Alphen aan den Rijn        Wednesday November 17 2010    ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Slowly the water in Belgium and the south of Holland is getting lower. In Belgium the flooding  cost the  lives of 3 people. On Monday and Tuesday we even had  dry and sunny days with 7 dgr….but frost in the night. Only -1 dgr. but still!  Time to sort out winter clothes for Munich and Salzburg, as the weather forecast  is for much colder weather, real winter, here as well as in Germany, but in Germany they had last weekend 14 dgr in Munich I heard from Maria and on TV I saw at some places even 21 dgr. Amazing! The long forecast is for another cold winter and this time the trains and the municipalities are better prepared, then last year when we had not salt enough to keep the traffic going and trains nearly all stopped!!!!
Summer clothes are nearly ready for Australia and New Zealand. Still some time left.

VERY pleased to hear  that Grietje was the one who made the first flight in Australia at Corowa , with their beautyful  brand-new ASH 31 Mi, with her OWN call-sign 3W.  Also great to see that Pepe is back in Corowa, as well as good old Anders!! In the week I am allowed to spend in Tocumwal I go and visit Corowa as well.

On Monday morning I heard that Quantas had another problem with one of its planes. It had to return  to Sydney where  it just had departed , as smoke entered the cockpit of the 747-400. An electrical failure seems the be the reason the 220 passengers and crew were delayed.
6 Incidents with Quantas planes within 2 weeks, was the headline in Australian papers !! A bit of a worry ! But….at least they still keep it safe!!!!
More , but minor problems, as on Tuesday a KLM 737 landed at Schiphol , result 2 burst  tyres. Don’t know why, but best guess is a too hard landing??? Maybe??? The 737 reached the gate without problems and everybody was fine! No worries !!!
No flying traffic yesterday morning in Eindhoven, the South of Holland where fog delayed out -going planes and forced in-coming ones to leave for Belgium or Gemany.Here the sun was shining brightly, with nice bleu skies and some clouds.

Did you enjoy the last race from Formula 1 as much as I did? Loved it! A pity to see Ferrari bet on the wrong horse. Poor Alonso had no way to pass the Russian rookie in Formula 1, but the good man only did his job. Webber missed out mainly because he qualified as 5th and young Vettel….I just “cried” with him!!! Stunning performance for a 23 year old !!!
Those young German top junior pilots at JWGC’s have the same mentality, they believe in their selves and receive what ever is best for them  from the team around them .
Guess, that Vettel, like some of the JWGC winners behaved in the same way as  after winning their title of WORLD CHAMPION ; just out of  his mind from happiness, [so he should!] drunk till he fell over ,  finger in the mouth…..throw up and start again. I have seen it all !!! A huge release  after a deserved win!

Just checking if the links work now;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEosFxnBaDw  ) this is for the second Aosta video, the winning one from 2010!
Now for the spectecular video over New Zealand;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sEZ-wdFegU
Thanks Peter for the advises!!!!!
The music with the NZ video,” For ever young ” might be symbolic. Do you remember that I wrote my very last Sportavia – blog in 2006 in my caravan , while “for ever young” was on my radio ??? I mentioned that in the blog. Now a new soaring centre is on the verge of beginning and , for ever young shows up again……!!!!

Nice news that Kate and Prince William are going to marry in 2011 after 8 years of dating. Last October they both spend a while in Kenya and there they got engaged!  It will be a huge happening, looking forward to that. I am a fan of Royal weddings,  a real romanticus, …sorry guy’s.

Till Sunday later in the day! Have guests for the weekend.
Cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn    Sunday November 14 2010     ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

SORRY it seems the links in this blog and may even in earlier blogs are not working correct in every country. They give an error. I am trying to find out how to solve this. Thanks for the message I received about this problem for Holland!

The land of the Long White Cloud……New Zealand ……here I come !!!!!
Yes it is all booked and finally I can , on an invitation- business- trip, see with my own eyes the beauty of New Zealand.
Prior to this visit I am allowed to visit for one week my beloved Tocumwal from December 13 till 19 in the morning. Can even celebrate my birthday there with all my Aussie friends !!!!
Get rid of the jetlag to be ready for  brainstorm- sessions to see how we can create a new gliding resort in the spirit of Sportavia, this time in New Zealand.

Then it is off to NZ,on the 19th; really looking forward to that and of course the main reason for this trip. I heard  from so many, that it is like magic over there in NZ !!!!
Of course I invite you all to come virtual with me and  …I will share with you all preparations before.
So the month December will be busy. From December 3 till 8 , I will be in Munich and Salzburg with my [soaring-] friends Maria and Dieter.
On December 11 it is off to Melbourne, with Cathay, still hope to have once as captain-up-front ,  one of our former Cathay-soaring -friends , who learned how to fly a glider in Tocumwal with us. And they were quick to do so  ,I can assure you!!

 On December 19 it is off to NZ  to look , smell, inhale and enjoy to the fullest, this great country and the property with runway and hangars from one of my friends Tony . It would be absolutely fabulous  to create a new soaring centre with the spirit of Sportavia , now at Springhill.  ” A  center of excellence for the glider pilots of the world  which should also be a great addition to the economy in the area. ”
As Tony says;

—New Zealand thrives on Tourism, if we create an Aviation Retreat base at Springhill, it becomes a perfect starting point to explore this wonderful country and have many aviation experiences along the way.—

Christmas time….I have the pleasure to spend with Chris and John Roake, yes my “boss ” from Gliding International, who will bring me after those special days on the 27th to Auckland airport for my flight back to Amsterdam. The beginning of 2011 will be with my family here in Holland.
As said you can follow me as I continue writing this blog.
Here is a link [2.23 minutes] to enjoy New Zealand already NOW!!!! Fascinating!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sEZ-wdFegU  

All test flights with the 787 DREAMLINER are on hold!!! They stopped them , as they want to do more research about what went wrong this time again, with the smoke/fire  in the cockpit/cabin.

The storm depression reached us on Thursday at noon , stayed over for the night to Friday and the North had up to gusts from 115 km /h. I moved garden chairs and table against the wall of my house to avoid problems. At 11 AM nothing was happening and then it slowly started and wind and at some times heavy rain , from the SW , really hit. But it was not as worse as it has been in the past. Though 2 people , [one was the captain] , on a tug boat , towing the Stena Line Ferry from London into the harbour, drowned as the boat capsized. Sad!!! The storm was mainly at the coast-line.
Only 150 messages of damage, so …no worries!
Now however the damage bill will be bigger due to flooding after heavy rain, specially in the S of Holland. France, Germany and Belgium suffer at places, as we do !! In Belgium at the border with France , 2 people drowned, The Ruhr area in Germany is in trouble and the army helps out in The Ardene’s to evacuate people and to bring sand bags to hold the water. 
In many , many houses people walk around with wet feet.

Great to see that Björn from Norway is back in Tocumwal. Unfortunately the weather with some troughs in the area is not super , but it will improve , I know !! When I was in Sweden during the WGC in Eskilstuna I met Björn and his wife  again . They came to visit me and to show me their glorious looking vintage Morgan, my favourite car. Pictures then made , turned out great.

In Argentina they were flying a regional competition  and the weather -gods were in the beginning pretty good for them  with a nice FAI triangle last Tuesday of 600 km., flying a total of  636 km in an ASW 20. On Wednesday they had a nearly 400 km -day at America Buenos and on Thursday the best flight over there was 449 in a Nimbus 3DM, as only open class flew that day  from the 3 classes.
The competition was till yesterday. In standard class Lucas Goldenzweig was 3d after 2 days!
So weather-wise the end of the comps was not so good , with only a total of 2/3 days. It seems it is wet everywhere in the world!!!!!

 My friends Uwe and Hans and our Dutch pilot Max are getting in the rhythm for the longer flights soon in Gariep Dam  and few over 500 km .on Wednesday and nearly 800 and over 800 km on Thursday. It is starting ..this  good weather in S. A .Also Namibia had at the 3 fields some nice soaring to start with; the best around 700 km. Nice to see Tassilo has arrived for ” some fire-work-flights”  in Bitterwasser, starting with a good first day to get in the Bitterwasser-mood.
And also nice to see that German pilot Otto Toenges , who  I have not seen for maybe 30 years flies from Worcester in SA, where another well known SA pilot Sven, flew yesterday a nice 542 km in the ASW 27. As said before it ‘s all happening, atleast the beginning is there!!!!
And…Sunday might be the first soaring day for the gliders which have arrived  by container in Corowa.
 In the West of Australia they still enjoy the best weather .Last Friday another 824 km in a Ventus 17.6 m. That day the Hornet pilot John , flew a great FAI  500 km triangle and I loved his comment; “I am knackered”! while he had good post frontal conditions and great CU’s and streeting, as he mentioned as well. Must have been the chair in the glider.
And…what about the flight from the SZD 55 also in the WEST of Australia yesterday ; a great 687 triangle!! Well done!!
Good to see on the OLC that Omarama is pretty busy as well. Might be able to visit this former site of the WGC this time. Did not go there during that WGC  as TC , as I had no experience with mountains neither most of my pilots had at that time.

 For sure you know that in Seoul the  G20 of powerful countries was held  with , unfortunately, not too many flashing results. French President Sarkozy, tried out his new toy to fly to Seoul. He has a second hand A330 from 1998 and built that into a little flying paradise. With a double bed and shower/toilet, a private office, meeting room for 12, communication room and 60 chairs for staff, journalists and ministers. It even has anti -rocket- weapons!!!
I guess Air Sarko One will be used often, though it is rather expensive to fly with 20.000 Euro an hour!

On Friday morning was announced that Roll’s Royce  indeed has found a mistake in the design of their engine.The mistake is found in one of the parts of the Trent 900 engines. They expect that there will be delay in delivering the next Airbus 380.

Last time I wrote about the Blanik. For who is more interested in the construction here are 2 extra links to show you quickly what’s happening.Thanks Peter!

“mandatory bulletin L13/109a.  The bulletin prohibited aerobatics, required an inspection,”
http://5478279397014646742-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/blanikspar/files/MB_L13_109a_english.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7crGC2gvHIHbBEd19z9m78BHSw1LdIJdS-zKG9dMYe_PBc3qEM2xf69bBv9-juFajt7IiHCUk25RKoHqlNr8onBBdBeDAjw_50IDsS9i98XNb_AMdzibeY1ANNgVN3ca82AYAIfrs1KH_RvNW1nn2yyofDWI8VoZ3LCRO-kgboxAQBVPyvvoN4Q5Rmfayu3ey1LbEu087_d0E4oABjbGCYz4uBTSsQ%3D%3D&attredirects=0

“On 14 September 2010, FAA wrote a letter (original version, updated version) to SSA ”
http://5478279397014646742-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/blanikspar/files/ClarificationLettertoSSAL13Accident091410.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cpHmRUexTML_nUcW5VScNb6zKCGVPFgWsMQVUIHRm1kgAbTjab3KrDOeCoO0Tq4XIjaLQFpBYa0cDkHzP_NrVCo3odKg2dlaq7-K6sOo0SiFXryGCHE6xSanySs-0CGDc-W6h5nZoXNQFikkRTp_-SKvHCcbgmHhtbG2x2LrXkYqLyBFIuhOwpHmFNKFS1YxBEIWHVNNYtj7vD7uWz8bCKZ9DAsgJuVa4v3kTmIrWRmU2_pBAK9nWFZbx9fJZPwP9QGqaAv&attredirects=0

Carnaval, for whoever loves that way of spending time, has started at time 11.11 on 11-11,  but next year surely will be special , as it will start at time 11.11 on 11-11-11. What do you want more.

Better stop now , see you on Wednesday, Sorry about the bleu in the middle, just copied and pasted one sentence and …..!
 Looking forward to the last race of the Formula 1 circus. Hope Vettel wins as he is a nice “wild very talented young dog” , but I would be happy with Webber as well  , as this might his only chance to win a Formula 1 title. Like Alonso too, great driver , so may the best win today. Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn    Wednesday October 10 2010   ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

“Silence before the storm “! That’s what ‘s happening here. A Dutch meteo forecaster  called “weer plaza ” , has announced the first real autumn storm with wind up to 9 bft and gusting to 10 bft. for Thursday and Friday, specially for the North and NW  of Holland. The KNMI the DutchNational  meteo-forecaster only advises from 48 hours onwards, but they say that it will be stormy and keep a good eye on things.
9 bft. happens here  3 or 4 times a year , 10 even less. Warnings have been issued!  Due to lot’s of rain over the last weeks , trees might be in weak ground and could fall over, so do not parc your car under a tree. Let’s wait and see!!!

Quantas has announced last Monday,  that they have found oil leaks in the Rolls Royce engines from the A 380. More investigation is necessary to find out why, and till further notice all their flights with the biggest airplane in the world are suspended with at-least 72 hours. They found the oil leaks in 3 engines on 3 different aircraft. All engines  from type Trent 900 Rolls Royce are new and will be replaced!!! Luckily Quantas had 3 spare ones!
Quantas had to put on additional flights as 30 passengers had stranded in London and 500 in Los Angeles.
They co-operate with Airbus and Rolls-Royce to solve the problems as quick as possible.
Singapore Airlines has the A 380 as well, but they have different engines, so they normally fly. ……till today , as this morning I heard that they have grounded 3 of their Airbus 380 planes as well after inspection of all 11 planes . They replace the engines of those 3.

Several airlines [11 in total] received huge bills for not sticking to the freight cartel-rules. KLM-Air France and Martin Air belong to them. Also Quantas got an 8.8 million bill. Not good as Quantas was hoping to REALLY celebrate their 90thiest birthday in a better way then loosing money to a fine or having problems with their new A 380 engines !!!
Several friends are flying for Quantas so still HAPPY 90thiest anniversary.
When you are interested what they write about it in Australia here is a link I received from Vanessa;

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/eu-fines-end-airline-cartel-probe/story-e6frg95x-1225950590190

After the accident in Austria last June with a Blanik, all Blaniks are grounded. As Bill Riley [founder of Sportavia,] in 1979 imported the Blanik from Czech Rep. to Australia, quite a few were sold all over Australia. We had several in the past , real “work horses” they were/are and easy to fly, but when the wing can separate from the fuselage something is terribly wrong. Peter, one of my Dutch friends found out a very interesting link with information about the grounding of the Blanik L 13 and I share it with you. With the EASA [European Aviation Safety Agency]  all European countries have to stick to their rules, but here you can also read what happens to the Blanik world wide.

http://sites.google.com/site/blanikspar/home

Last Sunday a few of my friends started their overseas season  with good flights to start with. Activity enough at Gariep Dam, Kiripotib, Pokweni and Bitterwasser . A day on which you find [NA] Namibia and South Africa [SA] frequently back in the top of the OLC list.
757 km was the best that day , but to be honest/realistic,  the longest flights were flown in top- open -class -gliders, nothing wrong with that but I do not have to tell you that they just have a better performance. Yesterday 806 km was the best result.
On November 8 I was impressed with the ridge flight , starting at Mifflin County from a pilot in a Discus 2; 1.126 km., with a speed of 123 km/h. Same day on the other site of those mountains from the Ridge Soaring -field well known USA pilot Tom Knauff flew in a duo discus  a flight of 757 km with a speed of 142 km/h. Hope the passenger had a good stomach! They had blue conditions , thermals only up to 4000 ft.  due to inversion, but great wind and super ridge- conditions!

No good news for Boeing as well. One of the Dreamliners they are testing got smoke in the cockpit. Only technici were on board and the plane landed without problems, but…you can’t sell a plane which produces smoke to the passengers in the cabin or chase the pilots out of their cockpit. A new problem for the Dreamliner which might postpone flying again. The Dreamliner Boeing 787 was supposed to fly 3 years ago already but all different problems occured.

As promised the link to the award winning video ! Enjoy, worthwhile looking !!!Thanks Kees!!! Here is first the link to the AWARD winning video from last year 2009;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwdFycGgh4g

and here is the link to find the winning video from 2010 on YOU TUBE flown in the ASH25 over Aosta! As said ENJOY!!!!

   ATMOS-SFEER         

Last Sunday I gave you an address to reach Uli as the new Jaxida owner. Last but not least, here are 2 more used ones I received from him when you want to know more about the covers.
www.Jaxida-Cover.deund Uli.Schwenk@Jaxida-Cover.de.

 Cu next Sunday, cheers Ritz

 

 

 

Alphen aan den Rijn     Sunday November 7 2010      ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Yesterday  “we”  had the NZD, the Dutch Soaring Day.  Between 300 and 400 guests in all different ages visited. I was very pleased to see so many young ones!!! At 7.40 in the morning I was picked up by Maarten who , as I found out , lives close to me. He organised that I could drive with 6 very kind glider pilots from the Zuid Hollandse Aeroclub  [former airbase Valkenburg- www.zhvc.nl] to the south of Holland. After a pleasant drive , with 7 in one car, [some kind of space -wagon from Peugeot with indeed 7 roomy seats!]   we arrived at the airbase of ,  where F16’s are still very active,  as in Leeuwarden the Northern part of Holland.
In the car also friend and former Sportavia guest Kees, who travels to Australia this year again [Corowa]. So memories started straight away.
A huge white tent showed the static show of brand-new gliders, engines , instruments and what we/ gliderpilots need more to be happy.
Lectures about how we keep our young pilots not for 1 year , not for 5 but for “EVER”, also about meteo, stress -management [ relationship between stress and performance]  and aerobatic flying.  I particular liked the lecture about good airmenship,  from F16 pilot and instructor and former demo-pilot; Ralph “sheik” Aarts . He is such an enthusiastic young man he “gets” you while talking to you. On top of that,  this was in a special shelter with a small entrance -door from about  50 cm thick, the only shelter  where pictures were allowed to be made!Mysterious ? It is and stays an active military base and it was great from  Colonel  van der Mast , the commandant of the airbase Volkel,  to allow us to visit a small and secured part of it!!!
People interested in history looked in the museum at the history of planes and the airbase Volkel. One room had a glider-simulator, one showed video’s selected for the contest  [Kees and his mate won the first prize with a video about flying at one of the the wave mecca’s in Italy, Aosta and the link for this winning video will be here next Wednesday]
The Dutch webmaster, Ben Hiemstra  involved with the Dutch part of the OLC and the site Zweefportaal, received the gold medal from the KNVvL , for the valuable work he is doing for all of us.
More, …. as I met Uli [Schwenk] again after many ,many years. Nice talking to him. He is in textile as most of you know but  now also in “pyama’s”, I mean those for gliders , he took over JAXIDA and that is high quality; hail or UV will not get through !!! He even showed me men’s underwear [sloggi] in which it is easier to relieve the bladder while flying long distance.
The fly is horizontal and just under the elastic band. [www.uli-schwenk.de ]
Great part of course is to meet so many friends, for me friends from 1967 onwards!!!! Kisses, hug’s , memories , ONE BIG  party of recognition.
 One of “my” juniors , Jelmer, works for DG now and DG Flugzeugbau showed a brand-new DG 2-seater,which  looked ‘huge” but gracious and fabulous [ not the DG 101 M Jelmer flew during Euroglide an, even newer/later one! www.dg-flugzeugbau.de ]  and the businesses for selling glider-equipment had lots of visitors.
A great thank you  for the organizers even taking care of a good lunch and a very tasty dinner.
Just received fresh from the press the next news from Australia and I quickly add it, after I wrote about Uli.

Schempp-Hirth announce change of representative in Australia

Schempp-Hirth Flugzeugbau wish to announce that, after a fifteen year association with Chris Kiehn, that they will be changing their representative in Australia. Chris provided a very sound technical background to his role, spending some five years working as a direct employee of Schempp-Hirth in Kirchhiem unter Teck. He continued that relationship for a further ten years, after emigrating from Germany, working as their agent in Australia. Schempp-Hirth would like to offer their thanks to Chris, for his long service to the company, and wish him well with his increasing family & work commitments.Schempp-Hirth’s new representative in Australia will be Bryan Hayhow of High Speed Flight. Bryan comes from a hang gliding background, having run his own manufacturing operation that exported to some fifteen countries, before he began gliding ten years ago. He has a long association with those Schempp-Hirth competition pilots who also began flying in hang gliders, Tomas Suchanek, Peter Harvey, Patrick Driessen and also Ross Gaddes of Sailplane Services Ltd, who is Schempp-Hirth’s New Zealand representative. He will bring a great deal of sports aviation marketing experience to his role and is looking forward to getting to know Schempp-Hirth’s customer base in Australia. All new aircraft sales enquiries and spare parts orders should now be directed to:High Speed Flight Bryan Hayhow      Mob: 0414 672 709PO Box 293 Thirroul NSW 2515

gliders@highspeedflight.com.au             www.highspeedflight.com.au

It is a very busy time at Schempp-Hirth right now, particularly with strong ordering for the 20m two seat Arcus,  both the pure glider, the motorised self launcher and a great deal of interest in the recently test flown electric self launching version. The yet to be finalised, Quintus 23m Open Class concept, is also generating significant interest and the option book for this glider is growing steadily. We are looking forward to shipping the first Arcus to Australia shortly and feel that the Quintus, with it’s very high wing loading capability, will be very well suited to the Australian racing conditions. 

Jaxida Covers appoint High Speed Flight their Australian Agent
Having recently purchased the long established all weather cover business and transferring its operations to Germany, Uli and Daniela Schwenk have been looking to increase their international representation. They are pleased to announce the Australian Schempp-Hirth agent, High Speed Flight, will also be representing their covers to the gliding fraternity. With an established family textile marketing business and Uli being an internationally recognised competition pilot, who was also the Jaxida German agent for many years, Daniela and Uli bring a great deal of experience to the all weather cover business. They can custom build covers for almost any glider and are now marketing them into the general aviation industry as well. These are covers of the highest quality, that both protect your glider from UV & rain, while also allowing a good airflow around the aircraft.All enquiries for custom made covers should now be directed to High Speed Flight (see contact details on this page).

the new email & website are not up yet but will be soon…

With 14.5 dgr. in the night of Thursday to Friday, we had the warmest ever night in November. On Friday I saw people on the train station without a coat!!!! A bit unfortunate for 8 train passengers was that the train I normally go with to Leiden/Amsterdam , had a collision. 3 People had to go to hospital, 5 had minor,  most neck injuries. I was stuck for nearly an hour, as  due to police investigation no train traffic was possible for 2 hours on  the station,  but luckily I was NOT in that train.
By the way , today the temperature dropped to 6 dgr. it is grey and wet.

A bit of a scaring experience for the 433 passengers and 26 crew from the Quantas Airbus 380, when , as it looks, an engine exploded and forced the pilots to fly back to Singapore, where they just had departed 6 minutes earlier, heading to Sydney. The emergency landing , after dumping the fuel first, went without problems , the fire brigade rushed out but passengers could normally leave the plane, most probably with a bit of a higher blood pressure. Parts of the engine were found on a island and police has asked the farmers to bring each piece they found to the police, to have the best investigation of what happened .
The original departure was from London and on the  Indonesian and Australian news was for a moment the message that the plane had crashed. Luckily this was wrong information!!!It did have an engine failure and it is possible to fly with 3 engines , but the captain wisely decided to turn around to check the engines. Till further notice and after deep investigation, all Quantas A 380’s , 4 in total and only 3 years old, will stay on the ground. A huge decision! Safety first!!!!
And …the next day Quantas got into trouble again as a Boeing 747 had an engine failure and also that full plane had to return to Singapore where it just departed.
From Australia I received the next link, so I share it with you.Here is the ABC link      http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/04/3057244.htm

and this is The Australian link;
 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/disc-failure-almost-brought-superjumbo-down/story-e6frg6nf-1225948586541

 Julio Poch’s future looks brighter again as NO proof was found  in his diaries or log- books of him flying the deadly flights accused him from. It seems he only flew fighters!!!  The fact that some colleagues spoke bad about his behaviour in the junta-time and the fact that he flew for the navy, is not a proof , certainly not , now they found out he did not fly transport-or passenger planes for the navy.Next week some Dutch pilots will be involved in a video conference to declare , this time, more unburdening facts. Flying a 600 FAI triangle in a Hornet???   Yes they did it in Western Australia  [from Beverley] were temperatures are in the 30thies as I heard and great cross country flying is a result. Flying a Ventus that day [last Wednesday] resulted in 754 km.[ an out and return more or less] .
Very pleased to see that Kenshi flew a 168 km flight from Itakura in Japan in a DG 400 and great that Itakura is busy enough!!! Nice club!!!
Mikoluvice [CZ] pilots still find great wave up to over 6000 m.
After , as I heard from friends living in NZ , a very cold winter and a pretty wet spring  , pilots in Omara could make  great flights with good thermal conditions. A Discus flew 463 km.
Australian kilometer-eater Terry Bellair started his season , from his home-field Raywood, with a 475 km flight in his DG 400/17m.  and in Gariep Dam the first flights have been flown now as well. Also Bitterwasser and Kiripotib are active. Great cloud-skies for Benalla, Corowa and Benalla, where the first guests are enjoying nice flights too.The Boeing 787 , DREAMLINER, arrived for a short visit at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, from Paris , urging hundreds of “spotters”  with  video camera’s and camera’s to the fence around the field on Friday evening. The dream liner visits some capitals  to test how this huge plane fits and what could be changed. Also potential customers and other guests were allowed to see the plane. Some of my Japanese friends , flying for All Nippon Airways will look forward to the first flight with this plane as they ordered the first Dreamliner which can fly about 16.000 km without a stop!!!!  Yesterday the plane left again. The one but last race in Formula 1.  “Poor “Jens Button, current  World champion, was stopped by armed criminals in his armoured car with driver in Brasil after he left the circuit  !!! Luckily they escaped by leaving as quick as possible the traffic jam  they were waiting in !!!
Hope it does n’t have any influence on his driving today, as he can still be world champion this year. A lot depends on today!!!CU on Wednesday!! Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn                Wednesday October 3 2010                  ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

It is getting warmer and wetter in Holland  is what people from weather online have analyzed! It rains more in the winter, more local downpours in August and over the last 10 years the temperature raised with 0.42 dgr. That does not sound too much but Holland ‘s temperature rises TWICE as much as the rest of the world. They also claim that this might be the result of less pollution , so that the sun is stronger. Also the position from Holland is a factor in this.

And yes … the season/flights from Bitterwasser and Kiripotib  started as well on November 1 and on the OLC. The season now has really started, still waiting for the BIG days but they will come in a few days/weeks. Bernd Dolba , one of the organizers at Kiripotib flew a nice FAI triangle of 600 km with a speed of 143 km./h.in the ASH 25EB28.  As he says; Not as bad beginning of the season. Also Bitterwasser started nicely with an over 600 km flight in a Nimbus 4DM.

Favourite horse “so you think”  from Australian top trainer Bart Cummings was the horse tipped to win, but…it turned out different, making the bookmakers dancing in the rain, at this 150 thiest edition of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington.
Till about 200 m before the finish-line, indeed the horse was on steam , but then in the rainy , blowy and very wet conditions , a US- bread horse  called Americain, with Australian owners but  French trained and…with a French jockey, passed by and won with margin!!!!
Australia looked, came as always at 3 to a stand-still and after horses….., bubbles , great dresses and heads were the most important ingredients!! A tiny little bit of disappointment in Australia as well , as it was an import -horse winning this special CUP, but….at-least the owner is an Aussie.

How it is possible to steal a plane from one of the busiest airports in the world , La Mesa in Honduras  , I don’t know , but it happened as 5 men entered the military base , overcame 3 men from security  and took the plane out of the hangar to fly away with it!!!
It seems the plane was confiscated and used in the past to transport drugs. I guess this is just Honduras!

This time it is Indonesia who recommends to NOT fly over their country, more specific due to ash from one of the volcano’s over there. It is better to avoid it for the time being as yesterday volcano Merapi “exploded”again and the Mid-Java area should be avoided. A few international flights , so I heard on the radio yesterday, have been already cancelled!
Though people who know about hurricanes, predicted that Tomas would pass by far away from the former Dutch Antillean’s and would not do any harm there, unfortunately they were wrong. The hurricane turned into  a tropical storm with loads of rain, causing high water and flooding. It even cost , in the night from Monday on Tuesday, the lives of 2 people , one rescue-helper , who helped out in the hospital , but…a wall fell on him and an elderly lady in a car . Due to the tough wind  some places are without  electricity .
Also Bonaire and Aruba were hit by the violent weather.
As you know , I lived, for nearly 2 years, at the beautiful island of Curacao and though I have had once hurricane- force 4 , which scared the hell out of me, it was normally 33 dgr. and  dry but always with a breeze/ wind, just great holiday weather. In the hurricane -period our  TV was always tuned in,on the hurricane-station to be prepared !
By the way Tomas will “grow in strength”again and is on his way to Haiti now. What can we do???? Nothing!

Ever heard of R2??  I did not , till this morning when I read that R2 is the nice good looking robot with an upper-body only, who does the “dirty” stuff in the space shuttle, astronauts do not want to  or cannot do! Today is the one but last flight with the space shuttle Discovery and R2 is allowed to come. His first flight! R 2 is a product of NASA and GM and has already a twitter-account!!!!!!His future however is pretty sad , because, as all the work in the space station is finished in 2020 poor R2 will disappear in the Ocean as “boss” of  the abandoned space shuttle.

Going to Volkel this weekend, means visiting a military base and today I heard that we do not have a lot of F 16’s anymore. First we sold 18 to Chile , WITH all spare-parts belonging to them and now we only have 87 and from those 87 only 25 are flyable. There is no money for parts , so reparations are impossible for those planes.  A shame! And we still have to cut back 200 million on defense. What will happen to the pilots and the engineers?
 I am just enjoying to read the book about the fighter pilots in the past during the “cold ”  war. Never knew that so many had to use their ejector seat while practising!!! An expensive'” hobby”! Have to talk with “Eagle ” this weekend about all of this.

Cu on Sunday, with the latest news about the soaring congress in Volkel. It will be  later during the day.Cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn    Sunday October 31    ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Last day of the month  and only 2 months to go and the year 2011 starts. The time is back to normal here [ since 3 this morning]  and the evenings are longer now. For a short while it felt like winter here with even temperatures under 0 in the night, and frost colouring the green grass white, but now we are back around 13 which is 2 dgr. above normal for here. We even had last Friday up to 16 dgr!!!!!!
The average for October here is a min. of 6 and a max of 14 dgr. Best ever temperature on the last day of October was in 2005 with 21.5 dgr. and the worst in 1983 with -3.4 dgr. Just to let you know!
Today it rains cat’s and dog’s with 12 dgr.

The Dutch Gliding Magazine Thermiek is out  and I enjoyed reading the different items. A lot about the more and more popular Euroglide,[ 10th edition!]  with specials about the DG 1000 by my former junior pilot Jelmer, who flew with 2 friends the 2.328 km in the companies plane  the new DG 1001M [after he finished his study at the University of Delft, Jelmer works for the DG business!]  and by the director for the the last 6 Nationals Max who flew the glider earlier at Terlet. Another new type of plane , the Pipistrel Taurus 503 was also new at the Euroglide. A good way for the producers to check their glider on long distance flights.
Further stories about the Dutch National junior comps[the 39 ‘s one!] , the Marianne [double seater for clubs] , a twin sister of the the Pegase both built by Centrair, aerodynamics by top professor in this area Loek Boermans, since last year FELLOW, from the Royal Aeronautical Society  and other news. Enjoy!It is online at www.zweefportaal.nl but…in Dutch.

You remember Julio Poch, the just retired Transavia airline captain  who was taken out of the cockpit in Spain just before he could fly the last “leg before retirement” back to Holland. He was accused of the fact that  he “maybe”  helped  to let 615 people disappear between 1976 and 1982 in Argentina. Colleagues had heard stories, he was supposed to have told on stops,  about his time flying as pilot for the Grupo de Tareas. But….for the time being it looks he will be a free man, as the judge could find NO proof he had done such terrible things AND accusations are NO proof. The judges have to find more proof first, till that time he is not allowed to leave the country but at-least he will be free! To be honest I am pleased with that as being involved-on-distance with Transavia and hearing inside stories about Julio, I could NOT believe he is that kind of  [bad] person.

Both the USA and Australia and I guess more countries have stepped up security and scrutiny   of packages at cargo planes coming from the Middle East [specially Adu Dhabi, Dohah, Dubai and Yemen, via another country as they do not have direct flights to Australia ] after 2 suspected packages , looking as from Al Quaida, have been intercepted in the UK and Dubai . Even the American president spoke about a potential terrorist threat. Australian president , Mrs Gillard, said these are precautions as there is no info that Australia is a target at this stage. This morning Germany has stepped up security around cargo from the Middle East as well.

Interesting story also yesterday in my paper, [AD] about our Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels, who travelled through space in the Challenger in 1985. Today it is exactly 25 years ago that he did so. The mission after him exploded as you might remember as well.
He is in his 6th life now. If you have indeed 7 he has one to go.
In 1982, he nearly died due to a bad bacterial infection called leptospirose in the USA, in 1985 he had the risky flight as astronaut, in 1989 he had an accident in France on the runway, with a propeller-plane,  as  an Airbus hit him in the back due to mis-communication of the tower and  bad visibility, in 2005 he got a heart attack and in 2008 doctors found a tumor in one of his kidneys.His daughter wrote a book about his life and they , father and daughter, went back to all places which had been important in his life. Nowadays he is a Professor on the University of Delft, involved in projects as the Nuna, [car driving on sun-energy] and the super-bus , driving 250 km/h. Interesting guy!!!

Good wave in New Zealand  where an LS 6 pilot flew yesterday 438 km. with a nice speed of 123 km /h. Even better wave on Friday in the USA where well-known Belgium pilot Baudouin Litt flew a 1000 km wave flight in an LS 8 from Mid Atlantic Soaring in the USA.
As far as I can see the first 1000 km flight in the 2011 season. In Australia’s East, good flights again yesterday with 451 km in the LS1f. What a pity, those bad rainy days a few weeks ago with the Nationals.
Talking about New Zealand today was the first flying day of the “Central Plateau 2010” in Taupo. Rain and only a base of 4500 forced the organisation to keep the 10 pilots on the ground. The forecast for tomorrow looks better for the afternoon.
I noticed one pilot with a very Dutch name;Roland van der Wal. He “belongs” to Taupo and flies LS 6, will keep an eye on him.
By the way, you might remember I was asked last year this time to fly to New Zealand to help out with PR for a new soaring-field. It is still happening and we are talking maybe December this year, now. Will keep you of course informed!!!

Sad news for the family of 4 French helicopter passengers at Antartica. The Helicopter crashed in bad weather and the pilot , engineer and 2 people from IPEV , an institute doing research at Antartica, died. The Australians took it upon them to recover the bodies.

Next Tuesday is Melbourne Cup Day  and it feels weird to not celebrate it with my friends in Tocumwal like last year  and many more years before. I got phone calls and mail this week, to assure me they will drink a glass of bubbles on me as well, which is good. I will follow it on internet! It remains a special day over there down-under, where they still deal with quite a lot of rain.
Not too far from Tocumwal and Corowa is another good and well known  soaring place Benalla where in 1987 the WGC was. Due to the bad weather Benalla is at this moment an incident control centre for the regional area, as warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology have been issued for different areas in Victoria and  the border of NSW.
The containers for Corowa are delayed with one week, but with the wet circumstances, this is not a big problem. Hope after the wet,  the real Aussie spring/summer- weather starts!!!

Poor people in Haiti!!  First last year January the earth quake, with still more then a million people living in tents now, then the cholera and today hurricane Tomas is on its way to make everything even more bad. Feel so sorry for them!

See you on Wednesday. Slowly guests arrive at their overseas soaring resorts and dreams of wonderful flights might come true again. November and December are THE months!!!!! Let’s wait and see.

Cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn     Friday  October 29 2010   ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Long time , no see!! About time I write again! Was a hectic week since last Friday, but a great one!
What happened more?
I was very much impressed with the great flight from Beverley on October 23. Flying a 526 km in a Hornet still shows great weather in Western Australia. From the 526 there was an FAI triangle in it from 458 km.!! Great job!
I love the new system the OLC uses to show you the flights, another great job!!
Great to see that after the wet period, the East of Australia had good weather as well on the 23d, with “fresh” National Champion  Alan Barnes flying in his LS 1 f a nice 503 km flight from his home field Jondaryan. [441 FAI triangle!]
That Saturday great wave flights in Europe as well, from Mikulovice [CZ] and Jelenia Gora [Poland]. And my friends from Israel, Arnon and Rafi enjoyed , with several others, nice over 200 km flights in their “desert”.

Last Wednesday Narromine  had super weather and good old Shinzo flew in his Nimbus 4 DM nearly 500 k. Same day was the FIRST flying day in Corowa  and who else then co-owner [his wife Grietje is the other owner] Francesco flew the first flight. I wish them a safe and good season. Yesterday they had good weather again with a Danish- early- guest, flying over 400 km. in the ASG 29 E/18m., yes the season has started in Australia .
In Narromine Shizo had some time, before the season starts for him as well, to fly 560 km. in his Nimbus. Tocumwal had some great flights earlier as well.By the way… Ken has arrived “home” from Japan . Ken has 2 vintage planes in Tocumwal and in the past we helped him getting the gliders in Tocumwal arriving from the UK. At Sportaviations site/blog you can see Ken and Tery in the open Slingsby 21 . 2 Very enthusiastic boys’ with their toys!!! Lovely!
Not much news from Africa . Sorry! Bitterwasser ‘s season-organisation has arrived and all gliders arrived safe in their containers and…the temperature is promising with 30 dgr. C. Soon they will fly as well.

British Airways  had a big loss last year , but they are on the mend. Till now , they announced in the first half of the new financiel year  a profit of 122 million Euro!!!! Good on them!!!

The new Gliding International is out. Was impressed with some stunning  pictures , with the interview of John Roake , editor of GI with Australian  top pilot Graham Parker !! Why would a competent pilot withdraw from a WGC [Szeged] ???? and …..is Blanik’s future in doubt??? Also the ARCUS, the ASW 20 get-together in Tehachapi[California] , is the Diana about to be consigned to history???? and lots of news from our soaring world. Enjoy!! Loved the story about the Rolls’Royce with the tow bar and glider on tow, in a real UK trailer [Dart 15R] at the WGC in 1968.

Prize fighter EasyJet has complained  at the European Commission about the fact that Schiphol Amsterdam is 10 Euro more kind  to transferring passengers then to the European ones.

In the past I wrote regularly about the EAC,the Eindhoven Aero Club, where I was a member in the past.Due to more flying- airline- traffic at Eindhoven the club got into problems and they are still not over I heard. The EAC is the oldest user of the airport , since 1932,  but it looks they have to find another field. They still hope to stay at Eindhoven within the next 5 years , but right now they have send letters to municipalities 15 km outside the “control zone”. Also the new rules from the Ministry of Defense [ Eindhoven is a military base as well]  give restrictions to the 150 enthusiastic glider pilots. Hope they find a good field again where they can fly free like eagles!!!

That ‘s it see you back on Sunday, when the time has changed back  to normal! Cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn          Friday evening  October 22 2010             ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

It took the jury of 12 last Wednesday , 4 hours to decide that 26 year old Lady E. is guilty of murdering  her friend and parachute colleague in 2006 . Though there is and was no proof, the jury thought she was the only one who could have done it ,as she had the knowledge, the opportunity and….. according to psychiatrists there is something wrong with her personality.
On Thursday the judge and jury sentenced her to 30 years in prison, which ends up normally with good behaviour with 10 years. With that,  one of the most sensational court cases in the lower countries of Europe  finished….we hope as there is 15 days time to fight the decision.

Yesterday the weather in Tocumwal  was good again for over 300 km. flights. Corowa starts in about 3 weeks , when all containers have arrived , have been checked by quarantine  and the first  pilots have arrived. The estimated arrival time of the containers in Melbourne is on November 1 and if all goes well, the first flying day will be on November 9.
It looks like a very busy African and Australian season again, which is great.

The Formula 1 will be this weekend at the brand new Korean International Circuit. Practise today showed Formula 1 Championshipsleader , Mark Webber as the fastest driver. Enjoy the race.

Ever heard of West Coast Soaring???  I had not! Shame on me! But it is in Holland and pilots fly alongside the dunes  of the Nordsea from Castricum . A tremendous kick I presume! It all happened yesterday and they even managed to fly this out and return of 144 km in the SZD 55. Look for fantastic  pictures and a video on www.zweefportaal.nl   Great stuff!!!

Not a lot happening in “soaring- land” , so then this …. a story at-least related to flying……In August a plane in Congo crashed and killed 20 people!!! The thought was,  that the plane had no fuel anymore, but the one and only survivor has a bizarre story about this accident. It seems that one of the passengers tried to take/smuggle with him a crocodile in a sports bag!!!! The animal escaped and all passengers ran behind the stewardess into the cockpit making the weight and balance unstable. The crocodile survived but was killed later. An African/Congo paper got the story from the survivor.Can’t imagine somebody makes such a story up, but if he had not survived we would have never known, not even imagined for ONE minute that such a thing could happen !???!

Preparing and…off for the weekend, CU you soon, cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn   Wednesday October 20 2010      ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Last weekend was superb!  It was not only blue , but there were even nice looking clouds. While travelling to Amsterdam however,  I noticed under those great skies 3 gliders at Valkenburg and they had difficulty enough to stay up.
Not when you were launched from  Soesterberg as Mark, one of the Dutch top pilots flew a nice 234 km distance this late in the year!! He enjoyed a cloud street going up from Mid Holland to the North East.
Daan , Sikko,Henk , Gert and more flew from Soesterberg as well, great-for-the-time-of-the-year-distances up to 381 km. Nice cloud streets , very clear but cold!!!!
Now we suffer from rain , wind up to 80 km/h on the coast , thunder and lightning and low temperatures with the possibility of WET SNOW!!!!!!. Welcome winter!

I read and was a bit down from the story of a young 26 year old man  who went for a joy-flight in Bayern , the southern part of Germany on that sunny sunday-afternoon. After trying to overcome the pilot, who defended himself while flying, he opened the door and “stepped”out. Suicide! The pilot had a lucky escape , for him it was still a good but a bit scary sunny afternoon, atleast he could repeat it.
Another pilot , Dutch this time and departing from Rotterdam,  showing around 2 people from South Africa,  during a joy-flight how beautiful Holland looks from above certainly on such a great day,  was just a tiny bit unlucky as well , due to an engine problem, which forced him to land at the beach. No body injured!The South Africans have a story to tell as well coming home.

I have always been interested in how “our ” tuggies got on in the world. From most of them I heard they have great jobs at airliners all over the world and a lot of them are captains now as well. Have n’t heard for a long time about James. But last weekend I got the message that James is also doing very well. I knew he flew for Air Malta in the past, but that all changed and James lives in Riga now flying for Baltic Air and he is also the chief instructor over there. Good on him.

The OLC has contributed a lot to our soaring world, no doubt about that. We know where our friends fly and are happy with them with their big achievements. Not everybody likes the fact that pilots just fly with the clouds to make the best distance , for that reason the OLC created the FAI OLC. For 2011 they even make it more interesting as on October 15 I read there foresight into the future.Read all about this ingenious combination of OLC Classic and OLC FAI triangle and the speed tasks at their site. [to the right where you find the scores and under latest news.] 

The new 2011 list of scores has started on October 12 with 72 flights. SUPER weather , “an other day in paradise “on the 16th of October in the USA where a pilot in a discus 2 flew a nearly 1200 km ridge-flight from Mifflin County.
A 935 km flight in an LS 3 from Blairstown is something to mention as well.
Also the pilots flying in Brasil at Luis Magalhaes were having great fun flying distances up to 835 km.

I loved the comment of a West Australian glider pilot flying 513  km FAI triangle  in a Hornet; “Eastern staters eat your heart out!”Indeed they DO have nice weather in the West and unfortunately they suffered badly from rain during the Nationals in the East. Heard from a friend in Perth that they enjoy 30 dgr. Good!!! 
Best flight last Sunday was from Cunderdin in WA with 765 km. in a DG 800 /18m. Yes it starts….the over-seas 2011 season!
On Monday Stephan had the best OLC flight from Tocumwal;350 km and 299 FAI. Son Aljoscha was practising thermal flying today.

Also in Bitterwasser.  The 7 containers have arrived safely, as well as the 2 for Pokweni. Their season can start now  too, but I read that had lot’s of thunderstorms. Somewhere in the middle of October the Gariep Dam soaring safari was supposed to start but till now I could not find any news about it to share with you.

Brussels Airlines, is certainly not the biggest airliner in the world not even from Belgium, but….there is something special. From 554 pilots, 52 are female!!!!! It still is only 10 % but not too bad, not too bad at all.
16 of the 52 are captain the rest is co-pilot. Brussels Airlines claims it is just co-incidence, pilots think that the equal way of treatment makes the success. [AD]

Winter still has to come but when you plan a 2011 summer soaring holiday in France  flying a competition in the mountains you can do so from July 6-16 with 4 practise days on July 2-3-4-5. Then the Coupe du Monde de vol a voile en montagne will be flown in Vinon. Classes; Open, 15 m , 2 seater and  18 m and  for the last 2 ,  these comps are the French Nationals  as well and for foreign pilots the registration will be limited for these 2 classes and will be on FFVV invitation only [ IGC ranking list] . Just to let you know already!

On the 6th of November the National Dutch Soaring day will be held at the airport of Volkel. Just this week a book will be presented from a military pilot telling us that during  the Cuba crises in 1962 , 52 nuclear type 28 bombs were in bunkers at Volkel. This type of bomb is 5 times more powerful as the one on Hiroshima .The book “Flirten met de dood”[ Flirt with death] written by one of the pilots Steve Netto, tells us that in the cold war period, 12 fighters were ready every day to start within 15 minutes with those deadly nucleaire bombs under them. The book will be on the market from Friday onwards and will be presented that day to the commodore of the airforce Jac Jansen, amongst 300 fighter pilots during a reunion. It seems , this is a public secret for years already, that there are still about 20 bombs at Volkel…  fitting under the F16’s  !! Of course where they are exactly, remains top secret. Interesting place to go to ,[ even Google Earth cannot find it as the organizing team from Volkel claims,] and to listen to what Dutch soaring did last year and is going to do next. Hope there will be A LOT of people!!!!
By the way , I ordered the book already!

Talking about this cold war with Russia in the past !!!!What happens on Tuesday at noon???? With really bad weather here in Holland with storm and heavy showers !!!! 2 F 16′ s this time not from Volkel but from Leeuwarden {up in the North} intercepted 2 Russian bombers from the type TU 95 MS , who had entered our space !!!!What they did here above the Nord sea?? No idea!! They  quickly disappeared, when they were intercepted. It seems that this is the 2d time in a short while that bombers from Russia, “visit” Europe as , Danish, British and German fighters had to intercept in the night of the 15th/16th  September as well.
It is NOT forbidden , as I heard, to fly over Europe for those Russian planes, but they have to use their radio!!! As the Dutch controllers could not reach them by radio, they were “accompanied”, till they left again. On their way to the UK again,  where they were warmly welcomed by the UK fighters .

Ireland has like a few more countries in Europe financial problems. Reason for Ryanair to try to take over Air Lingus again . They tried twice before, but political resistance stopped these plans. By the way Ryanair has already a 30 % interest  in Air Lingus!!

That’s about it.  By the way the verdict in the parachute-murder is tonight! A jury of 12 has to decide if Lady E has to go to prison for a life-long visit or will walk away free.
Looking forward to many long and interesting flights in both Africa and Australia.
Will be not there on Sunday  and next Wednesday, due to a 40thiest wedding party and visiting guests here. But if something interesting comes up before Saturday I will be back.

cheers Ritz

Alphen aan den Rijn    Sunday October 17 2010   ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

The wettest ever Australian Nationals are over. As said they finished already 1 day earlier on Thursday instead of Friday and for some still earlier ,as they did not believe in the weather anymore and left Dalby. A pity!!!
BUT….it was a valid competition with new national champions, AND…it was  qualification for the Uvalde and Chaves WGC in 2012. They even managed , pretty unexpected, to fly 5 days.
Standard class; They had 5 days with 4 AAT’s. Even on day 5 they managed to fly a valid , but devalued day.Kilometer eater Alan Barnes flew in the task time of 2 hours ,135 km with a speed of 67.6 km/h. Shinzo owner of one of the schools at Narromine was second on the last day and climbed on the overall scores to spot 2 with 3920 points  , while Alan in the SZD 55 won with 4105 points.Mike Durant was 3d and the rest more or less gave up.
15 m. class ; Miles [Gore-Brown] won 3 and Peter [Trotter] won 2 days, making Miles after many years again National champion. Peter’s wive Lisa was on spot 3 . Well done!
18 m. class:10 from the 18 pilots continued and the struggle for spot 1 was between David and Graham, each winning days. On the last day [5] they were only 6 and 7 with 30 km less flown then last-day-winner Tom Claffey, [186 km] also not the first one in Australia. Francesco [ Corowa] had a great last flying-day being  4th with 171 km in 2 hours. Graham only had 16 points on day 3 while David had 535. David is the new Australian 18 m. champion with Bruce in the JS1 on a good 2d spot and Lars , [who was so unlucky in Szeged ], on a 3d place. Graham ended on 5th spot.
open class:John Buchanan] [Butch for intimi] won EACH DAY!!!!! No secret that he is the new champion. He flew already our ventus in 1985 during the WGC in Rieti. Had a great run over there but after a full day of heavy rain he did not check his [wet] pitot , had to come back and that was not such a good day for him then, which was a pity.
Pam was runner up here in Dalby[ congratulations] with husband Gerrit in the Antares on spot 3. Gerrit had a bad 3d day , only flying 58.7 km , while Pam flew 123 km and Butch 154 km. Only 4 from the 8 participants finished the comps.
A very challenging competition due to the wet circumstances and for that reason early-departing pilots, BUT nobody had to land in a wet paddock, no gliders were damaged and no pilots hurt and that means it was a good competition as ….the weather is not in our hands.
By the way ALL winners were from Queensland!!!!
And….I hope all pilots can safely  travel home as wild water lashes Queensland and there are floodwarnings for  NSW, while snow has fallen in Victoria in the Dandenongs and some  “sleed” in Canberra , where the tulpis flower already!!!!!!!WOW, not to good!!! But I know several are member of the Darling Downs Soaring Club so they only had to travel about 60 k from Dalby to Jondaryan.

A Qatar Airways  captain died, while doing his job , flying from A [ the Philippines] to B [Qatar] . The co pilot diverted to and landed at  Kuala Lumpur, where a new crew took care of the rest of the flight. As you can understand,  delay for the passengers was inevitable. Very sad for the family of the pilot. Qatar did not re-veil the reason of his death.

Yesterday a friend asked me if I had a picture  of another friend in our soaring world. I had a look in my photo books and was amazed to see how many pictures and books I have from so many different comps all over the world. I was very pleased to get some nice memories back , but also a bit sad to notice that a lot of friends have died already. It is very clear I am getting older , but that’s good the older the better.

We finally have a new government  and the Queen welcomed the “new 12” [ministers] in her palace and on the steps for a fotoshoot. This all happened on Thursday.  Our Belgium friends are back to 0, starting all over to get their new government.By the way the members of our government have spend over the last 4 years 4.6 million on private flights. In fact they can only do so when the government -plane is not available or one of the military planes suitable for passengers.

Great to see Aljoscha doing an AIC in Tocumwal. On the Sportaviation pictures I noticed both Stephan and Terry flying with their son. I love that!!!! A pity they had so much rain as well, but hopefully that helps growing the farmer- products, so they will be happy now with the sun, as the pilots will be. 106 mm is a lot and according to Eddie the most since 1974 in October. It seems 2010 is a year of wet records!!!!
Most of my friends visiting Sportavia in the past have visited/flown to The Rock as well. Yesterday 29 elderly residents of a nursing home were evacuated along with 6 carers after the nursing home flooded. Lot’s of major roads are cut off by flooding and the field of the Tumbarumba soaring club must be under water as the town was evacuated due to failure of the Mannus Dam. 

We are slowly going into winter , I noticed  white frost on my car this morning, today however we have  temperatures around 10 dgr. [13 is normal for this time of the year.] , but with the blue skies and the sun it looks fantastic and NO rain.

Cheers Ritz