordan Richards in an LS6 b flew 451.48 km . with a speed of 111 km./h.
Great comment on his flight:”Jordan Richards won the first day of the UKMSC with an excellent 430km flight. On his way home he flew from Forres to Aboyne in 19 minutes, a journey which would take 1hr 43mins by car.
That is an average speed of 249kph / 155mph.
Now we will admit that his glider cannot take 2 kids and a Labrador for a lovely day out in Forres, HOWEVER, there were significantly less caravans in the way on Jordan’s route home...”

21 Pilots some HC and 5 did not finish.
The organizers mentioned; “One of our club member has just started descending from 20,100. A few competitors have flown to the furthest point in the first sector before turn south. “
Day 2 was good for height not so much for CC flying . That part was scrubbed, but for a scrubbed day the height was good;16.000 ft.
Day 2’s results;
Glider Pilot               High Point Low Point    Gain
3M     Dave Latimer   16016        2433        13583
60      Paul & Cook     15046        2054        12992
X6      Jordan Richards 14066      2347        11719
3D      John Tanner     12049       2810          9239
R1      Tony Mountain  10832       2985          7847
J5       Phil Penrose     11155       3458          7697
DD2    King & King     10186        3067          7119
115     Robert Tait      10846        3950          6896
2C      Chris Dawes     0230        3468            6762
Day 3 was cancelled.
you can follow them on www.soaringspot.com , where they have all the news as well.

—-AND, the 2d FAI VIRTUAL Gliding Grand Prix….. “I did it, me and my virtual JS3 are world champions of the virtual sailplane grand prix!” Arne Martin Güettler
Great job Arne Martin, CONGRATULATIONS.
“With an outstanding 37 points over 7 breathtaking races, Arne-Martin displayed incredible skills and unwavering determination throughout the week, steadily gaining power to seize the coveted title today!
Number 3 was from the Netherlands; Wiek Schoenmakers. Great job Wiek!!!!!
“A stunning performance by Wiek Schoenmakers from the Netherlands in the 7th and final race of the 2nd FAI Virtual Sailplane Grand Prix!
Wiek’s stellar performance earns him a whopping 11 points for the day, launching him onto the podium with a well-deserved 3rd place overall finish!”
On the last day he was not yet in the last top- 4 -group.

——AND, the first 1000 km “OUT and RETURN “flight out from Slovenia is a fact. Straight after departure from Italy where Luka Žnidaršič [LZ design] flew the final of the FAI SGP, he flew in a DUO DISCUS FES, a flight from 1.127 km OUT AND RETURN with a speed of 131.82 km./h.!!!! Together with Bernard Dobre they started and flew back to Postojna.
Have a look at weglide.org or the OLC.org

More news next Wednesday. By the way the average normal temperature on Sept 6 is 20 dgr. C we have 32 today!!!!!!
Cheers Ritz

Post 1.444 on Wednesday August 30.

Uvalde pre world and 18m NATIONALS
14 August 2023 – 25 August 2023

In my last blog, I was worried IF they could fly during the last days because of a “hurricane hanging around” . They did not on August 22 and 23.
But there was still hope.
August 24 Task 10 on flying day 6;
18 m; 3.15 AAT....with a rather late start , between 2.30 and 2.45 PM and after a muddy happening to get the gliders on the grid,but they were there and could fly.
David Greenhill in his AS 33es was the best with 424 km and a speed of 113.64 km./h. Sean Fidler was runner up and leads overall with one more day to go.
24 started and 19 finished.
20 m; 3.15 AAT…..Not everybody wanted to fly with the low cloud base. Only 1, in the ARCUS M, tried and …finished. Adam did not fly in his borrowed glider. Good decision.
“Pasi & I decided to abandon the task today, there was CU to 5000′ over the start line with very weak climbs, on track, blue skies. The ground is very wet, so the day never got going within 30-50km of Uvalde. We were limited to airfields as we didn’t dare land out today, it’d take 10 people to walk out the glider & probably a few days to do it if we got it wrong.” more in Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
open; 3.15 AAT...those long wings fly nearly always, so also in Uvalde. 4 of the 5 participating gliders flew! Keith had another winning day ….476 km with a speed of 118.84 km./h…..and Bruce was runner up in his borrowed ASH 31 MI.
“Today was a pretty huge day for me. For a couple of days of rain and showers the glider had been parked outside, with full covers on, so there were some mud splashes to clean up, covers to dry, and still the normal preparations of ballasting and washing. As I was unscrewing the hose fitting from the wing underside, I inadvertently undid the brass fitting that holds the water bags and dump valve in place in the wing. It twisted very slightly inside the wing, and try as we might we couldn’t get the thread to start to screw it back in!” poor Bruce but how he fixed it you can read in Taylor’s Gliding Page
After all the “fuzz” Bruce only lost 9 daily points on Keith.

August 25 task 11 on flying day 7; LAST DAY!!!!!
18m; 376.59 km…..good to see Bif Huss on the daily top again. No I don’t know him but a few years ago he won out of the blue the USA Nationals and he looked as a very interesting person when I read about him and saw the pictures. So this day was won by him; speed 129.18 km./h. And moved up to spot 4 , just not at the podium. [6.566 points]That podium was for Sean Fiddler who was only 13th on the last day but held on.
Winners and champion of the USA 18 m NATIONALS;
1. Sean Fiddler in ASG 29 with 6,748 points. Also winner of the Charlie Spratt 18M Trophy!
2. Sean Murphy in JS3 with 6,716 p.
3. Jerzy Szemplinski in ASG 29 with 6,595 p.
The winner of the Charlie (Lite) Minner 18M Speed Trophy-, was Gary Ittner.

20 m. class; 358.92 km….the DuoDiscus with Adam and Pasi was the best again; speed 115.85 km./h.
They won with quite a margin this pre- worlds competition.
1. Adam Woolley and Pasi Pulkkinen from Australia and Finland in Duo Discus XLT with 5,987 points.
2. Pete Alexander in ASG32MI with 5,843 p.
3. Barry Jaeger in ARCUS M with 5.564 p.

open class; 409.65 km….And finally…… it was Bruce’s time to shine! He won the day; speed 115.53 p/h ahead of Keith with 112.22 km/h and Jim 108.44 km./h.
Winners in this class;
1. Keith Essex in EB 29R with 6.952 points.
2. Jim Lee in JS1 /21 m. with 6741 p.
3. John Cochrane in EB 29 with 6670 p.
Bruce was 4th but here he is for the last time on this competition;
“Finally, after getting soundly thrashed all comp, today I managed a day win! I felt really good, as it was mostly a long, slow dribble. Very many clouds not working, and very many short, broken and weak climbs, so it was a satisfying win.
It’s been an unusual competition here in Uvalde, with only very rare sessions of what I consider to be “normal” south-west Texan weather. Who knows what really is normal now. And next year? What will happen then, and will I even be here? Who knows that either…” much more in Taylor’s Gliding Page

And I finish with Adam and Pasi;
“The last day went to plan, we just focused on coring the weaker thermals fast, taking a few climbs a few turns higher to ensure we never had to turn back (for an airfield, the fields are still super wet), looking long down the legs & using the cloud shadows to ensure good streeting, then finally, eased onto final glide carefully as per the skysight guidance.”Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

THANK YOU to both Adam and Pasi and to Bruce for sharing their interesting and good daily reports AND pictures.

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Junior Nationals in the UK
Gransden Lodge, United Kingdom,    19 August 2023 – 27 August 2023

Unbelievable we are here suffering from huge amounts of rain and they fly every day. Small tasks that’s true, but they fly!!!
“A great week so far at the UK Junior Gliding Nationals being hosted by Cambridge Gliding Centre, some incredible flying by some very talented youngsters in weather that is being unusually kind allowing task flying every day.” shared by Gliding
August 23 Task 5; 140.04 km….George White who won task 3 and 4 won also task 5 in his ASW 20.
104 km./h and from the 40 young ones who started only 3 did not finish.
August 24 Task 6; 146.46 km....Sam Coole, from the Lasham Gliding Society in his Discus was the daily best; 90.52 km./h. Henry was 3d and consolidating his overall spot at this stage.
40 started and 29 finished.
August 25 Task 7; 157.13 km….a new face, on the podium, flying a Discus ;Theodore Nellis. Speed 125.57 km./h. Runner up Ollie Wheeler in ASW 20 had 117.16 km./h. So Theodore was pretty fast.
41 started and 37 finished.
August 26 task 8; 141.99 km….They just continue…8 days out of 8….Well,….only ONE pilot finished! George in his ASW 20. With a speed of 46.78 km./h. he gained 275 points. Runner up Henry was out after 115 km and gained 208 points.
August 27 task 9;120.04…BUT, they had to cancel the last day. There wasno window to fly the full 8 out of 8 days. NO WORRIES.
Good champions anyhow.
1. Henry Inigo-Jones in LS8 with 4,468 points.JUNIOR CHAMPION.
2. Toby Freeland in ASW 20 with 4,305 p.
3. Ben Edkins in LS 8 with 4,172 p.
4. George White in ASW 20 with 4,137 p. He was out on day 1 and lost 467 points on Henry that day.

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FAI SGP FINAL XI
24 August 2023 – 2 September 2023
PAVULLO

For sure another final great race with only top pilots, 19 of them.
2 From the UK, 1 from the Netherlands and 1 from the Czech Rep. , 3 from Italy, 3 from France, 3 from Poland and 6 from Germany. Among them also the youngest participant, MAX MASLAK. Only 20 years old!!!
I wrote about him a few times in my blogs; about his 1000 k’s in Namibia and his participation in the German Juniors.
On August 24 and 25 they could practice , on August 26 they had a rest day and the opening at the Place of the San Bartolomeo Church in Pavullo city.

All important people were there too.

The 7 races started on August 27 …..
RACE 1; 154.47 km....
BUT….the day had to be cancelled.They had a full week of good weather and on the morning of day 1 it was 7/8 of clouds and there was NO WAY to fly. The weather was not good for a few days . We know El Nino, El Nina and now I learned about the Genua “low”/depression . Another weather-phenomena which over the last couple of days created code RED in the middle part of Europe, with scary weather.
As CD Brian said; “The weather is ALWAYS the boss. We are the servants of the weather and we just have to do the best with the weather we get“.

Race 2; CANCELLED…..the weather in Mid Europe and the Alps is a “disaster” at the moment. Understandable they do not fly. But….as always there is hope for the next day.
Brian said….”the depression is still over the Apennines and moving slowly more East. It will improve tomorrow and they hope on 4 good days from then“

Race 3; After 3 cancelled races due to severe weather circumstances., they hope to fly today. The word cancelled is NOT YET there.
Next week more! In between you can follow the race when it is on, via a live stream
https://sgpfinal23.sgp.aero/live

AND

When you don’t know exactly what the GP means you can look at the next page to find all in’s and out’s.
https://sgpfinal23.sgp.aero/about

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Polish 51 st Junior Nationals and OSTROW GLIDE.
Ostrów Wielkopolski Michałków, Poland
16 August 2023 – 27 August 2023

I have been at MANY comps and nearly always the Polish- team- members belong to the toppers. So …good to keep an eye on them. They had their Junior Nationals last week and as they have all difficult names ,I only look back at the event.
In Standard class, they had 24 pilots. They flew 5 out of 11 available days. Jakub Kaczorowski in LS 8 was the overall best junior with 3,657 points. THE VERY BEST, he won EVERY DAY!!!!!
For sure we are going to hear more from him. I’ll try to remember his name.
In Club class they had 4 out of 11 days and 14 participants. Grzegorz Socha in an Astir CS won overall. He won 2 days and was 2 days runner up. 2.750 points for him.
In the 18 m. Regionals they had 7 days and  Karol Staryszak was clearly the best with 4,939 points. He won 5 daily prizes!!!
The senior Club Class Nationals for qualification was won by another well known pilot; Stanisław Wujczak in a Mini Nimbus B. He got 3,262 points which was ONLY 4 points more than runner up Mirosław Izydorczak in ASW 20.

Jakub’s winning glider LOT, was “popular”.

The photographer of the great pictures is; Martn Levitzky

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—– a great picture from Rieti from the C.C.R, shared by CD Aldo and courtesy Martin Pirker

—–Proud news from Schempp-Hirth abour the 1st EGC in Leszno in Poland;
“In some very variable weather conditions ranging from poor to super fast days , the Schempp-Hirth team is proud to announce that the Ventus-3T is again European champion thanks to Lukasz Wojcik from team Poland!
Lukasz is new European champion, followed by Peter Millenaar (The Netherlands) on JS3 and Sebastian Kawa (Poland) on Ventus-3T.
Congratulations too to all the pilots on Ventus in the top 10 of the overall score. Wolfgang Janowitsch (Austria) finishes 4th, Lukasz Grabowski (Poland) 7th, Bert Schmelzer (Belgium) 8th. We thank them all for the trust they put on this glider.
Again and again, this kind of event would be impossible without the many volunteers and professionals engaged We, the pilots, owe you, as usual, a lot!“

——-News from the Perlan Project; Interesting to see that Matthew Scutter from #TeamSkySight is now again in Argentina; he travels a lot. He is there to support the Perlan 2 on their Mission.
https://perlanproject.cloud/VirtualCockpit.html that day August 23 you could follow them on this link, maybe it’s still there. They mentioned;
“Currently on aerotow… for 50,000ft “
Perlan is back in Argentina preparing for another crack at FL900 (almost 30km high!).
SkySight is proud to be producing wave forecasts for the Perlan Project – and they’re viewable by all the Perlan fans at home via https://perlan.skysight.io/
When Perlan is flying, you’ll also see the glider itself in real time overlaid on the wave forecasts.
A few days later on August 25 he wrote;
“Perlan 2 was somewhat successful yesterday with the 11th highest ever glider flight at 60,000ft! But perhaps more impressive was the probable world record “Most Expensive Aerotow”, with nearly two hours hanging on behind the Egrett into the mid 40’s.
There was a good possibility of stratospheric wave today, but the Perlan 2 is not dissimilar to a military helicopter with about 2 hours preparation and maintenance needed per flying hour, so back-to-back flight days are almost impossible. We are watching to see what the next days bring.“
Interesting how Matthew after being a good young pilot, then JWGC champion, then good in WGC’s and many other also European comps, then involved with his SKYSIGHT, now is in ARGENTINA to help PERLAN with weather prognoses. TOP!!!!
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding

And……yesterday the message was :”Instead of flying the highest glider flight, or even taking the most expensive aerotow ever, we’re doing glider maintenance in the most remote location ever… some very complex gremlins being chased down. Derigging is a challenge – the glider is about 1000kg all up, and the inboard wing panels are 160kg each.”

——–Formula 1 in The Netherlands from Zandvoort. WHATADAY!!!!!! When you have not seen it try to find it somewhere on the “net”. Max won, maybe his best race ever, ….he is a great ambassador for our country , so is Andre Rieu who with 80 people of his orchestra played AT the grid and sung the Dutch National anthem. The king was there with Maxima and 2 daughters, more than 300.000 over 3 days ,looked in Zandvoort to the performances in sun, wind and rain, also from Fernando Alonso, who at his age was 3d!! And 2,3 million looked at TV here in The Netherlands.

Nobody was allowed to enter Zandvoort by car , so either they came by bus, train or bike. Look at this.

I am NOT a chauvinist, but a real lover from sport and the day even became better with EUROPEAN GOLD for both our male and female hockey players ,with a ticket for the Olympic games AND in the evening the 3x 400 m at Budapest at the World championship showed a race in which Femke Bol as last runner did what nobody expected, but maybe only hoped for. AT the finish line she passed Jamaica and GOLD was in the pocket.
As said WHATADAY!!!!

Enough news .Next week more about the FAI SGP and finally there are less comps, so my arms and poor head get some rest.
I start straight away with a nice walk.
By the way DOWN UNDER they have flown from Kingaroy [East] already over 500 k tasks and it ‘s still winter there. On June 12, midwinter Toc-Lumpy, flew in his JS3 /18m] from Kingaroy a 500 FAI triangle and 604 OLC km.’s. Not bad it shows that you can fly all year somewhere down under.
Cheers Ritz.

To finish a picture from those EVER CREATIVE ASK 13 organizers.

WeGlide mentioned on this event;
“The annual ASK13 meeting in St. Crepin is one of the highlights of the year and high on our bucketlist! This year, 24 ASK13 have gathered to race through the Alps and share the enthusiasm on vintage gliders.”

And because they are SO BEAUTIFUL here is 1 more!!!!

Post 1.443 on Wednesday August 23 2023

Uvalde 18 m NATIONALS [Pre worlds] and UVALDE GLIDE.
14 August 2023 – 25 August 2023

“Why Uvalde? Why indeed?“ A long story from Gena Tabery , published by Bill Elliott and Rand Baldwin in SOARING CAFE a long time ago, [I worked with and for them a few years in the past] and published as well in  the May 2012 issue of Soaring Magazine.
Indeed a lovely story about Uvalde 1991 and 2012. I was at both events and wrote in 2012 exclusively for SOARING CAFE, though of course it was for EVERYBODY to read.
Got the most hit’s ever in that period, so did SOARING CAFE.
Though the hits we got in Sweden in Eskilstuna in 2006, where I was invited as comps -journalist, were immense too , as far as I heard from CD Robert Danewid and looking at his happiness after the last blog.

https://wgc2024uvalde.com/why-uvalde-why-indeed/

They fly in 3 classes, as it is practice for the 2024 WGC as well. But,…only 5 pilots in open ; Bruce Taylor and Jeff Banks in ASH 32MI , Jim Lee in his JS 1 C TJ in which he flew all long tasks in wave and John Cochrane and Keith Essex another “well-known kilometer -eater” in the mighty EB 29.
4 pilots/teams in the 20 m/double -seater and I only know Adam and Pasi, who fly in a Duo Discus and Pete Alexander, who flies his ASG 32MI.
I will keep an eye on them but it is mostly about the 18 NATIONALS.

Wednesday August 16 day 1 task 1 ;
18 m. class; 445.82 km…..Good old Gary Ittner won the first day in his ASG 29.
Rich Owen keeps a blog but flies as well, being in the back seat of Pete Alexanders ASG 32MI. ;#202318mnats #2023uvaldeglide
25 started and only 1 was out.
Open; 500.33 km….“Good grief! I’m glad that’s over! Day 1 looked pretty interesting when we checked the weather this morning, and again after the briefing. There was a cold front still oscillating up to the north and a sea breeze front forecast to be pushing in from the Gulf, and we were squeezed in the middle. The big question was when to start, and we could see some vertical development starting quite soon after launch. I think none of us thought the whole sky was going to blow up, but there was a high risk of some showers both north and south. Our task was a 500km rectangle, South-West almost to Mexico, then East, a long run North, back West then South home.’ more on this day as “we got over 10,000 feet, and I saw a couple of 10 knot climbs and plenty of 8’s,” on Taylor’s Gliding Page
Keith and Jim were on spot 1 and 2 ,Bruce on 4.
20 m; 411.36 km. Pasi from Finland flying with Aussie Adam in the Duo;
“Good system with Adam. 45min turns flying. Had good day around the task. Just a little bit trouble on north not really hitting the climbs as they were on unusual places. But trusty old Duo goes well. We beat the asg32 on true speed so can’t complain. 10 more days to come” 133 km./h.
Adam; “Another day in Uvalde paradise! Thanks to Skysight we were able to identify that it was going to be better to start earlier, rather than later due to slow & tricky 2nd leg if we were to leave closer to 14:30L. Without seeing the scores, I feel like this was the case.” Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

Thursday August 17 day 2 task 2; ..
18 m.; 4 hour AAT..David Leonard flying for the first time his JS3jet ,at a competition, as his brother Steven and this time crew mentioned, , was on spot 5 on day 1 behind 4 ASG 29 gliders and was 3 today.Overall he leads with 18 points.
“This is a close contest with a bunch or REALLY good pilots!” by Steven.
I met them in Uvalde in 2012. Very kind people. All 25 finished.
20 m; 472.61 km…Good day again for Pasi and Adam…another 1000 points. Pasi;”Tough first 2 hours. Then great 1.5 hrs and bit tough final glide. Good result thoug, but could of done better.“
open; 545.90 km ….Keith is a story-apart! 2000 points in 2 days. Jim was again runner up and Bruce was on 4 again….but he was not well;”I took off with a little headache, which became a big headache. Part way around I pulled the pin and headed gently for home. I was really not enjoying the flight, but touched the remaining circle to at least grab a few points for the day.” more in Taylor’s Gliding Page

Friday August 18 Task 3…….A VERY BLUE DAY!!!!

18 m; task 3….505.02 km….3 Canadian pilots are flying in this 18 m. class and 2 of them I met earlier Jerzy and Dave. AND,….He won already practice day 1 ,now Jerzy Szemplinski won task 3 ; speed 126.40 km./h. for 1000 points . Runner up Ron Fletcher also in ASG 29, had ONE point less,[ they started and finished together]999 and to complete the top 3, Sean Murphy had 996 points.[JS3]
David did well again in his brand new JS 3 , he was 4th. Both he and Steven are true ‘grey’ gentlemen!!!
20 m;task 3….474.56 km….won by and story from Adam and Pasi “Suddenly it dawned on me, they changed the grid launch order without me knowing.. Only that, the grid order hadn’t changed, we just got it wrong ” on; Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
open; task 3…. 553.39 km…..This time not Keith but Jim won the day but ONLY JUST.
All in’s and out’s on the day on Taylor’s Gliding Page
The stories on the SSA site from Rich are hilarious, great reading stuff;
https://www.ssa.org/racing-results/ and go to the reports; this one is called Let’s Go Drive a Tank

Saturday August 19; NO TASK in all 3 classes. RESTDAY!!!

Sunday; August 20; Task 5
18m; 4 hour AAT and Andy Blackburn [JS3TJ] won the day with 549.77 km,speed 135.66 km./h. The weather was not as good as hoped for , pretty challenging they called it .
Overall David in his new JS 3 is still in the lead but just with 25 points. Only 100 points difference between number 1 and 4.
20m; 4 hour AAT...after 3 “wins’ Adam and Pasi were 3d but still with a huge lead. No news on the day but a full story on the rest day in gorgeous San Antonio, where I spend 3 days as well as THANK YOU for my contribution to the news on soaring cafe.
open; 4 hour AAT…..594.55 km was the best distance and it was flown in just over 4 hours.
speed 145 km./h!!!! By Keith...
Bruce is trying to get the hang of his flying there;
“So, I’ve been finding every single flight here really challenging.” Taylor’s Gliding Page

Monday August 21; task 6 4 hour AAT….
18m; 4 hour AAT.…They hoped for better weather , but it was worse than the day before. With a rather late start [as in 2.12 PM] Jerzy raced over 585.39 km with a speed of 139.90 km./h just a tad faster than Rick Indrebo in an ASG 29; 139.38. Rick started 14 minutes earlier than Jerzy and flew 577 km .
As David was “only” 14th for the day, he moved to spot 2 overall, [4810 p] behind Sean Fidler [4835 points]
20 m; 4 hr AAT. “Max distance was 325 miles. We did 323 and 2 min under time Task was bit off.. by Pasi and Adam even had more to say, it turned out an interesting day; They flew 519.72 km with a speed of indeed 130.88 km./h.
“What a fabulous day! We got dealt the task on the grid, which gave every competitor in the first 5 to launch, only 30min to plan & to get the glider ready. We realised this straight away & went straight into flight planning mode, which is where we made our money. Straight away we realised we needed to max out the task, so that we did, flying 2nm less than the max, coming in 2min under time for a guaranteed win at 130kph for the day”. much more on Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
open: 4 hour AAT; at their first TP they were in rain but all went well as all finished.
Here is Bruce about how this day went on;
“We had another 4 hour assigned area task, in weather that looked like it could throw up some challenges. Indeed the first part of the flight was tough with very weak climbs, and some difficulty getting high. After that the day really fired…” much more on Taylor’s Gliding Page
Still a few days to go but the “rivalry” between Keith [EB29R] and Jim [JS 1/21 m] will be exciting, only 150 points difference in favor of Keith.

Today August 23 shows poor weather, so the day was cancelled for all classes to have a day to recuperate.
It seems “left-overs” from a tropical storm might spoil the rest of the fun. Still 2 more days to go.
Will keep you informed.

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CCR in Rieti
13 August 2023 – 22 August 2023

Mixed class;
Wednesday August 16; Task 3…2 hour AAT.…still 250 km. was possible with a nice speed of 121.33 km; Prodorutti & Montemaggi in the ARCUS M flew to a daily spot 1.
17 started and 15 finished.
Thursday; Task 4…2.45 AAT....Austrian Team Altrichter & Schwan in the ARCUS M , got the daily win. They left high and stayed high , following the other pilots who had started 5 minutes in front of them. Then they saw more to the West a convergence line and tried their luck . It was there for them. They flew 401 km with a speed of 144 km./h., which was 10 k faster than most of the other pilots.
Only the Duo Discus was out.
Friday August 18; Task 4…2.20 AAT.…The Austrian Swiss combination Hartmann & Passardi in their ARCUS T had the honor to win the daily prize . They were 3 km/h. faster than Alberto.
17 started and 14 finished!

Open class;
Wednesday August 16 Task 3 ..2.25 AAT...295.75 km with a speed of 119 km./h for Jon Gatfield in his AS 33es.
19 started and 14 were in. Alvaro flew 89 km after a very early start and I reckon he just “motored” back.
Thursday; August 17 Task 4….344.80 km....and another Austrian pilot is doing well in Rieti; Christian Hynek in the beautiful EB 29DR; 138 km/h , so his mates in the mixed class were in their Arcus faster.
Friday August 18 Task 5…. 2.20 AAT..A German winner Klaus [Kalmbach in his JS 3 ] this time. He started 3 minutes behind Jon , was back at the same time flew 328 /322 km with a speed of 139/136 km./h.
17 started and 1 was out.
Saturday no task and
Sunday August 20; 2.30 AAT; The ASH 31 MI is with 2 pilots in the top 2. Roberto with a speed of 122.51 km./h over 317 km and Alvaro with 118.68 km./h over 302 km.
17 started and 16 finished.
Monday August 21;  381.02 km…..Christian Hynek from Austria in his EB 29DR was 10 k faster than the runner up; Stefano Cavallari….147.25 km./h for 136.69 km./h!! Swiss pilot Fridolin, good friend of “our Tocumwal Swiss Chris was 3d.
Tuesday August 22; 2.45 AAT.... Stefano Cavallari flew on this last day 353.43 km speed 128.58 for 800 points. An exciting last day for him as he moved from 3 to 1. Great job! He flies an ASG 29.
Also here a ” jump down” for Christian Hynek in the EB….he did not finish! He dropped from 1 to 5.
What is that in Rieti that toppers have a bad last day?????
Final scores;
1. Stefano Cavallari in ASG 29 with 6,273 points.
2. Jon Gatfield in AS 33es from the UK with 6,235 p.
3. Ugo Pavesi in ASG 29e with 5,638 p.

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FRENCH Junior Nationals in Club and standard, 15m and 2-seater class.
10 August 2023 – 19 August 2023
Mantes Chérence

Also in France enough young pilots at their JUNIOR NATIONALS; 25 to be precise in club and 19 in standard class.
After 3 Practice days they started on
August 13 with task 1, a 2 hour AAT won by Amélie Boulanger in her Glasflügel 304; 148 km., speed 61 km./h.
In the end only 20 started and from those 20, only 8 finished.
August 14; task 2…1.45 AAT, this time 25 went “up” and only 6 were out. Daily winner; Paul Merlaud in Pegase with 143 km . speed 75 km./h.
August 15; task 3 …1.30 AAT.CANCELLED.
August 16; task 4 ….2.45 AAT....Won by  Bastien Redondo in Discus 2; 226.66 km. speed 80 km./h.
24 started and 2 did not finish.
August 17; Task 5…265.58 km….a 1000 points day AGAIN for Paul , with a speed of 79.43 km./h.
24 flew the task and 5 did n’t finish.
August 18; Task 6 CANCELLED.
August 19…last day! 2.15AAT.…The last couple of days it was 3x a Pegase on top with Mathis, Nicolas and Paul. On this last day Mathis was 3d, Nicolas 5th but Paul was “out” after 144 km. Ouch! so no 3d spot and bronze for him but an 11th place. He flew well though with 2 daily wins. He will get there!!!
Bastien Redondo won the day in Discus B, he won task 4 as well and moved up from 4 to 2. Not bad.
In this CLUB class the final scores are
1. Mathis Peronnet in Pegase with 3,216 points.
2. Bastien Redondo in Discus b with 3,136 p.
3. Nicolas Douchet in Pegase with 3,063 p.

Standard was also combined with 15m. and 20 m.class, though I counted ONE DUO DISCUS, flown by Anaiis Gaubert from the female French team.. She was 6th in Garray this year at the WWGC.
Further on in this class, one of the French de Péchy family, this time Clement. His brother Thibaud is there as well , he flies in the junior class.
They flew 4 days in a row with 19 pilots and 1 HC pilot Noud Kaaij from The Netherlands, who just finished Bailleau. Also small tasks from 2.30 AAT, 2 hour ,1.30 , with starts after 4 PM and 2.30 AAT.
Task 4 was a 2.30 AAT won by Victor Mallick in LS8; 258.99 km., speed 98 km./h.
Alizée Petit, a member of the French female team as well , she was 10th in club in Spain a short time ago] was runner up. She still is a junior as well.
Task 5 was finally a good one ;308.21 km....and again it was Victor Mallick [LS8] who flew around with a speed of 91.91 km./h .
18 started and 3 were out.
“Our” Dutch Noud who flies HC is doing well with another 3d daily place .Edgar Lagorio in his LS 8 won day 1 , flies very consistent and is 1 overall after 5 tasks, but ONLY 3 points as Victor is on his heels; 2.549 and 2.546 points and for Noud 2.524 p.
Task 6 CANCELLED.
Task 7 and FINAL DAY; 2.30 AAT…..Exciting day full of “jitters” …..237 km and a speed of 90.44 km./h by HC pilot Daniel in the AS 33es. The top 3 was close as said before. What happened?
Edgar was 13th, unfortunately not enough to stay in the top 3. He finished as number 4 dropping from spot 1.
 Lucas Oyaux was runner up moving up from 4 to 1 with only 2 points difference!!!! Alizee did well with a daily 5th spot.
Overall scores for this standard class;
1. Lucas Oyaux in Discus a with 3,154 points.
2. Victor Mallick in LS8 with 3,152 p.
3. Alizée Petit in ASW 20 WL with 3,135 p.
Noud was on 4 with 3,120 p.

Congratulations to all! Felicitations aux nouveaux champions!!!!

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UK JUNIOR NATIONALS
19 August 2023 – 27 August 2023
Gransden Lodge

50 pilots in the UK are ready for some good flights.
The UK had some tragic accidents last week with a midair which killed 1 pilot , the other one escaped by landing safely and 1 pilot had a bad start and died a day after the accident. R.I.P
Life goes on , but some EXTRA concern is always good.
Competition director is young Finn Sleigh ,current World and National Junior Gliding Champion. Very nice young man!!
August 19 Task 1 ;174.76 km….Henry Inigo-Jones in his LS8 showed his class by winning day 1 ; speed 92.24 km./h. Jordan Johnson in an ASW 20 was runner up; 81.71 km./h.
39 started and ONLY 12 finished….
August 20 task 2;  152.41 km…. Another ASW 20 pilot George White was the daily best; 116.87 km./h. Quite a bit faster again than runner up Jordan; 104.96 km./h.
41 started and 24 finished.
August 21 task 3;  178.38 km….2 pilots flew over 100 km./h ;George his 2d win in a row and Henry;103.63 km./h and 100.88 km./h.
A pity George was out on day 1.He moved from 25 to 17 and to 10 after task 3.
August 22 task 4; 205.71 km….Improving weather, longer tasks! Toby Freeland was the daily best and another already JWGC pilot was runner up; Henry.
After 4 tasks they lead the overall scores with quite a big margin, BUT the margin between them is not that big. Henry on 1 with 2,683 points and Toby with 2,663 p.
They continue till the 27th.
More next week.

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—–News from the The Perlan Project;
“We proved the forecasts were correct. On Aug. 11, 2023, Perlan 2 took to the skies over Patagonia. We were prepared to soar high – only if the forecasts were wrong about no soarable lift until 60,000 feet. Well, best achieved lift was only 3 knots for only a few minutes. But it was a great test of environmental cold conditions as the temps were -60 C (-76 F)“
More on #AirbusPerlanMissionII or https://perlanproject.org/perlan-2-soars-over-patagonia-2023/Airbus

—–AND YES,…Finally I found one……..pffffff. The club class WORLD champion, the runner up and bronze medal winner from Arnborg in Denmark;

In the middle Kim Toppari from Finland, to the Left runner up Toby Freeland from the UK and Alexandre Fierain from France.
FFVP – Fédération Française de Vol en Planeur

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AND,……a bit more about the KEIHEUVEL; I asked last Sunday how many times this Keiheuvel CUP has been flown. At that stage they did not know. Bert Schmelzer sr. investigated this matter together with Stijn Jansen, who was for many years the CD of this “CUP” and the first one was in 2007. Before they had a full week. I remember as both Dennis and George flew there ,as well as Gerrit Kurstjens and Kees Musters. That was before 1987 as Kees and Dennis passed away in December 1987 and January 1988.
So there is a LONG history of flying at the Keiheuvel.
En passant Bert sr mentioned that in 2007 his son Bert jr. got the best” junior award “…a memory on his dad, called the “Albert Schmelzer junior trophy”. Awarded by his grand ma ,Bert sr.’s mum. In 2014 Bert jr became WORLD CHAMPION in standard class in Rayskala .
AND..during “the 8 days” in 2002 it was the new CD Robbie Seton, who got that prize .
As said before, there is a huge history at Keiheuvel, on the Schmelzer and Huybreckx families.

———Not long and Pavullo is the place to be for the finals of the 11th FAI SGP. 20 pilots will try to be the BEST. 2 pilots flying now for THE CUP de Rieti , Alberto and Jon , will participate in Pavullo too.
Mind you they have a new website; https://sgpfinal23.sgp.aero/world-final-2023

It has been very busy in the air specially over THE ALPS.
Have a look”

Post 1.442 on Sunday August 20 2023

Every year I try to visit that great airfield, not far from where I live, just over the border in Belgium The Keiheuvel. The kindest people and always a top atmosphere. I visit them since the 70thies.
That was obvious as more pilots than the 50 allowed wanted to enter .
On Saturday the “nice” weather just started too late for the comps. Some flew but the base was low after rain in the morning. But 2 former JWGC pilots, Robin from The Netherlands and Jeroen from Belgium [Keiheuvel] had a nice flight, but indeed the base was too low to send all 53 up.
The BBQ in the evening was busy and most of them had their tent/caravan at the camping area along side the club house, so if necessary crews could “roll “home.

On Sunday my brother and I arrived early at the field. Briefing was postponed to 10.30, so time enough to catch up with “mates”.

So many pilots that the tables , normally in this briefingroom did n’t fit in.

Party time first as CD Robbie celebrated his birthday with lots of pies for every body who wanted. The happy birthday song was loud.

Tasks were presented, gliders without a transponder cannot fly in The Netherlands so they stayed in Belgium, the other ones flew trough Belgium and The Netherlands .
3 classes; friendly with 13 pilots/teams and 142 km , Sportclass XPDR with 16 pilots had to go 250 km and open XPDR [ 23 pilots/teams] with 300 km.

Waiting at the field before start means time to catch up. This is Tim Huybreckx and Tijl Schmelzer, local pilots. Certainly when it’s still VERY BLUE!!! Tijl flew and was 9th in open his dad Bert sr was on 8.

First starts would be around 12, but it stayed very blue for a while, so it was waiting till 12.45. Clouds had popped up everywhere and the first gliders were in no time over 1200 m.
In between 5 tugs were ready to help all pilots quickly up in the air . I noticed the Keiheuvel Scout , flown by Pieter, a Husky, a Robin and a Pawney, the other one I missed.

It felt for a moment like in Australia; hot and bothered. 35 dgr.C, no wind but great clouds, more and more .

“Little” Leon , not so little anymore ,son from Gitte and Jeff , 11 already, was going to fly with uncle Eddy [Huybreckx] in the backseat. His first competition and he was pleased and proud. So he should….In a few years we will see him flying by himself!! Years ago this happened with ‘Little’ Jeroen, who flew over the last years the JWGC .

And a lot of young Dutch pilots , from several clubs were having fun under a wing , to have at least a bit of shade ,whilst waiting for their start. Some fly in 2-seaters as team Jelmer Vis/ Faber, team Robin Smit/Kyra Versteege, Team Robbie Seton & Klunder Nijland and Team  Aldridge & Sietske Bakker.
Jelmer, Robin and Robbie ALL flew JWGC’s in the past.

I walked back from the field to the club house for a cool drink before having lunch in The KEI, the restaurant from Chrisje and Rudy [Jeroens parents] . I was a bit unlucky as the door handle of the toilet in the clubhouse , was on the ground and NOT on/in the door.
For 15 minutes I was locked in making noise ,banging with that loose door handle on the door. As it was hot there , I shouted out loud too to get somebody’s attention and indeed after 15 minutes the kind lady of the bar opened the door and led me out. I was very grateful.

No worries,… on my way to the restaurant I noticed still the last gliders behind the tugs. AND, high circling other gliders in the air. But it was also time to go home again. So I had to miss the finishes, which is a pity but I knew that I could see the results on www.soaringspot.com.
A glorious soaring day, BUT let’s wait if that shows in the results.

The prize giving would be at 7 PM. Don’t know if that still happened .
In the end the day was not that glorious as several pilots out-landed.
But here are the PRELIMINARY scores from the Keiheuvel Cup.

Friendly class; 142.02 km …..was won by Eddy Huybreckx and his 11 year old nephew Leon [See picture above] GREAT result for both!!!! Together they must have got EXTRA wings. Anyhow as a local , Eddy started last [about 25 minutes later]and passed them all to be back after 1 hour and 56 minutes;speed 73.35 km./h. 2 KA6 E gliders started and finished together and both were runner up!
In the end 9 started and 6 finished.

Sport class with transponder; 250.88 km…… Dutch pilot Roelof Corporaal, who just won Bailleau, won the Keiheuvel Cup as well. In his LS 7 he flew with a speed of 94.18 km./h. Good on him.
Runner up Robin Selfslagh [B] with 791 points and Tim Kremers [Neth] was 3d
15 started and 6 were out.

Open class with transponder; 300 km.…Team  Bielen & Snyers in an ARCUS won the day with a speed of 93.29 km./h . They “got” 1000 points and 995 points were for Robin and Kyra in the Duo Discus XLT.
From 22 only 10 finished.

Another HOT, but very nice visit to many of my Belgium mates at Keiheuvel Airport. It was interesting to see that more Belgian pilots attend this competition nowadays. In the past it was about half Dutch now there were only 9!
SO…..another ‘Keiheuvel SPECIAL’.
AND…..Where would we be without the tuggies;

EXTRA NOTE:AND,……a bit more about the KEIHEUVEL; I asked last Sunday how many times this Keiheuvel CUP has been flown. At that stage they did not know. Bert Schmelzer sr. investigated this matter together with Stijn Jansen, who was for many years the CD of this “CUP” and the first one was in 2007. Before they had a full week. I remember as both Dennis and George flew there ,as well as Gerrit Kurstjens and Kees Musters. That was before 1987 as Kees and Dennis passed away in December 1987 and January 1988.
So there is a LONG history of flying at the Keiheuvel.
En passant Bert sr mentioned that in 2007 his son Bert jr. got the ” Albert Schmelzer junior Trophy “…a memory on his dad . The award was handed over to Bert jr. by his grand ma . In 2014 Bert jr became WORLD CHAMPION in standard class in Rayskala .
AND..during “the 8 days” in 2002 it was the new CD Robbie Seton, who got that prize .
As said before, there is a huge history at Keiheuvel, on the Schmelzer and Huybreckx familiesas well.
CU on Wednesday again.

Cheers Ritz

Post 1.441 on Wednesday August 16 2023

Summer is nearly over and after a great start and BAD “middle” ,we have a good end on this 2023 summer. Maybe not fantastic soaring weather, but dry sunny and warm again, up to 30 dgr C this weekend.
I did a lot of writing about all important comps .
I missed however a picture on the 3 young ones from the Czech Rep who won the Standard class in Denmark at the JEGC. I found one and here you are ……3 happy young pilots!!!
Hopefully I “find” the club class as well.

Jens Trabolt   wrote in his Nordic Gliding Magazine about the JEGC and here is the link; https://nordicgliding-com.translate.goog/junior-em…/…

So now it’s back to the “normal” procedures though this upcoming weekend I will be as always at the KEIHEUVEL, for their competition.
First to LASHAM!!!

—–In between the LASHAM REGIONALS [5 August 2023 – 13 August 2023] are over and who not participated in the EGC , was flying there in a “red” or “bleu” class.
In “red” 31 pilots flew and in “blue” 16 , so another busy competition at that beautiful BIG field.
“RED” flew 6 out of 9 days with tasks from 248 km, 3.30 AAT, 353 km, 123,86 km and 162 and 105 km.
Quite a few “names” I met at comps, but did not see during the last years, as Dave Watt, IanMacarthur, and Leigh Wells who flew HC and is Lizzy’s brother.[in Amsterdam last weekend]
Steve Pozerskis in ASG 29, won this class with 4,079 points.

“Blue” flew 1 day less and started with a 192.75 km task flown by only 2 pilots, George Downing in ASW 20 and Tim Milner in his LS 3; 75 km./h ,so a tough day. Then a task from 307 km, 258.91 km, 105.50 [with only Tim as finisher] 92,88 km [only Oliver Barter [LS8] as finisher.]
Final scores;
Red; Blue;
1. Steve Pozerskis in ASG29e with 4,079 points. 1. Tim Milner in LS 3 with 3,126 points
2. Ken Barker in JS1C with 4.004 p 2. Jordan Johnson in ASW 20 with 2,922 p.
3. Ian Macarthur in JS 1b with 3,699 p. 3. George Downing in ASW 20 with 2,782 p.

The LASHAM org. finished with :
“We will see you next year for the UK 18 and 20m National Championships, 25th May-4th June 2024.“

——-USA 18m NATIONALS and UVALDE GLIDE [14 August 2023 – 25 August 2023] with 3 classes and 41 competitors.
Bruce is there and Adam and both are good bloggers ,so I refer to them in my blogs!
Adam wrote already after his arrival with Pasi from Finland.
“Pasi & I have arrived into Uvalde, but not without seeing the blue & reds just 40 miles out of town!
We enjoyed a nice journey, always amazed at how quickly the countryside or views changed, always greeted with nice locals.
Time for a shower & our first visit to a Texan steakhouse.” Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
So did Bruce;
“After six years away, here I am back in Uvalde, Texas… and it’s still just as hot as it always was! This is the official pre-worlds for 18m, Open and 20m two-seat classes for next year, as well as the US 18m nationals to select their own team for the worlds. Adam Woolley and his Finnish mate Pasi are here too, but there are very few other internationals turning up which is a bit of a shame.
As with many previous visits, I am borrowing a glider from my friend Jim Staniforth, this time it is his ASH31Mi, which is in great shape. (Very) early this morning I crawled out to the airfield to get it rigged, before the sun got too high. I put on the 21m wings today, and might fly with the 18m tips tomorrow. Then I’ll decide which span I prefer.” much more in Taylor’s Gliding Page

The first practice day was ” Blue” :
“First official practice day today, and it was not a bad one at all. The forecast was for mostly blue conditions as per yesterday, but except for a short distance in our northern leg there were some nice Texan cus. Especially down to the south it was very nice with some buoyant glides and stronger climbs. We had a 2.5 hour Assigned Area Task which was short for the weather we got, but basically it was just a day for pilots and organisers to go through the motions to make sure everything is working.” for more Taylor’s Gliding Page
and
“This is what they consider a blue Uvalde day, absolutely awesome, hope we get many more & naturally, so glad I came!” for more Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

More next Wednesday, the last practice day is over and you can read the news on both blogs.
Greetings via both from Eric “Herbie” Moser, that was nice!.

———The CCR [Coppa Citta di Rieti ] flown between 13 August 2023 – 22 August 2023, counts 17 pilots in the mixed class and 19 in open, from Italy, Spain, The UK, Austria ,Germany and Switzerland. Mostly very experienced mountain pilots.
Task 1 in the mixed class was a 2.45 AAT won by Federico Montanini in a Ventus 2ax; 357.57 km., speed 132.04 km./h.
17 Started and 3 were out.
Task 2 a 2.40 AAT was yesterday and won by team Alberto Sironi/ Venturini in the ARCUS T; 364.11 km ,speed 136.43 km./h.
17 started and 16 finished.

Task 1 in open was a 2.50 AAT, won by Jon Gatfield from the UK; 407.92 km ., speed 140 73 km./h.
19 started and 1 was out. Jon is a very open , thoughtful , very experienced and concerned glider pilot, so I share his news to alert pilots when they fly the glider, just to warn you;
“BEWARE: twice now I have had a potentially serious situation with the air brakes. If opened at high speed (100kts or more) they can jerk out and cause one of the 4 paddles to overlap another. You then cannot close the brakes.
I’ve got away with it twice now but the last incident was a real heart stopper on finals to Rieti. 55kts over the fence – just. The previous at Sisteron required an “S” turn approach.
Be aware too that because the brakes are out the wheel brake will be on and likely cause the nose to scrape the ground. Mine needs repainting for sure.
I have alerted the UK agent who has told Schleicher but I haven’t seen an AD yet and one is definitely needed.
In the meantime- be aware and take care!“
Task 2; 396.15 km…..good day for Austrian pilot Christian Hynek in the EB 29DR; 148.60 km/h. Not bad as the runner up had 139.07 km./h. Convergence lines over the Apennines created great speed.
19 started and 3 were out

More next week.

—–For my Dutch readers;

And to finish this news I read and I can only agree with it from
Michael Price
“Can’t believe how good a multi-tasker Matthew Scutter is!  Helping us all have more fun with his Skysight, great competition pilot as he showed at Rieti, in the middle of the night when the other competitors are fast asleep he’s supporting the Perlan team conquer the Polar Vortex, I send him an insignificant Skysight email during all of this and he answers anyway, what an amazing gift to our sport!!  Hopefully he will take a nap on his way home from Italy  Well done Matthew!!”

CU next week
Cheers Ritz

Post 1.440 on Sunday August 13 2023.

Dutch National Junior Championship
Venlo 5 August 2023 – 12 August 2023

Yesterday was the last day from the Junior National championship flown from the beautiful field of Venlo, where nowadays the Club from Venlo and Eindhoven co-operate in the best harmony after the Eindhovense Aeroclub had to leave their field due to airliner business ; VEZC
They flew in one class and started with 2 non-flying-days, but after that the weather was OK .
All tasks were just under or over 100 km .Task 6 however was a 3 hour AAT and won by Emily Nagelkerke; 192 km with 64 km /h in Discus A. Good on her!!!
I traveled with my grand daughter Indya on Friday morning to Venlo, to be at the briefing at 10.

We caught up with Sophie. She is from Malden and had no plan to fly the Junior Nationals . She met at the club from Malden George and Diana . They asked her about her participation . When they heard she had no glider they offered her their LS1f and here she is flying and doing well at Venlo. She was 6th from 18!!

We also caught up with some of the older members from Venlo I know, who kept an eye on things , but the whole competition was organized by young ones!!!
Indya’s friends, twins Luuk and Tijs from the Gelderse,[ by the way they continue their summer camp today ] participated for the first time and did well with a 5th and 8th spot overall.

The scouts for the day were presented and they were good ones; Robin Smit JWGC silver in Narromine and in the Duo Discus 2 former top JWGC juniors Simon and Maurits.

The last day started with rain but turned out flyable later. With a start at 16.43 Wouter and Luuk reached 83 km.for 16 and 15 points. They were the only finishers Wouter at 18.25 and Luuk at 19.10.

Overall scores ;
1. Wouter Bakker from the Amsterdamse in ASW 20 with 1,057 points.
2. Boris Ariës from the ACS in LS4 with 1,016 points
3. Emily Nagelkerke from VEZC in Discus A with 973 points.

Nice to have been at Venlo again, where I started my soaring life in 1967. Then I slept in the bush in a tent behind the old hangar , yesterday Indya did so too as she visited the end party.
History repeats, nice!
So far the Dutch Junior Nationals.

——-The EJGC in Denmark was more or less spoiled by rain due to storm “HANS”, but they had fun anyhow! The Dutch had 2x a spot 6 and were runner up for the TEAM CUP,[877.38], behind the Czech Rep[887.58] but before the UK.[860.75]

—–Steven Raimond; has been for many,many years a Dutch top pilot representing The Netherlands at EGC ‘s and WGC’s. This Polish EGC was his last “performance’ on this high level. He was in “my team” several times and I truly enjoyed the company from him and his Marion, the best crew in the world.
He became European Champion in Rayskala in 2005 and I was there as steward that year!
By the way, Pete Harvey won in 2005 too in open . He was now runner up in the 2-seater class.

—–This picture is from the EGC in Poland with a true friendship between the Belgian and Dutch pilots/crews. A competition is ALL ABOUT FAIR-PLAY and friendship!!!!!

——–More longtime soaring friendship as shared by Lizzy Wells;
“Inge and I first met at the gliding pre-worlds at Rieti in 1984.
Then, catching up again in Uvalde in 1991 we plotted a travel adventure together through NZ and Australia – finalising plans by letter (no Internet, email or mobiles back then!).
And travel we did, staying with so many amazing people along the way.

So catching up with Inge this week, nearly 40 years from our first meet, was really special – but WAY too short ….… here’s to a follow up very soon “

The Oakley family , Mike and Kate, was in Amsterdam as well. Mike was TC in Benalla in 1987 when I remember well. We all met in that year too.

—–In between the Soaring Society of America shared the next news:
“Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 Sports Class Nationals: 3rd Place – Robin Clark (RF); 2nd Place – Danny Sorenson (DS); 1st Place – Gary Ittner (P7).”
All results on ;
https://members.ssa.org/ContestResults.asp?contestId=2545&ContestDetailId=30216&ContestName=2023+Sports+Class+Nationals&ContestDate=8/11/2023&ResultsUpdate=True

——–Some more EGC pictures.

AND, the French team

More than enough news and pictures!
Cu you on Wednesday for the regular blog.
cheers Ritz

Post 1.439 on Saturday August 12 2023.

21st FAI EUROPEAN GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Leszno Strzyzewi, Poland
26 July 2023 – 11 August 2023

Only 3 days to go so we quickly look what happened.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 9; task 6 in 18 m and 7 in open and the 2-seater class. Another late start due to changes in tasks and “fiddling around”. At 9 in the morning it was still raining and completely overcast. At the briefing at 11, they set rather big tasks which were down seized several times to get to a D task which was smaller. Indeed, it did not look too bad.
“EGC2023
Contest Day 11 – Task D – Yes TASK D!
Short-ish racing tasks today for all three classes into a reducing Wx window.1st launch confirmed for 1435L hrs. 18M are first to go followed by Open and then 20M.” British Gliding Team

18 m; Task 6…..251.77 km….and a good day for Peter Millenaar, who won with a speed of 122.75 km./h ahead of Lucasz W and Sebastian.[120 km./h]both of course from Poland.
All 36 were eager to start and 2 were “out”.
open; Task 7….255.54 km…Both UK pilots Tim and Andy flew around with 125 km./h on the “clock” after a rather early start. Tim won the day.
All 15 started and finished…GOOD!!!!
2 seaters; Task 7…. 228.64 km..during the days 1 Arcus was damaged during start on the ailerons and 1 during landing on the undercarriage. So 20 left. And those 20 flew and finished!
Daily winners Philippe de Pechy and Louis Bouderlique.
Late starts just before 4 PM and finished after 6 PM, the last ones in the Duo Discus and Twin Shark at 6.42 and 6. 48.

THURSDAY AUGUST 10; another good day! SO happy for the organizers and pilots /crews. Waking up at such a sky……AND,…the first hot day…..
Base around 1700 m and first estimated launch at 10.45.
Sniffer for the day was well known glider pilot Lasse Virtanen from Finland.
Only ONE more day to go!!!!!

18m class; Task 7…503.43 km…it looks that the first 4 overall before the start today , have the most chance to become European Champion. The difference between Lucasz W, Sebastian , Peter and Lucasz G is just over 30 points, so this 500 is very IMPORTANT!!!!!
What happened today as a big task can change a lot?
2 km /h faster than the rest gave a day-win for Russell Cheetham; 130.56 km./h!!!
More important was the runner-up-spot from Peter and the 15th spot from Lucasz W and Sebastian. They moved behind Peter to spot 2 and 3 overall. NO no I know it ain’ t over yet!!!!
But Peter moved to spot 1 now. Not a lot of points difference; Peter 4.892 and Lucasz 4.836.
open; Task 8….501.60 km….the first 4 overall have at the start today over 4000 points and the difference between them is possible/bridgeable ; Markus on 1 has 4.222 points, but Tomasz Rubaj [4.137] , Sylvain [4.073] and Francois [ 4.063] are close.
David Mach and Sylvain Gerbaud were the best for 1000 and 988 points. Francois started late and lost 180 points, a pity! Dropped from 4 to 5.

2-seaters; Task 8 ….467.81 km…..9 teams who are still in the race in my opinion …..It’s Finish team Juha Sorri/ Kettunen on top overall at this stage; 4.558 p. UK pilots Pete Harvey /Dawes follow with 4.444 p and the other UK team Gary Coppin/Steve Jones are on 3 with 4.362. All in ARCUS M.
Who will be the best on this longish 467 km race???
Speed between 124.30 km./h for winners Müller & Hörber [call sign HLB] AND Ørskov & Mix both with equal 1000 points and 103.76 for the last finishers. Unfortunately those were the Belgian pilots dropping now from 5 to 9. Whilst HLB moved up from 9 to 6.
Kettunen & Sorri were on a daily spot 6 only loosing 50 points.

None of the pilots out landed.Perfect!!!! A male might say,” the task was too easy”, a female is happy with everybody home.

FRIDAY AUGUST 11. ….VERY LAST DAY!!!! AND,…another 500 km race,a nice big task to define the new European 18m. Champion.
18m. Task 8.…501.40 km; Of course the 3 -Polish- pilots -tactic would be to try to finish on the first 3 spots with a “coup” to “remove” Dutch Peter from spot 1. Sebastian and Lucasz G. left at 13.02 and Lucasz W. 4 minutes later.Peter started at 12.52.
They partly succeed in their plan ,but on this last day Łukasz Wójcik won and was sure of EGC GOLD.
Sebastian was on 3 and Lucasz G on spot 32!
Peter on spot 11 loosing 88 points on Lucasz which was just enough to be vice EGC CHAMPION.

EGC 18m class CHAMPIONS;
1. Łukasz Wójcik from Poland in Ventus 3T with 5,836 points.
2. Peter Millenaar from The Netherlands in JS 3RES with 5,804 p.
3. Sebastian Kawa from Poland in VENTUS 3T with 5,794 p.

Open class;Task 9….511.79 km
Markus Frank won the day with 118.70 km./h. Francois was runner up,with ONE point less and Oliver Binder number 3. Markus consolidated his GOLD medal, so no changes in the top 3 overall

EGC CHAMPIONS in open class;
1. Markus Frank from Germany in EB 29R with 5,178 points.
2. Sylvain Gerbaud from France in EB 29R with 5,071 p.
3. Tomasz Rubaj from Poland in JS1C with 5,024 p.

2-seater class on this last day:
Task 9 ;476.02 km
Borgmann & Wolff were the best , they won 2 days and fought themselves during this competition from spot 21 on day 1 to 4 on the last day, I call that GREAT PROGRESSION !! Italian team Riciardo and Davide followed. Pete Harvey and his mate were on an equal spot 3 with the German team Müller & Hörber.
The Finish number 1 Kettunen & Sorri overall before this day, were on spot 11 ouch , but with 150 points less that was just no disaster for them. They stayed TWO POINTS AHEAD!!!

Here are the final EGC scores for 2 seaters;
1. Simo Kettunen & Juha Sorri from Finland in ARCUS M with 6,358 points pffff…..
2. Harvey & Dawes from the UK in ARCUS M with 6,356 p. pffff….
3. Coppin & Jones from the UK in ARCUS M with 6,196 p.

The Dutch team won the TEAM PRIZE!!! TOP JOB Guy’s.

———————————————————

6th FAI FAI JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP
Svæveflyvecenter Arnborg, Denmark
29 July 2023 – 12 August 2023

Still NO FLYING in Arnborg on Wednesday day 11, due to that “bloody” storm HANS!!!
On the JEGC site was written:” Storm Hans is weakening but today is still cancelled. Thermals are getting spread by the remaining strong wind blowing at 18 KT on surface and 32 KT at 900m AGL.
Our local weather specialist Niels Thomsen is already analyzing the first forecast models for tomorrow, let´s get a sight into his work.”

http://termikudsigten.dk:

At least some fun in the evening as they have their “Danish National Event'”

Thursday August 10 and 1 more days to go, which was NOT flown no task 7.
THEY FLY!!!!! Still 25 km./h wind at flying height but after so long , a bit of flying will push adrenaline in the veins from the young ones again.
Competition day 12 , flying day 4 and only 3 days to go including today.
Club class; Task 6….2.30 AAT.…with distances between 277 and 280 km 1 Hungaryan and 3 French pilots were the daily best.On ,..what they then DID NOT KNOW, this last day [task 7 was cancelled] of this by weather dominated JWCG. Their speed; between 109 and 113 km./h.
All 36 started and finished which must have given all of them a good feeling. Maybe not so much for Toby as he missed out somewhere during these days on ONE point to win!!!
Toby was 17th for the day [725 points] and Kim 21st.[682 p] Kim was 44 points overall ahead on Toby before starting the last day.PFffffff…….so close!

JWGC CLUB class champions;
1. Kim Toppari from Finland in LS7 with 2,823 points.
2. Toby Freeland from the UK in ASW 20 with 2,822 p
3. Alexandre Fierain from France in ASW20 with 2,773 p

Standard class; Task 6….2.30 AAT...6 in this class flew around 288 km with speed between 112 and 113 km./h. After task 3 the Czech pilots took over the overall spots from the Danish boys.
Not really enough tasks to show how good everybody REALLY was.

JWGC STANDARD class CHAMPIONS; after only 4 out of 14 days [including 1 rest day];
1. Lukáš Kríž from Czech Rep in LS8a with 2,878 points.
2. Jaromír Macoun from Czech Rep. in LS 8 with 2,793 p.
3.  Michaela Rendlova from Czech rep in LS 8 with 2,769 p.
The Danish boys Lasse Edslev and Jacob Bøgelund Lassen in LS 8 NEO and Discus 2A stayed close with 2,723 and 2,655 p, whilst young Dutch pilot  Niels van Nieuwland really did well on spot 6 with ONLY 3 points less than Jacob.

The Dutch team was runner up for the TEAM CUP behind the Czech Rep.
Not too many days they surely hoped for more but when I look at pictures and read stories the atmosphere was good and so to see, many new friendships have been started!

———————————————————————-

C.I.M. in Italy
Rieti 1 August 2023 – 11 August 2023

Another busy day in the office on August 9 with task 7, with a 450.86 km race and Matthew really got the hang of flying in Rieti. With 144.70 km./h he raced over the track and even had time to make a picture from the Grand Sasso!! In the end he was grateful” to Jon Gatfield, Ben Flewett and Katrin Senne who babysat me for the first few days until I got the hang of it.“
24 started and 1 was out in open class.
In the mixed class, it was Pirker/Pirker again with a daily win. A pity they were out on task 4, loosing more than 500 points, a pity.

August 10 task 8;
Open class…..3.15 AAT...2 Swiss pilots topped the daily list; Stefan and Felix and they moved up overall to spot 2 and 3 with Matthew,who was 4th for the day, still on spot 1. Only 1 day to go!

Mixed class on task 8; 2.50 AAT...Dal Grande & Raffaelli in their ARCUS M won the day with a distance of 358.36 km ,speed 126.48 km./h. That was quite a bit faster than Thomas [Gostner] and Stefano[Ghiorzo] mostly flying together ; 115 km./h for Thomas and 114 for Stefano.
22 started and 9 were out among them Pirker/Pirker. An UP and DOWN competition for them.

Friday August 11; LAST DAY!!!! 9 out of 10 possible days. Not bad!
Open ; Task 9; with Matthew as he is there.”We had a forecast for the trickiest day of the competition, with spreadout and storms combined with little to no wind on the ridges.
All I had to do was go around the task roughly in proximity to the two Swiss pilots, and for most of the task managed to do that, but I was a bit nervous about them pushing too hard at the end and turned home early, which got me a day and overall win!”Matthew Scutter’s Gliding more to be read there.
So he won the day with 133 km./h just ahead of 1 of the Danish pilots in the EB and Katrin Senne in her JS 3.
On this last day 24 started and 5 were out, 1 of them Jon from the UK who was on spot 4 overall and dropped to 5.

Open class winners;
1. Matthew Scutter from Australia in JS3/18m RES with 8,129 points.
2. Stefan Sidler from Switzerland in ASG 29E with 7,764 p.
3.  Felix Schneebeli from Switzerland in Ventus 3TP/18 m with 7,700
On spot 4 was Giorgio with 7.400 p.

mixed ; Task 9 2.45 AAT….354 km was flown by Thomas Gostner and with that he won the last day. Speed;127.38 km./h.
21 started and 3 were out.
As Matthew mentioned about flying in Rieti I could partly agree;” Rieti is often characterised as a very difficult or dangerous site – I think that is probably true in club class or standard class gliders, but 18m+ performance makes it quite relaxed.”
You have to have flown there before you fly a competition, knowledge and info from others HELPS!!
The mountains can be very unforgiving.
But Rieti is also beautiful/magic I liked it there.

Mixed class winners .
1. Team Leutenegger & Rüegg from Switzerland in ARCUS T with 7,965 points.
2. Team Flewett from the UK in ARCUS M with 7,868 p
3. Thomas Gostner from Italy in Ventus 3T/15 m. with 7,652 p.
Pirker/Pirker were 7th.

Congratulations to ALL

————————————————————

—–In between INTERNATIONAL Bailleau 2023 is over . They finished yesterday after 4 flown tasks out of 11 days.
In the “LONG FLIGHTS CLASS” 22 pilots tried hard to win, among them 12 Dutch pilots.
Bailleau is a loved competition destination for the Dutch.
You would expect that a dutch pilot might be a winner, when there are so many, but you STILL have to fly the competition.
In the end they did and had a number 1 and 2 , with Hadriaan van Hes [WGC pilot] with 3,431 points. Ronald Kaay was runner up with 2,949 points just 6 more than French pilot Eric Garnier on spot 3.

In the ” SPEED CLASS ” 37 pilots and 8 are Dutch [among them 4 teams x 2]. Also here a Dutch champion who is in The Netherlands already well-known for his good flights and still pretty young ; Roelof Corporaal in LS 7WL. Ronald son Noud was 8th in this class.[LS8/15m]

In the AMICAL CLASS[friendly one for beginners] 7 participants only 1 Dutch , but 4 from Belgium[ among them 1 DuoDiscus] Also 4 tasks in this class and the winner was Antoine Daiwaille in a Pegase, [1.243 points] followed by Dutch pilot Matthijs de Graaf in LS4b.[1.213 p]

—- The Dutch juniors flew in Venlo between August 5 and 12.Quite a few as 18 had entered!!!GOOD!!!
Here they are;

I visited them and will have a SPECIAL on this competition tomorrow!

—–More about the LASHAM REGIONALS [5 August 2023 – 13 August 2023] with 48 pilots on Wednesday cause they still fly .

CU tomorrow again,my fingers “hurt” ,though the young ones are important and I hope to have a few more pictures and maybe quotes from the last comps.
Cheers Ritz

Post 1.438 on Wednesday August 9 2023

We can’t change the weather we have to deal with it, but as bad as in parts of Europe , last week in SUMMER, is extraordinary. Holiday makers had to flee from parts of Austria, Northern Italy, Slovenia [very bad] and Croatia. Several people even died due to landslides and heavy flooding. NOT GOOD!!!!!Terrible!

Here in the Netherlands we had the wettest [55 mm] and coldest August 6 with 15.8 dgr C.
Mind you STILL SUMMER HERE!!!!
ONE bright spot for us here. “Our” Mathieu van der Poel won the WORLD-championship for elite-cyclists, even after a hard fall in the last round, due to the slippery road in Glasgow . He made us all warm.

Let’s continue with the comps in Poland, Denmark and Italy, where they have at least nice soaring-weather.

——————————————————

21st FAI European GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Leszno Strzyzewi, Poland,
26 July 2023 – 11 August 2023

The expectation was for a few wet days .The organizers mentioned ;
“It’s a rainy Sunday at Lotnisko Leszno. Pilots don’t compete today. We have an International Day and we play board games. That’s all we can do “
The Belgian team about this evening:
“Yesterday, all the competing teams participated in a very fun international evening. From Dutch cheese and peas soup, French wine, English Pims, Slovakian cola, amazing Italian pasta, fresh japanese sushi and a lot of other national treats, we enjoyed a real culinary experience. The Belgian waffles were once again a success and were completely sold out at 10pm. Some people have danced the night away, but all of the Belgian pilots were good and went to bed early. “
Time also to make/share nice pictures. I was very pleased with these ones, as I was Erik’s TC then in Borlange; also a very wet “happening”.

But then the new week started and,….yes a task.

Monday August 7 task 5 from 11 till now, small but you never know….. What I know is that the field and the areas around it are very wet.
“They are expecting a small Wx window with a strong Westerly; no task yet but let’s see what they come up with!” British Gliding Team 
Wind at height 50 km./h. Cloud base 1000 m in that window, later more clouds , a lower base and rain.
Expected first start at 12.30.

18m; 1.30 AAT….cancelled at briefing. But the 2 pilots Steven and Peter helped TC Baer with his job, mainly looking at the meteo. Not that he needed that but a good group- spirit is IMPORTANT.

Open; 1.30 AAT….direction East……The UK mentioned ;”After the 18M task was cancelled, we weren’t sure that any task group would leave the airfield today as the forecast was predicting showers and strong westerly winds. AATs of 1:30 hrs duration for 20M and Open Class were set and launching commenced at 1230 hrs.”
They FLEW!!!!! BUT, only 4 from 15 finished in open. Francois won his 2d consecutive day! 170 km. in time 2.07 speed 80 km./h. You ONLY do this during a comp! GOOD on him! He won the bottle and might have needed the contents, after this flight.
Andy was runner up for 270 points, Markus 3d for 266 points and a UK mate from Andy, Tim was 4th with 249 points.
“We lost coverage fairly early on and so were pleasantly surprised when 80 appeared to be running along a storm front into wind at about 100+ knots up against (remaining outside obvs!) the Poznan TMA. I had only just radioed that we had an Open Class finisher and Andy responded by saying that he was On Glide for home followed 20 minutes later by Tim in TJ. Second and fourth for the day; not a bad day in the office methinks.” British Gliding Team, more about the day on this link.
2-seaters; 1.30 AAT….direction East….NO FINISHERS but Italian team Riciardo and Davide won the day with 152.72 km for 140 points. Every point is valuable!!!! So 21 “out-landings”/ “engine starts”.

Tuesday August 8. The organizers really try hard to let their guests fly. But in the West they expected already quickly showers , WHEN they fly 18 m will go as they have 1 day less now.
What happened?
18 m; Task 5 ….2 hour AAT….CANCELLED
Open; Task 6…. 1.45 AAT.…CANCELLED
2-seaters; Task 6…1.30 AAT….CANCELLED
But,….not everybody agreed on that. More in the next post.

After 5 days the Dutch team leads the Team CUP scores, BUT “it ain’t over yet”.

August 9; TODAY….No tasks yet BUT,…there is a TC meeting, an open grid and briefing at 11. HOPE!!!!

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6th FAI JUNIOR EUROPEAN GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIP
Svæveflyvecenter Arnborg, Denmark
29 July 2023 – 12 August 2023

The young ones thought they were lucky as they ” maybe ” could fly on Sunday. 2 Hour AAT’s [task 5] were set, they tried hard, Lucas Kriz from Czech Rep ,who won the day before flew 25 km……BUT, you expect it already…CANCELLED.
Still only 3 valid days till now, sad but the better weather is coming, they said!!!!
I thought....yesterday morning there were weather-warnings for Scandinavia…code red for storms and heavy/extreme rain in Norway and Sweden . But Denmark would have their share as well. This low called ” Hans” reached Poland as well.[ and the Baltic States]
No tasks on Monday and Tuesday. Not one for today yet.

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CIM. [Coppa Internazionale del Mediterranio]
Rieti, Italy
1 August 2023 – 11 August 2023

Rieti is more in the middle of Italy and they escape on the bad weather more to the N and E.
They flew and though they had NO TASK on Friday and Saturday, they flew again on
Sunday March 6 task 4; 2.45 AAT….won by Aussie guest Matthew who straight away wrote in his Matthew Scutter’s Gliding blog
“Every dog has its day – and today was my day, first place by 7kph!
The outlook was pretty straightforward, a mega ridge/convergence bash up and down the east of the task area, but I clocked very early on that we were going so fast that we’d have to extend into the final AAT sectors where there wasn’t going to be any ridge or convergence.
When the tail end of the task came, most pilots were pretty gung ho and pushed hard into the poorer final sectors but I just wanted to bank the clean and fast flight and turned home under time, expecting the conditions to rapidly deteriorate – and when they did, I was already on final glide.”
Always the best to hear from the horses mouth.
Matthew flew 421.57 km with 149.64 km./h!!!! For 927 points.
23 more pilots started in open class and only 1 was out. And that was pretty sad as he was the number 1 overall for the 2 days before.
Monday August 7; Task 5…2.35 AAT....Here is Matthew again as this way you “feel” better ,like I do what’s happening in Rieti.;
“And some dogs get two days…
We had forecast showers and another AAT up and down the valley to the east, that didn’t really fit with any ridgelines as they weren’t expected to work well anyway.
Somehow I read the day completely differently to every other pilot and went up and down a convergence that was 50 degrees out of alignment with the circles, while everyone else somehow identified the ridges were actually still working ok and rode those on up and down with much less deviation.
Despite the big misalignment the convergence was so fast I was still slightly quicker.
He won with 387.94 km. and a speed of 148.51 km./h.
Giorgio [Galetto] was a good runner up with 144 km./h over 382 km.
From 24 starters 2 were “out”.
Tuesday August 8; 537.84 km….BIG DAY!!!
Matthew:
“Monster task today – 540km from a 2pm start gate, into broken thermals mostly formed by the convergence, as opposed to the much more desirable opposite way around. The saving grace was the high cloudbase, above 10,000ft in places, which just made the task possible.
I started a bit late because there was clearly going to be a bunching up at the end – and that’s exactly how it played out, the last 100km was getting very tricky and we all ran into the back of each other.
Very marginal final glide necessary to squeeze through the last pass gave the long wings a bit of an edge to get away from us.”
He was runner up with a speed of 125.96 km./h behind my old friend Alvaro in his ASH 31 MI/21m.[128.69 km./h.
24 Started and 5 were “out”.

Mixed class;
Sunday August 6; Task 4….3 hour AAT….a 1000 points -day for Swiss team  Leutenegger & Rüegg in their ARCUS T. 425.52 km speed 137.29 km/h.
All 22 started and 4 were out and also in this class the unexpected happened; Team Pirker/Pirker proudly on 3 overall belonged to the “out-landers”, after a rather late start.
Monday August 7; Task 5….2.25 AAT…..398.05 km with a speed of 146.93 km./h was the best combi for Darius from Lithuania in a DIANA 2.The ARCUS M from Lasham was runner up.
All 22 went on track and finished!!
Tuesday August 8; Task 6….384.43 km Team Leutenegger & Rüegg in their ARCUS T won with a speed of 132.74 km./h
22 Started and 1 was out.
6 out of 8 days that sounds BETTER. Still a few days to go.

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—–In between the 54th Klippeneck Championship is over [ 29 July 2023 – 5 August 2023] and they were as unlucky with the weather as many other comps.
In 15 m they had 2 valid tasks out of 8 days. In CLUB only 1. In 18m ,3 as well as in open and 20 m.
For scores; www.soaringspot.com

—–France has good weather.…so it is not all bad here in Europe. Michael Sommer [EB 29 R] flew on Monday August 7, 1.406,85 km from Puimoisson and also on that day 3 more 1000 km flights, 1 more from Puimoisson in Ventus 3M from Fayence in ARCUS M and Vinon by Gilles Navas in ASG 29. Gilles flew on Saturday also a big one; 1.290 km.
One day earlier also a 1.400 km flight by Baptiste Innocent in another big bird; ASH 31/21m.

—–The weather bureau COPERNICUS mentioned about July 2023, that it was WORLDWIDE the HOTTEST EVER.The average temperature was 16.96, which was 0.33 dgr higher than the last record in July 2019.

You are up to date, more news and the FINAL days on Saturday or Sunday.
Cheers Ritz