11th JWGC in Szeged Hungary!FAI SGP in Bosnia!3d FAI Pan American Gliding Championship and more !!

Posted on August 4, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

BACK ON TRACK. HURRAY!!!!
What happened?
I wrote too much , used too many pictures and “my” place on the server was full!!!! They found also some malware so I was thrown off!!!
Could not enter my blog anymore.
So “I am” put in the cloud now, can write as much as I will again and use pictures as well.
The more official version;”So, I did find out that multiple sites were infected with malware. That caused the hosting service to deactivate the sites to the outside world. I have cleaned up the malware, now I am waiting for them to reactivate the sites. Further, I have added more disk space. Once all that is done, I can do more work to ensure that this won’t happen again. Part of that work will be to add more software to protect against malware and to move the backups into the cloud so they won’t use disk space at the hosting service. Hopefully, everything will be back up in a few days at the most.”

I found out that I am pretty hooked- on to my writing , so I am glad to be back. Every day I tried to connect to my blog , but every day was a disappointment ,till last Friday morning[August 2] early when I got the message “ Ritz, if you get into the site, then I think you are good to go!”
It’s still not totally “repaired” but , as Bill said,” what I still have to do will nor interfere with your writing” and ” do not worry about the number of pictures, I have added tons of space”.
Sounds great!!!!!
I am more than grateful!!!!THANKS BILL!!!!

Back to work….3 Big FAI comps in progress at the moment, so I will be busy again.
But first some sad news as I got it from Australia on a day I was biking in 40 dgr. C with 2 friends;

Thomas Philip Claffey
12 Nov 1963 – 25 Jul 2019
Last Tuesday while we were out cycling, Tom suffered sudden cardiac arrest. Despite immediate CPR by the bike shop guys, 7 cycles of electric shock and compressions by 4 paramedics in 2 ambulances, quick transport to RPA hospital, connection to ECMO heart/lung bypass life support and industrial quantities of drugs, Tom’s heart would only pulse and never regained proper pumping function. Today after 48 hrs on ECMO, tests and assessments showed no heart or brain function. So this evening life support was switched off.
Tom was cheated of his retirement dreams of gliding, sailing, 4w driving and fishing. I’m cheated of growing old with the love of my life, husband, best friend and soul-mate.”

Gentleman Tom, such a nice guy. Great pilot and top glider pilot.
And with his wife Kerrie, a few years ago. She might still fly the WWGC in Lake Keepit this year.I hope she will.
R.I.P. mate.
As shared by his wife Kerrie.

The news really shocked me as Tom was a still young healthy airline captain from Qantas, but you see, it can happen when you don’t expect it.
It’s Friday here today and that will be the day of Tom’s funeral. I guess all who know him from comps and many world comps share my grief for him.

On the day Tom died I was at the funeral of the brother from Inge’s husband Rodger. Only 49, Remco died after a freak-accident falling backwards from low, only 4 high concrete stairs, leaving him brain dead.
R.I.P dear Remco.

Life goes on as I found out many , many times; We had here in Holland but also Belgium, Germany, France and Luxembourg to deal with temperatures from 40.8 dgr. C and I went biking, may be not so smart. Big advantage nobody was on the bike that day, we had the forest for our selves.
Highest temperature ever here was in 1944 , we had 38.6 then and that record was REALLY beaten; 40.8 dgr. C..

Back to all comps as there are a few.

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11th FAI JWGC in Szeged in Hungary.
July 28- August 10 2019

All the young ones started, when I was frustrated to not be able to write and my opinion is, that my blog should be “fresh”, straight when I read things I try to share them.My enthusiasm is then [still at my age ] at the highest.
I copied some pictures which I will share anyhow to show you some of the young ones.

team Holland and team Belgium.

Team UK and yes that’s Aussie JWGC champion [ Benalla] Matthew Scutter in the middle . I guess he is the TC and with his knowledge of weather they can’t have a better one.
Team USA. They collected a glider in Holland first to go to the JWGC . I heard that 12 in Holland registered gliders are flying in Hungary, so we are a caring, sharing soaring nation!!!!

It’s Friday morning now August 2 and they have , after 4 practice day’s, already 1 cancelled task, one day with no task and 3 flying days in which the UK and Germany excel.
Here is a short note on them.

CLUB CLASS;
Task 2 …262 km. and the UK was in top condition with a 1 and 2 win. The best thing to do that day was NOT to start too early, but the expectation was that thermal activity would stop early that day, so a lot, also the Dutch , started early around 1.34 PM. Jake and Finn decided to start at 2.09 PM and won the day.
41 From 44 finished.

Task 3…3 hour AAT and the German young ones went for it; spot 1-2 and 3 for the day. Another tricky day with thunderstorms, but they had no problems with them. Team UK mentioned;” a good bad day” and one of them with a smile ;” a 3 hour AAT I,…. did 4!!!”
36 from 44 finished.

German team with 1. Tobias Pachowski 2. Maximilian Dorsch and 3. Philipp Lauer.
as shared by German Junior Gliding Team

Task 4…257 km. and another UK day with Finn and Jake performing at their best. Both fly an ASW 20 and those gliders are back popular with a good handicap and performance.Number 3 was another JWGC lady , this time from the Czech Rep and Barbora flew 90 km./h in her ASW 19. Except for 1 all finished!!!
In the evening was the INTERNATIONAL NIGHT.

Finn on the highest spot and Jake and Barbora on each site of him. And Barbora helping out at the International Evening.

Task 5..3.15 AAT. From today on I can write “live” again.Hope they did not drink too much or eat all kind of foods not matching with each other.I have seen that before. But no …274 k. was the best result in time 3.20 and it was flown by…Jake, with at his heels Finn; 273 km. in the same time ;1000 and 996 points. It really was a difficult day as a lot got a warning for a too low finish, meaning they just made it back pffff….. in the evening it was raining like hell, so a day off for Saturday???
31 Finished.
After 5 flying days it ‘s pretty clear that the UK is on top in the overall scores;
1. Jake with 3.633. 2. Finn with 3. 617 and on 3 the only one who can keep up with them ; Daniel Ryba, [3.510] who was 4th, 6th, 4th again and 3d on task 5.
Indeed a designated rest day was set for Saturday/yesterday.

STANDARD CLASS;
Task 2…300.88 km and no not a UK or German day but a FRENCH day, also with a late start.And a female winner as well Aude Untersee; 109 km./h in her Discus 2 a with winglets. Only 25 from 36 finished. Yes a tricky day.

Aude and her French mates as shared by Pôle France Planeur

Task 3…3 hour AAT and those young German pilots are really good in AAT flying. 3 Of them in the daily top as well in this class, so 6 German winners in both classes for task 3…. NOT BAD!!!!
19 From 36 finished so a lot of “hope” has gone with the wind.

German team; 1-2-3 for the day.
As shared by German Junior Gliding Team

Task 4…309 km. and they can fly a set task as well as ………..they won again. Simon Briel [Discus 2A] , Simon Schroeder [son of] in LS 8 and as first for the day Robin Sittmann.[Discus 2A] Except for the Discus B from pilot Lukas Schneeberger from Austria all gliders in this class have WINGLETS. Either Discus, [16x] LS 8 [19x] or LAK 19.[1x]

Task 5 ..3 hour AAT. Changed in 2 hour AAT. Tough day for the current JWGC champion Sjoerd from Holland , who had a flat tire , before start, which was repaired quickly by the crews. Towing started whilst a range of covering clouds arrived over the field. Not really good.But,…the sun became hotter and the clouds dissolved.
But Sjoerd, who had already bad luck in the morning ,showed why he was world champion 2 years ago and won the day.
Only 17 finished!!! Rain was bad in the end of the day. Some “managed to squeak it into the finish ring“, as the 2 UK boy’s did . Many land-out’s.

Courtesy British Gliding Team

After 5 tasks the overall scores with one week to go look as follows; 1. Robin, Simon B. and Simon S. from Germany. Clean sweep for the time being with 3.069/3.064 and 3.052 points.

Day 7 has no task 6 and the reason is clear….they made it a designated rest day…why not?

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LIVNO FAI SGP in Bosnia
27 July 2019 – 3 August 2019

As shared by FAI Sailplane Grand Prix Bosnia & Herzegovina 2019 – Livno

With 2 practice day’s on the 25th and 26th of July they started with race 1 but the weather did not co-operate . Also race 2 had to be cancelled.
But then… it started. 15 Pilots were all more than motivated to go for it.
Race 1 …208 km. Bad day for Gilles [Navas] from France as he started through all problems with zero points. 10 points were ready for German pilot Juergen Wenzel who flew around with 133 km./h on the clock. Gintas [Zube] was a great runner up [131 km./h] and German pilot Stefan Langer got 7 points for spot 3.[131 km/h. as well]

Race 2 …311 km. was 2 days later as July 28 and 29 had to be cancelled. 2 JS 3 JET in the top one from Slovenian pilot Boštjan Pristavec [107.9 km./h.] and Polish pilot Zdzisław Bednarczuk, quite a bit slower with 87.8 km./h.
7 Did NOT finish one of them Gintas. 2 Others flew but had to come back ;”Gilles and Jon [Gatfield from the UK.] landed back without completing the task. They were low between airfield and second turn point but managed to get back safely.”

Race 3…151 km. “Zube” recovered quickly and straight away won the day for 10 points; 129.8 km./h whilst Gilles who got the fine-tuning for flying in the East under control and got 8 points for a speed of 129.7 km./h.

Race 4…218 km. 2x a JS 1 in the top with nice speed ; 130 and 126 km./h. Pilots for 10 and 8 points were Jože Verdev from Slovenia and Petr Panek from Czech Rep. Ouch,..only Zdzislaw was out after 193 km.

Race 5…311 km. Morning news; “We expect some short rains until takeoff, and we are waiting for high layers of clouds to pass.“So maybe another tricky day.
Task was changed in 154.93 km. Late regatta start at 16.40!!!!

As shared by FAI Sailplane Grand Prix Bosnia & Herzegovina 2019 – Livno

“Zube” was supposed to be the winner with 116 km./h BUT, he was penalized for ” Switching off tracking device at 17:53:33“; 300 sec.
So the winner for 10 points was Bostjan, the runner up also penalized [for circling to the right….30 sec.] was Petr for 8 points and Gintas got 7.

Race 6…last race!!!231 km. A fast day!!!!
Stefan Langer who won race 1, flew around with 142.9 km./h!!! So he also won the last day. Not bad!!!!
“Zube” was runner up with 142 .6 km./h and as close Klaus Kalmbach with 142.5. Also Uroš Krašovic was fast with 142.5 km./h in his Ventus 3.

Final scores after 6 out of 8 day’s, with 2 pilots much better than the rest.
1. Gintas Zube with 37 points. He had 1 ZERO points day but won a day and was 2x runner up and 1 day 3d and 6th.
2. Boštjan Pristavec with 35 points. Bostjan won 2 day’s.He was 2x 6th, 1 x 5th and 1x 7th in the last race.
3. Petr Panek with 28 points.

This was the last FAI SGP in 2019. In 2020 they start in Potchefstroom in South Africa; January 4-12.
Vitacura in Chile is also in January on between January 18 and 25.

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3d FAI Pan American Gliding Championship from Rockton in CANADA.
29 July 2019 – 14 August 2019

Opening as shared by US Soaring Teams

4o Competitors have entered and quite a big team from the USA this time. They fly in 3 classes.
US soaring teams wrote;
“The U.S. is well represented at the 3rd FAI Pan-American Gliding Championship at SOSA in Rockton, Ontario, Canada. Local politicians and the president of the Soaring Association of Canada, Sylvain Bourque, welcomed pilots and crew from Argentina, Canada and the U.S. before FAI Jury President John Godfrey officially opened the event today. Harvards and a Giffen helicopter put on a great show, and gliders gridded for an early afternoon launch.”

August 2… day 1 task 1;
15 m /st class…..316 km;
14 in this class and 10 finished. Daily winners from Canada Chris Gough [LS 8] and Luke Szczepaniak [ASW 27] with 94 and 96 km/h. Also in this class Francois Pin in ASW 27 FES. with 100 km./h he was the fastest. Sarah Arnold was 5th in Ventus 2AX.
18 m…321 km;
Again 2 Canadian pilots in the top 2;Sergei Morozov and Joerg Stieber both in ASG 29. Speed 109 and 108 km./h
Also in this class Gary Ittner who was 4th and Canadian Jerzy Szemplinski was 6th. His mate Dave Springford was 8th.
10 from 13 finished.
club class…311 km;
Only 4 from 13 finished so a tough day. Winner Rafael Bravo from Canada in LS 4. In this class also 4 Argentinian pilots.

August 3 …day 2 task 2;
15 m./st class…258 km;
Good day for the very experienced Francois who in his ASW 27FES, with 99 km./h . His USA mates did well too as Phil Gaisford in Discus and Sylvia Grandstaff were 2 and 3 both in Discus.
Only 1 “out”.
18 m….257 km;
Sergei won already day won , now also day 2 with Jerzy as runner up; 106 and 104 km./h.
Bad day for Gary, he was the only one “out”.
Club class….208 km;
Sarah’s husband Jason was the daily winner in Discus with 92 km./h. Followed by 2 Argentinian pilots Carlos and Matias in In ASW 20 and St, Cirrus ; 87 and 81 km./h.
All 13 in this class finished.

20thiest FAI EGC in Prievidza ! Stendal ! UK Nationals ! OstrowGlide !Updated…also with pictures .

Posted on July 21, 2019July 22, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sorry, not too many pictures in this blog as the system is still not working well. But they do their best over there in the USA where the server is, to clean all unnecessary stuff.
When I put my laptop off , today [Saturday} because of heavy thunderstorms, I do not know if I can get in to it again. Very frustrating. It worked though!!!!

PRIEVIDZA; 12 out of 14 day’s!!! And… Sebastian with over 10.000 points!!!

EGC 2019 Prievidza

Day 11 on July 17; TASK 10.

Standard class; 395 km….103 km./h. was the best speed and it was flown by our Russian mate, who flies comps already for a long long time; Dmitriy Timoshenko. He “took with him ” Anton Minskiy who got 996 points.
The first 5 gliders are all DISCUS 2A.
22 From 26 Finished.
Robert Schroeder is still leading in this class before 3 Czech pilots ;Pavel, Tomas and Miloslav. Points between 7.421 and 7.630, so a lot is still possible. GOOD!!!
club class; 349 km...Those UK pilots are doing SO well.Tom and G. are upfront in the overall scores but still have the “gut’s” to fly their way. Young Tom is already 1 overall for most of the time.3 Pilots over 100 km./h. as also Ferenc Tamas did so as number 3.
Uwe, as number 13, lost 122 points, but still is runner up overall though G is closer now ;84 points.
26 From 31 finished. Some had to hurry for the evening party.
15 m class; 399 km...Enough competition is this class as well. It’s not over yet…though ???
A French day as Louis Bouderlique and Max Seiss won the day with 1000 and 993 days.All pilots finished. Sebastian Bauder was 4th, Sebastian Kawa 5th. Louis passed in the overall scores Freddie Hein with ONE point.

The day was closed with the INTERNATIONAL EVENING.

As shared by Per Carlin from Sweden.

Day 12 on July 18; TASK 11.

Turned out to be a very tricky day!!!
“The weather is trying hard to trick us. Some pilots are waiting in the air, some has landed and giving it another shot! Other than that we have 5 outlandings (4 from club class, 1 from 15-meter class).”

Standard class;3 hour AAT…Lucas Deloble from France just turned 26 and is flying pretty well. So is Benjamin Neglais on this difficult day they were 8 and 9. Compliments to the winner of the day; Filip Bojanowski from Denmark. WELL DESERVED 1000 points.
Huge differences in start times ,between 12.31 and 15.20 by Howard Jones from the UK who was 5th for the day.
Czech pilots Miloslav and Pavel did well as as number 2 and 3 and with the result from today Pavel leads this class and Robert dropped to 2; only 45 points difference.
club class;3 hour AAT.…Already at 3.25 Uwe was back starting at 12 , and he flew in 3 hour and 8 minutes 289 km. In the end he was 6th. But there are always better ones; Tom started 6 minutes later and flew 357 km. in time 3.49. French “ace” Adrien won the day 269 km. in his St Cirrus in time 2.59 is excellent!!!
Only 23 pilots finished.
15 m. class; 3 hour AAT…Jan Omsels and Sebastian started together at 14.45 and Jan won the day in his Ventus 3T with 379 km. in time 3.03. Sebastian in his Diana 2 was runner up with 374 km. in time 3.02.
I keep an eye on what happens all day so I was a tad disappointed to see Radek out after 43 km.
BUT,…as I found out later, more pilots made a restart and had flown back , so did Radek. He started as the very last pilot at 15.22, but he had better conditions and flew till 18.26 a nice distance of 379 km. Good on him. With that he was 3d for the day!!

A very interesting “wrap up ” from this day by G from the UK .
G; “Turned out to be an interesting day…AAT set for all classes in really unhelpful showery weather. Let’s just roll the dice then…
It started to rain just upwind of the site before the club class start line was open, leading to changes to drop zones for the standards and 15m due to rain in the Prievidza area – and some interesting decisions for all classes.
Clubs decided to go deep into the first sector – with the rain cutting off the next leg behind them. But after some sharp tactical thinking by Tom they got back onto the pace with an unusual decision to go well over the minimum task time. For a couple of pilots, the very high risk decision to land and re-start after the rain paid off, but Tom and G still strengthened their overall positions.

The Standards had to land in the rain, re-launched and flew the task late – with reasonable results despite the desperate weather. Again, an unconventional decision but they were forced into it.

Tim in the 15’s rolled the dice in the hope that the first sector would be wiped out longer than it actually was. A calculated sporting risk that unfortunately did not quite pay off.

But the message for today was – no land outs.”

Day 13 on July 19; TASK 12. One but last day!

They started with an inconvenience ;”We apologize for the inconvenience, but water pipe got broken in the camp and no toilets are working, please use the restrooms in the restaurant, upstairs above the restaurant plus from the side of the office. We are sorry for the issue but we are working on it.”
No worries!!
Standard class ;3 hour AAT… It looks like flying together really HELPS. Today the Czech pilots Miloslav and Pavel started and finished together for 1000 points and after 12 tasks they are 1 and 3 at this EGC. Robert was 3d and stayed on spot 2 as 3d meant 999 points.
The French pilots did better and better and Benjamin and Lucas were 4^th and 5^th on this last day. So to see they had a very relaxed team. Overall they were 7 and 10.
Club class; 3 hour AAT.… UK-day in this class as Tom and G won together , yes also starting and finishing together , the first and runner up spot. Great job!!Flying just over 350 km. which was at least 25 km more than the rest. G moved from 3 to 2 overall. French pilot Adrien Henry had 2 good last day’s being a daily 1 and 3 and climbing overall from 11 to 8 and to 7.
German pilot Uwe who has been a lot of day’s runner up in the overall scores had a less good last day and moved to 3. With a rather early start he was 19^th.
Here is G again, as I feel with his story’s as pilot that we get the best inside-look on this day.
“Another interesting day.
The weatherman was clearly a little pessimistic about the arrival of storms into the north of our area in the early afternoon and more weather from the west in the late afternoon – he clearly disagreed with the task setting crew. So we watched the sky – and sure enough it was very moist and unstable.
So with a near identical three hour AAT in all the classes – what time to start? The weather window should have been 1400 – 1700 given the forecast, but we had severe doubts about it all.
Timing was crucial, with the speeds in club, standard and fifteens turning out at 114, 121 and 129kph respectively for the pilots that arranged to be in the right place at the right time. Early starts were not a good idea, but woe betide the pilot leaving it a bit late.
Because the tasks were almost identical the cubbies could follow the standards and so on (thanks for Paul, Howard and Tim for the help at various points). Most of us were home before the rain arrived at Prievidza.
BBQ time.”
15 m. class; 3 hour AAT....starting together and finishing together, where did I see this before?? Also Lucasz and Sebastian from Poland did so and won the day. “ Together we are strong”.I really felt for Radek the last 2 days. Today he was only 19^th loosing 600 points and “falling out of the top 3”. But no worries one more day to go.
Also in this class great daily results by the French as Max and Louis were 5th and 6^th.

Day 14 on July 20; TASK 13!!!!LAST DAY !!! What will it bring?????
Launches were postponed a few times. Another tricky day and the hope for a good window!!! Always “scary ” on a last day. Early in the day the showers showed up already over the Nitra area.

Standard class;2 hour AAT…Start-line opened at 13.02…As said the French team became better and better during the days. On the last day Benjamin and Lucas won the day with a speed of 121 km./h over 249/247 km. They started at 14.07. Nothing changed in the top as Robert and the Czech mates “did their job well too “. 3 LS 8 gliders in the top 3 overall.

French team in great spirit with Benjamin as winner and Lucas as runner up for the day .
Pôle France Planeur

Club class ;2 hour AAT...12.37 start line opening…Lithuanian pilot Darius Liaugaudas was the best on the last day, with a late start at 14.15. When I looked in the evening at the prize giving, he got his daily prize in his wheel chair. Others starting at that time did n’t finish or were late. 213 Km in time 2.02 gave him 625 points. Uwe was runner up . G and Tom were 16th and 17th , but did not loose too many points. About 125 and they had enough advantage.

15 m. class ;2 hour AAT...13.22 opened start line….Max and Louis won the day with 259 km. in time 2.04 but not enough points could be gathered to get higher than the the overall spot they had already. Sebastian and Jan flew consistent and finished on 3 and 4.

A tweet on the last day :”It’s the last day and we have all pilots happily at home, besides 7 outlandings. The closing ceremony is going to be at 8:30 pm. But we have goulash and beer ready for you already!”

So here are the EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS in each class;
Mind you Sebastian is the only one who gathered in 13 day’s more than 10.000 points

Standard class;
1. Pavel Louzecky from Czech Rep. in LS 8; 9.992 points.
2. Robert Schroeder from Germany in LS 8 NEO ;9.937 p.
3. Miloslav Cink from Czech Rep. in LS 8 b ;9.849 p.

And finally thanks to the Czech mates I found a picture from Pavel ,Robert and Miloslav as well.
As shared by Czech Republic Gliding Team via Zbyněk Smetana, airZone.TV

Club class;
1. Tom Arscott from the UK in LS 7; 9.907 points.
2. G. Dale from the UK in ASW 24; 9.619 p.
3. Uwe Wahlig from Germany in LS 3; 9.563 p.

The UK-boy’s.
British Gliding Team

15 M. class;
1. Sebastian Kawa from Poland in Diana 2; 10.390 points!!!!!!!!!!
2. Max Seis from France in JS 3 ;9.976 p.
3. Jan Omsels from Germany in Ventus 3T; 9.863 p.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL !!!!
After 13 day’s the TEAM CUP was won by Germany with 895.63 points.
Runners up; Czech Rep with 890 points.
3d; France with 877 points.

Nice EGC to follow from home. Was a bit disappointed to see no Dutch and only 1 Belgian pilot. We have such good ones.

And then,…it’s all over again . Driving home to Sweden.
Picture shared by Per Carlin.

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The UK NATIONALS for 20 m and 18 m.
13 July 2019 – 21 July 2019

On Wednesday the 17th the weather deteriorated a bit and only 1 class flew that day; 18 m.
A short 2.30 AAT . 20 M. had a 2 hour AAT but that was scrubbed.
Only ONE day out of 5 for pilots in this class till now.
18 m; 2.30 AAT… TASK 5;
22 from 35 finished so a tough day. Pete Harvey won. I know him only as open class pilot, but know he moved to 18 m. a while ago. He is doing in this class good as well with 248 km in time 2.43.
Kim Tipple also more an open class pilot in the past was runner up.

July 18 task 5 in 18m. and task 2 in 20 m.

18m.; 335 km.….Ian MacArthur in his JS 1 was the best with a speed of 85 km./h. 13 Pilots had between 900 and 1000 points and then…only outlandings. So 23 out and also “good ones”. As Pete Harvey after 312 km.
20 m. ;313 km... only 4 from 17 finished.The ARCUS T from Davis Briggs was the best with 68 km./h AND for 1000 points.That helps!!!He moved from 13 to 3 overall!!!

July 19 no flying. No action on soaringspot on Saturday either.
But on Sunday tasks were set,…changed….. flown…… but not really.
One pilot from 18 m. tried reached 117 km. from the 186 set km. and that was that. You can’t say they did not try.
Invalid day.

In 20 m. there were a few points to be given;Task was 179 km. and Rodney Witter in the ARCUS M came close; 173 km .. Only 4 flew over 100 km.
Not a valid day.
So not much more to say as the final scores for 18 m. after 5 day’s out of 9 .
1. Andy Davis in JS 1c with 3.192 points.
2. Kim Tipple in ASG 29E with 3.160
3. Derren Francis in Ventus with 3.136 points

And 20 m; after 3 out of 9 day’s.
1. Matthew Cook in Duo Discus XLT with 1.896 points.
2.Ian Cook in ARCUS M with 1.710 p.
3. David Briggs in ARCUS T with 1.628 p.

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STENDAL.
German Nationals for 20 m and open class and International STENDAL GLIDE 2019.

Finally a good day and flown by most.
Wednesday July 17;
20 m; 372 km...Task 4 TEAM Markus Geisen/Michael Pfennig won again in the ARCUS M. They lead the 20 m. class with only 2 day’s to go.
Open; 427 km... Task 5 …EB 29 ‘s again, same pilots in it and as the best… Michael .Speed 139.73 km./ h. Felipe had an invisible- to- see -139.72 km./h
Amazing!!They have exactly the same total points at this stage; Both 3344. I guess they have a lot of fun together, though maybe they have no time they are SO fast!!
18 m; 315 km. ..Task 4...AND… Dutch success as Hadriaan and Sikko flew 128 km.h for 779 and 778 points. Boerje was 3d and is doing well leading in the overall scores .

Thursday July 18 one but last day and,…they fly!!!AND,…good tasks. With weather like this everybody quickly forgets the rain. Today was a day of flying around BERLIN.

20 m; 473 km…task 5…12 x an ARCUS either M or T in the top 12. Not bad. Best speed 123.95 km./h.Winner for the day Martin Theisinger and Uli and Chrissie were runner up with Markus /Michael as 5th. In between Italian pair Stefano and Kathrin with 976 points.
open; 605 km….task 6...2 EB 29 winners with equal points but not the expected Michael and Felipe this time Uwe Foester and Horst Singer; 999 points for a speed of 135.47/41. They started and finished together. But…only one point less for Felipe with 135.31 and then there is of course Michael with the same speed , as usual they flew together too. And for that reason still the same overall points ; now 4342.
18 m.; 494 km.…Task 5...Boerje, Hadriaan and Laurens [Goudriaan],…. the 3 toppers from the day with speeds of 130 and 123 km./h.
That Ventus 3T combination with Boerje is very fast!!!& km./h faster than the runners up!!!!

Friday July 19 VERY LAST DAY!!!!

AND they had tasks on the last day,AGAIN, so they finish with 6/7 day’s out of 12. Not TOO bad.
20 m. Task 6…..277 km. A change in the daily top as not the Arcus types were the best but 2 x an ASG 32 MI…AND a Duo Discus.
In the end the new 20 m. champions in this class were after 6 day’s ; Marcus Geisen/Michael Pfennig in ARCUS M with 4521 points
open class;Task 7….304 km.The speed was 130 km./h and Felipe and Michael managed together the same points [732] AGAIN.
SO they win together!!!! hope they have 2 gold medals. In the future organizers should take care of that.
5.074 points after 8 days. 2 Toppers in their EB 29 R…… Jim was 3d.[4.866 p.]
18 m. class;Task 6 …..254 km. Jeancarlo Grinza, from Italy won the last day in his Ventus 3F. But another Ventus 3T won the STENDAL GLIDE 2019.
In it Boerje Eriksson; 3.476 points. More than 100 points ahead of Italian pilot Alberto Pozzi [3.356] and Hadriaan van Nes [3322] from Holland.

Stendal will be ready for the WGC, now the weather….

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OSTROW GLIDE 2019.
12 July 2019 – 21 July 2019

As shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

club class;
Task 5...On Wednesday a short AAT from 1.45 . All pilots needed more time ;over 2 hours, one even over 3 hours. Distances around 200 km.
Task 6; Thursday was better as 500 km. was on the menu. AND… flown by 10 out of 13. Daily winner Przemysław Bartczak just ahead of Stan.
The next [Fri] day was set , 149 km. but cancelled.
Task 8 ;455 km... yes another 10 flew the task. Good on them.
Final overall scores at this stage from the winner and runner up;
1. Przemysław Bartczak in SZD 55 ;5.198 points.
2. Stanislaw Wujczak in St Jantar 3 ;4.465 p.

18 m.;
Task 5… Janusz Centka won the 2 hour AAT ; 258 km. in time 2.23.
Task 6; The next day was also in this class another story; 703 km!!!! Busy day for the 11 pilots!!!
ALL 11 PILOTS FLEW THE TASK…. CHAPEAU!!!
Janusz [ ASG 29 E] was the best with 130 km./h He still flies as sharp as 30 years ago!!!
Task 8; another 702 km.!!!1400 km. in 2 day’s in a row, not bad during a competition. Only one pilot out the rest DID IT!!! 2 Pilots even got 1000 points flying over such a huge distance!!!
7 Out of 9 days with some real strong last day’s. They will be tired or full of adrenaline.
Overall scores at this stage;
1. Janusz Centka in ASG 29 E ;5.513 points.
2. Andrzej Śmielkiewicz in ASG 29 E;5.331 p.

When they still fly tomorrow, I come back on it. No more flying found.

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JS 3 news ;

Finally it’s there. I guess a few pilots will be relieved.
“An excited Uys Jonker (CEO Jonker Sailplanes) and Keno Markwald (COO M&D Flugzeugbau GmbH) having fun with the JS3 TYPE CERTIFICATE in hand.”

EASA awards the JS3 certification.
After 2 years of intense certification work by the JS / MD engineering team all the check boxes where ticked and EASA signed the EASA TYPE CERTIFICATE early this morning.
Uys Jonker, talking on behalf of the JS / MD engineering team says it was no easy task: “Designing a sailplane with the ultimate performance requires you to touch various edges of the certification envelope. Showing compliance when designing on the edge always takes longer as test data must sometimes be verified with the additional observe tests. Finally our patient customers can expect to have their JS3s ready with a full CofA (Certificate of Airworthiness).”

Ready to be picked up by the new owners at M+D Flugzeugbau..
As shared by Jonker Sailplanes

The repairmen should have time to get my blog in perfect condition again. So I will slow down a bit.
It’s scary to write and not to know if it can be published. “All work done for nothing”, is SO frustrating!!!
Lot’s of pictures is good but if I can not save them it’s a problem.
So stand by. See if I can be back soon. I ‘ll give you notice in time.
Sorry.

Cheers Ritz

Final week from EGC !!Stendal…rain, but GOOD today!! UK 18m and 20 m. NATIONALS!! OstrowGlide2019!

Posted on July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

EGC in PRIEVIDZA:

As seen by team UK….British Gliding Team

I prefer bigger pictures in the blog but they gave problems. So don’t forget to double click to see them in full. I will get used to it, so will you…..I hope.

Let’s start with Sunday after the loss of the blog. They did n’t fly anyhow on the 2 day’s before, one day was cancelled the other one was “a day-off” /rest day.

Monday July 15 showed big tasks!!!! Task 8.
Standard class: 502.80 km.after the party/dinner and the rest day everybody was keen to go for it again. Most keen it seemed Robert Schroeder from Germany in his LS 8 NEO; speed 121.87, which was just a tad faster than Polish pilot Lukasz Błaszczyk, yes one of the Lucaszes again in his Discus 2A; 121.09. Difference in points; 11.
22 From 27 finished. Some had air space penalties.
Club class; 500 km…..and that is pretty much for a competition for “our” small ships.But …no worries 25 from 31 flew the task and the LS 3’s were the fastest; Ferenc Tamas from Hungary won with 101 km./h
The 999 points were for German pilot Uwe Wahlig, who really flies strong during this EGC.
Number 3 was Marek Sawczuk from Poland in ASW 20 F;102.53km./h. for 996 points.
15 m. class; 504 km.… French pilot Max Seiss showed his skills in flying around with a speed of 120 km./h in his JS 3. The other Lucasz , this time Grabowski, and then you know that will mean DIANA 2 ,was runner up; 119.44 km./h.
Only 2 out by entering forbidden space.

Tuesday July 16; Task 9;
The morning news was;”The weather remains the same, just with small changes. Because of the slightly worse conditions in the western parts of Slovakia and Orava area, the tasks are set more around the airfield area. All in all, the thermals will be maybe a bit tricky, but we know you all will manage without a doubt!
The task length is a bit over 400km for all classes. You have the possibility of reaching 1000 points!”
Standard class; 425 km….And the “discus -Lucasz” was now the best with 110 km./h. for 1000 points. Just a TAD FASTER THAN French pilot Lucas Delobel also in Discus 2A. [109 km./h.] And to mention the whole top 3 , all in Discus 2A by the way, I add Danish pilot Filip Bojanowski as well.[108 km./h]
28 Started 26 finished.

Club class; 400 km… As I mentioned already Uwe [LS 3] has the time of his life during this EGC. He won the day and added another 1000 points to his total. Great flying as well by the UK boy’s as Ge [ASW 24]and Tom [LS 7] were 2 and 3 !!!
31 Started 28 finished.

15 m. class; 436 km.…KAWA-day! 1000 points for him.992 for Radek and 907 for Jan[Omsels] The top 2 in this class is very close and for that reason it will be an exciting last few days.
Sebastian has 6.837 points. Radek 6.738 and 3 day’s to go.
Organizers wrap up of the day:
“Back to task information now. Everyone described today’s flight as trickier but still better than expected. It is always good to have low expectations. There were definitely more clouds, turbulences, plus some shower at the beginning of the task than was initially expected from the forecast, but in the end, the conditions got better.”

Finishes on Monday as seen by
https://www.egc2019.sk/aktualita/EN/87/Roman-Leporis-gallery #gliding #glider #gliders #landing #egc #egc2019 #egc2019prievidza #prievidza #bojnice #sr #sk #slovakia #championship #soaring #pilot #pilots #flying #flyinglife #pilotlife #land #wings #battle #competition #europe #crosscountry #crosscountryflying

Wednesday July 17; TODAY!!!
Expectations;” The pilots can look forward to a similar day like yesterday. It is going to be racing with the task lengths 360-400km for all classes. The weather also remains the same- cloudy”
Standard class; 395 km.….
club class; 349 km…
15 m.;399...

In the evening, so tonight INTERNATIONAL EVENING.AT 7 PM.

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STENDAL.
Open and 20 m. NATIONALS and INTERNATIONAL STENDALGLIDE 2019 in 18 m.

NO FLYING.
As shared by Aussie guest Dave Jansen.

A bit of a hick up with my blog as you could read under here. So I continue now with Stendal’s open and 20m. Nationals and the INTERNATIONAL STENDAL GLIDE 2019 in 18 m.
The last blog with all the news from the comps last week is gone for ever.
Till last Monday they had 3 day’s out of 8 in 20 m., 4 out of 8 in open and 3 out of 8 in 18 m.
Clearly the weather- gods are not co-operating there in that nice place Stendal, where the Dutch in the past flew their nationals, because there were always complaints about our weather.
Last Saturday all classes flew .Small tasks,…but they flew.
In 20 m. ;2.30 AAT…Alberto Sironi and Elena Fergnani were the best in their ARCUS T. I met both during my Rieti visits. Lovely people. Elena is from a real soaring family and I met her and her brother also at JWGC’s.
Open class ;3 hour AAT…Another 5 first places for the EB’s and a 6th for the NIMETA. Good to see Ulrich Knauss in his EB 28 on 5. Best speed 125 km./h.
18 m; 2.30 AAT…and lot’s of out-landings.10 in,…10 out!!

The new week looked hopeful but Monday had to be cancelled as well. But really better weather was forecasted so there was hope for Tuesday.
Tuesday July 16 …..NO HOPE!!!But,…still 3 day’s to go. It SHOULD be better !!!!
A lot of talking about the weather here is a mall part of the interview , under news, with meteo man Walter Hermann, who was glider pilot on competition level as well on July 14:
“The weather conditions make the present championship challenging not only for the pilots but also for the weatherman. What has been the most challenging day for you so far?

The most difficult day for me so far was yesterday [day 6 of the championship] because there was a dichotomy in weather conditions: on the one hand, a strong atmospheric instability in the east and, on the other hand, stable conditions in the west. And we were exactly on the edge between the two. And the problem was to discern or to predict when and where the overdevelopment and possibly thunderstorms would occur. And if this difficult situation happens, to inform about it the competition management to the best of my knowledge and belief, because one cannot say with 100% , not even 80% certainty: “There and there thunderstorms will occur” . We could see yesterday that after initial overdevelopment in the east, the weather stabilised for a short time, during which it became possible to fly a short task, but shortly afterwards again overdevelopment occurred followed by the thunderstorms and rain showers.
More on the EGC-site .

Wednesday July 17; TODAY….only 3 days to go but ……tasks today. AND,…nice ones not small AAT’s.
20 m; 372 km….
open; 427 km…
18 m; 315 km….

Problems with my blog! Sorry.

Posted on July 15, 2019July 16, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

“Good news! You haven’t been hacked. They need to do some disk cleanup, I think the daily backups have used up the disk space. I’ll keep you posted.”

This is the news after I was not able to publish my last blog for the Sunday. And,..it was a good one I think ,..but it is lost!!!

It takes another 48 hours, I heard from the tech support and I am not sure if this is readable for you at home.

So sorry

Ritz

I copied some news from France which I had written in word. About the last day;

Multi class;
The last day turned out to be a strong one and the 4.30 AAT was used best by Sofiane Scally in her LS 8; 563 km in time 4.32 so a nice speed of 124 km./h. Good on her. More girl power!!Gabriel was 6^th ,but so far ahead during the week that it did n’t matter for him. Good business for Nick being 4^th.
In the end the overall scores were :
1.Gabriel Rossier from Switzerland in ASH 31 MI with 6.944 points.
2. Hugo Corbille who was runner up on the last day in LS 8 with 6.680 p.
3. Nick Hanenburg from Holland in Discus 2A with 6.595 p.

Club class;
they had a 4.30 AAT on their last day and the Dutch boy’s got used to the climate and the area ,so with their talent, they won the last day;
Mark in the ASW 24 flew 521 km in time 4.28 so a speed of 124 km./h and Jelmer 486 km. in time 4.42 [speed 103 km./h] . Both finished in the top 10 Jelmer on 4 and Mark on 7 [from 11 the day before!!] !!!
Overall scores after 8 out of 10 days;
1. Brian Spreckley from the UK in St Libelle with 6.715 points.
2. Finn Sleigh from the UK in ASW 20 with 6.555 p.
3. Jake Brattle from the UK in ASW 20 with 6.471 p.

Open class; NATIONALS;
With a set task of 582 km. Philippe de Pechy showed his flying skills and won the day ;speed 135 km./h. Just a tad faster than Sylvain.[134 km./h] The first 5 gliders were JS 1C.21 m.
On 6 and 7 Aboulin /Loring and Jutta Sturm so more girl power!! Both in ASH 25.
With his runner up spot Sylvain moved up from 4 to 3. And Philippe from 7 to 4.
Overall scores after 6 out of 7 good days.
1. Team Aboulin /Loring in ASH 25 so FRENCH CHAMPIONS with 4.912 points.
2. Eric Bernard in JS 1C /21 m with 4.899 p.
3. Sylvain Gerbaud in JS 1C/21 m with 4.841 p.

18 m. class;NATIONALS.
560 km. was their set task and sorry if it get’s boring, but MORE girlpower; Winner for the day; Marilyne in her JS 3. Speed 124 km./h.
Just a tad slower and 123 km./h for Anne Ducarouge.
So the French have a female CHAMPION in this class.
1. Marilyne Abadie –Berard in JS 3 with 5.243 points.
HC Ricky Brigliadori from Italy in JS 1C with 5.218 p.
HC Margot Aquaderni from Italy in Ventus 3 FES with 5.208 p.
2. Silver for Eric Garnier in ASG 29 E with 5.159 p.
3. Bronze for Christian Mallick in ASG 29E with 5.105 p.

Nice comps to follow there in Issoudun!!

EGC in Prievidza ! Open and 20 m. Nationals in Stendal ! Issoudun !

Posted on July 10, 2019August 2, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

To avoid too long blogs AND old news, I try to publish, in this busy time ,on Sunday and Wednesday. If you missed last Sunday’s blog,….. you find under this one. Enjoy!!!

EGC in PRIEVIDZA.

AS shared by the organizers.
https://www.egc2019.sk

Tricky weather it was on day 1; The organizers mentioned :
“ The first day is always exciting, but today’s weather decided to add some extra excitement. The weather is going to be a bit tricky, but it will still allow us a short 2 hour AAT task for all classes.
We can expect showers in the late afternoon, but we will do everything to manage before that.”
I guess best initiative,…early start!!

Standard class;
TASK 1; 2 hour AAT.
Luca Urbani from Italy was one of the first, indeed , to start at 12.38 and with 225 km. in time 2.04 he won the day in his Discus 2A. Speed 108.28 km./h.
German pilot Robert Schroeder started as one of the last BUT, he was runner up,so in the end , it did n’t really matter.
He started at 13.15 , flew in his LS 8 NEO, 225 km. in time 2.05 [speed 107.58 km./h]
25 From 28 finished one entered forbidden airspace and that meant “over and out”= zero points for the day.
TASK 2; 401 km. That kept them busy, the organizers mentioned:
“The second day is a bit chilly compared to the sauna days we had before, isn’t it? We have the task lengths about 400km today. From what I heard, it is a beautiful day ahead of us. No showers and no thunderstorms but it will be a little bit windier. We have 1000 point tasks for all classes.”
The Czech pilots had a top day!! 1-2-3 for the day with former hang- glider pilot Tomas Suchanek as the best in his Discus 2A with a speed of 123.70 km./h. JUST a tiny little tad faster than Miloslav Cink in LS 8b; 123.64.
Pavel Louzecky was the 3d with 123.20 km./h. Photo finishes!!! Robert Schroeder had another top day as number 4.
TASK 3;330 km.
First the organizers morning news.
“The third day at EGC is here, and it seems like the weather is not going to play it easy on us once again. Our trusted meteorologist looked pretty serious when I met him, which is unusual. He confirmed it’s going to be a complicated day but flyable! The middle clouds from North-West Slovakia are the trouble makers. That’s why the pilots from all classes can look forward to a nearly Hungarian experience and lowlands in the South today! Because of the strong conditions at the lowlands, the task setter prepared two options for you, just in case, task A(racing) and B(AAT) task”
Robert Schroeder from Germany was the best flying with a speed of 128 km./h over the set task. Good on him.His LS 8 NEO was followed by 8 Discus types . A nice mixed group with 2 Hungarian pilots, another German pilot Sebastian Naegel, and 1 from Finland, 1 from Romania , 1 from Denmark, France and Slovakia.
All 28 who started …finished!! So a good day!! 81 Finishers in total!!!!!!
TASK 4 today; 385 km. more on Sunday.

Club class:
TASK 1; 2 hour AAT.
Jaroslav Toman from the Czech Rep. flew in his Pegase 101WL, 222 km. in time 2.03. His Czech mate Ivan Novak in Ls 4 was a tad faster but had a worse handicap so he missed out on ONE point!!!
28 From 31 finished so a good day.
TASK 2;341 km.
Lithuanian pilot Darius Liaugaudas was already GOOD on the practice -day’s now he was good again. Speed of 100.83 km./h. in his Pegase. Not much slower,….his country mate Arturas Pilvinis in SZD 55-1.
French pilot Adrien Henry was 3d ,AS the day before.
TASK 3; 302 km. Tom and Ge from the UK had a top-day ;116 km./h. French pilot Julien Henry is a very consistent pilot for France.He was 3d. Number 3 on each of the 3 days!!!! All pilots finished.
UK team ‘s news for the day :”A grand trip out to the Danube today for all three classes. The club class started midfield but had a storming run, with strong climbs up to the 8000 ft airspace limit. Tom and G finished the day with an excellent 1-2 result, a clear 10kph quicker than the next placed glider. The standard class made a late start and so nearly caught the gaggle ahead of them, but had to settle for a solid collection of points for the day. Tim also made a very late start with the German team and made good progress down the first leg before falling back slightly. The overall scores are still very close in all classes with many days still to come. After today’s flight, Tom is narrowly leading the club class with G not far behind.”
TASK 4 today; 347 km.

15 m.class:
TASK 1;2 hour AAT
Current EGC champion Freddie Hein from Germany in his VENTUS 3T was the daily best.230 km. in time 1.58 so a speed of 115 km./h. His German mate Sebastian Bauder in Ventus 2A was runner up; speed 114 km./h.
21 from 22 finished. Good on them!!!
Most started around 13.23.
TASK 2; 435 km.
Good speed in this class and a winner from Czech Rep. young Radek Krejcirik in his JS 3 with 131 km./h on the “clock” . Sebastian in his Diana 2 was runner up with 128 km./h. whilst Joris Vainius from Lithuania,…a great day for them….had 123 km.h.
Except for 1 all finished.
TASK 3;352 km. A great day for the French team and Sebastian Kawa. Louis Bouderlique and Sebastian were the winners and Max Seis was runner up .All with the same speed of 129 km./h.There were 7 pilots in total with a speed over 125 km./h. All pilots finished!!
The organizers last words on the day 3 :”Everyone we asked was still running on endorphins throwing superlatives around like confetti. Amazing weather, perfect task, strong thermals, endless cloud streets…
With the cloud bases almost at max allowed altitude most didn’t even mind narrower lifts and made it through 400km fast and furious.”
TASK 4 today; 390 km.

Great picture from day 2 by Roman-Lepris as shared by the organizers in their photo gallery.

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STENDAL
German Nationals in open and 2 seater class and International Stendal Glide for 18 m.

Ready to go for it
Shared by Segelflug-DM Stendal

They had a good official practice day on Sunday the 7th and the opening at 8 that day, was live to follow.
Also the briefings are to follow via live stream.
After 8 training’s day’s the pilots were ready to go for it. BUT,…the weather thought different and 2 classes 20 m. and open had to be cancelled so
“Task 1 was only for 18 m. class. 210 km. was set, but nobody flew the task.
Some did well as Dutch pilot Hadriaan van Nes with 207 km. [ JS 1Btj] Followed by Boerje Eriksson from Sweden with 203 km.[VENTUS 3] Zdzislaw Bednarczuk from Poland was 3d in JS 3.
The opinion from the organizers after day 1:”The 18m class has completed its first day of evaluation!Some pilots had to “throw” the engine, some have not flown off or flown back to the starting line. Four outlandings. The first feedback: “A good decision, it was really fun”

Task 2; All tasks changed in to TASK B with a first expected launch at 2.30 PM.;
18 m ; Racing task from 206 km. changed in B task from 147 km . CANCELLED.
open; 2.00 AAT from 226 to 448 km. [A task] changed in B task 2 hour AAT 186/317 km.
EB 29 weather,as Felipe Levin and Michael Sommer won the day; 94 km./h. over 201 km.so in time 2.08 .
This speed for such a glider says all about the weather but they flew.
The NIMETA from Bruno Gantenbrink was 3d with 193 km in 2.26. A long-wing-day!!!
9 From 30 flew the task.
Max points 462, and min. points 123.
They started launching at 2.45 PM. and Michael and Felipe started at 4.33.!!!
My Aussie mate David Jansen was a bit upset with the day
“Today we flew the first competition task in the Open Class. We did very well until we had to start the engine however we were not alone in this. What has taken us completely by surprise is that the organisation has changed to the “B” task whilst we were airborne and they did not perform a roll call to confirm with all the pilots. As a result we have been disadvantaged severely by flying the “A” task and making a technical outlanding. I believe we could have made it home if we had known to fly 2 hours and not 2.5 hours. We have also lost distance points in the current scoring..it’s not sour grapes however I do not like missing critical information like this without some sort of cross check…”

Short morning update, from the organizers; on the subject.
“We are flying the German National Competition and as such team captains are not in attendance for this event so no written notice is required under the German rules as the B task was also issued at briefing.”
And somebody added :”actually it was changed by Radio Call whilst all Classes standing in the Grid prior to launching. “

20 m; 2.00 AAT from 215 to 389 km. [A task] changed in B task 2 hour AAT 143/270 km. CANCELLED
Stendal looked back at the day :
“A short drizzle opened the second day of the German Gliding Championships and the International Stendal Glide.
No reason for doing nothing: starting as usual 8:00 – 9:50. Briefing 10:00. The thermals still took a while to come and brought three times a delay for launching time.
The doubleseaters were allowed to dare first and started towing or starting at 2:30 local time.
However, with a cloud base at about 1000m and low thermals, the class was neutralized along with the 18m class that had lined up at the back of the airfield.
For the open class, however, there was no escape. Starting 2:45 clock local time, after the landed DoSi’s rolled off track.”

20 thiest EGC from Prievidza ! Issoudun !Great flights from Keiheuvel!

Posted on July 7, 2019July 12, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

With so much news I try to publish temporary, every Sunday and Wednesday, to make blogs not too long and to remain actual. I heard some readers have problems with downloading the blog.Maybe because I publish many BIG pictures. Will try to find out.
When you see an old blog, use the refresh button and the new blog appears. Good luck and enjoy!!!
I reduced the pictures to medium for better downloading. When you just double click on them they enlarge.

20thiest EGC for small ships!
July 6-July 20 2019.

As shared by Czech Republic Gliding Team

On July 3 the first official practice day was organised for 87 pilots;
34 in Club class, 29 in standard and 24 in 15 m. class.
Club got 262 km., standard 307 and 15m. a task of 312 km. Looking GOOD!!!

15 m. class ready to go for first official practice day.
as shared by Czech Republic Gliding Team

2 more good practice day’s with set tasks from around 300 km and a day with 3 hour AAT’s.
“The organizers decided we’d had enough of practicing in the hills so sent us south in to the flatlands towards Hungary on a 3 hour Assigned Area Task. Wave and shifting bands of high cover made low level conditions tricky at times. At other times there were 6 knot climbs up to the 8000ft. ” as shared by Team UK…..Tom.
The 3 hour AAT in St class was won by Keiheuvel pilot Jeff Kell,…there must be something in the drinking water there,…302 km. in 2.59.
In club class Ukraine pilot Darius Liaugaudas in the Pegase 101A was the best with 289 km. in time 3.10 and in
15 m it turned out a real German Ventus 2 and 3 day; Sebastian Bauder [Ventus 2a]had 307 km. in 3 hour at the dot, Freddie Hein , who is the current European champion, 303 km at the dot and Jan Omsels 303 km. in time 3.03.
Then there was on Friday evening a mandatory TC Briefing at 6 pm, and a mandatory safety and operation / Airspace briefing !!!
Yesterday the opening at 5 PM.

The always very strong and successful team from Poland.
With Sebastian and his dad around the girl in black and one of the 2 Lucaszes to the right.[ Grabowski]
As shared by Sebastian.

The “POMMIES”, with some very experienced pilots young and old[er]. Great team.
as shared by British Gliding Team

Team Belgium with Jeff as the only pilot and Gitte his wife, Leon and Anna his children and 2 times 1000 km.-pilot and mate Jeroen as crew.
as shared by Gitte.

Team France always STRONG,..as shared by Pôle France Planeur

Team Germany , never underestimate them, as shared by the German team.
https://segelflug.aero/blog/blog/category/2019/2019-egc-prievidza/

And THEN,…it all starts!!
Today Sunday ALL 3 classes have a 2 hour AAT.
More on Wednesday.

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German Gliding Nationals in Stendal.
Pre WGC for the 2020 WGC 18 m. class….July 8-19 2019.

Starts tomorrow with 89 participants!!!
German Nationals in 2-seater and open class and International Stendal Glide 2019 in 18 m. class [competition training].
More on Wednesday!!!

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Zomerwedstrijd from Malden in the Netherlands!
July 2019 – 13 July 2019

As shared by Zomerwedstrijden

Being involved in the Summer comps means that when you are good and have enough points, you can go next season to the Nationals. It’s a fun, but serious competition with also pilots who have been in WGC’s /EGC’s already, as George Schuit and Ferdi Kuijpers and pilots who flew Nationals already a great mix of pilots.

First day is today with 177 km. in club class and 183 km. in a mixed open class.

First briefing in the beautiful briefing room from the most beautiful 2 storey- hangar in the world at Malden. With George and Diana and Chris [Zippel] who flew in the past with us in Tocumwal and now is “ground-slave” . He came all the way from Berlin.
Shared by Martijn Alders.

25 Pilots in total…more next Wednesday.

ISSOUDUN,
44th Concours International, the BGA overseas championship and the French Nationals in 18 m. and open class.

From July 4 till 13 they fly with 50 participants the 44th Concours International and the BGA Overseas Championships so many UK participants . 2 Classes combi and club.
Parallel on this competition they fly from July 7 till 13 the French Nationals in 18 m. and open class, so around 90 pilots at the field. A big happening!!!
18 in open class and 24 in 18 m. 42 in total the the FRENCH NATIONALS.

As shared by Aeroclub Issoudun

On the 4th of July, was the first flying day for the multi class and club class.
Multi class;
Task 1….251 km. From the 20 starting pilots 15 finished. Best was UK pilot Iain Evans in JS C/18m. 1 EVO. He started relatively late 324 PM. Speed 90 km./h. which was 7km./h faster than the runner up .
“Our” ex- junior Nick Hanenberg , but still very young, did well as number 3 for the day.[Discus 2A]
Task 2….279 km. A Swiss win today by Gabriel Rossier in the ASH 31MI with 111 km./h, which was was 8km./h faster than young Nick in the Discus 2A, who was in the top 3 again!!
16 From 20 finished.
On the 6th NO FLYING but
Task 3 was on again today on Sunday. 3 Hour AAT.
More on Wednesday.

Great picture! Shared by Dutch Junior Gliding Team

Club class;
Task 1….212 km. 17 From 24 finished and good old Brian Spreckley showed how to do it. He won in his Libelle with a speed of 76 km./h. Bit slower than French Adrien Dubreuil who flew 79 km./h in his LS 4. [handicap 104 whilst the Libelle has 97]
Finn Sleigh and Jake Brattle both in ASW 20 started 15 minutes later than Brian, good for a 3d and 4th place. They belong to the UK junior squad and prepare in Issoudun on their JWGC in Hungary later this month.
Great to see Shaun Lapworth again in a glider and a competition. After his nasty accident he is BACK!! Good on him and on spot 6 for the day.
Task 2….233 km. and yes,…one of our juniors won the day!! Jelmer [Vis] in the St Cirrus was a tad faster than Brian. Nick Faber another Dutch junior started and flew together with Jelmer and was 3d in his St Cirrus.3 Dutch juniors practicing as well in Issoudun.
Only 2 outlandings, so a good day!
Task 3 also here no flying yesterday but today 262 km.

FRENCH NATIONALS for 18m. and open class from Issoudun.

They start at July 7, TODAY with 305 km. for 18 open class pilots and 309 km. for 18 m. with 24 pilots.
More next Wednesday.

——————————

MORE SUPERB FLIGHTS.

2 consecutive 1000 km flights! HURRAY!!!
One flight took 10 hours and 50 minutes , the other one 11 hours and 26 minutes!!!!
Courtesy Bert Schmelzer sr.

Flying 2 times a 1000 on consecutive day’s is superb AND Jeroen Jennen from Belgium did it, on July 2 and 3 in an LS 8 …just a standard class glider..no jet, no turbo, only Jeroen!!!.
Here is his story:
“Day two, thousand two. Started with the feeling that a second 1000k would be possible, the start went better than yesterday. Once reaching the Rhine I was ahead of schedule, to bad the weather didn’t improve like it did Tuesday. Had to fly more conservative towards the turn point and afterwards to the south. Once reaching Paderborn after a long glide and the clearance to cross overhead I hit the first good thermal of a few. The south east leg was incredible, also with the wind behind but things went smooth. Once turning back and leaving the Thuringer Wald things became difficult. The wind was getting stronger and for some reason I couldn’t catch the thermals in one time, had to search a lot and the speed went down slowly. Up on the Sauerland the weather improved again, got low there but with the sun, hill and the ski resort below a great thermal was a must. From there on the clouds became bigger and a street helped me to improve the speed again. From Senden to Keiheuvel was a fight, had some good thermals but had to search them for a while. Once reaching the home field I had to go back for 25km, with the wind I wanted to climb before my TP but the thermals didn’t co-operate though. A long and hard struggle for me at fg, but with no fields in our final glide I tried to climb some more around Lommel, I’ve reached it quite low and very late, but got myself a 0,2 to reach fg with the wind blowing me towards the field! There my supporters were cheering which made the flight even more beautiful.”
Great achievements Jeroen congratulations!!

A happy chappie;
Tijl Schmelzer after his 1000 PLUS new Belgian record. The family VENTUS 3 E ” 2X’ was the record winning glider.
A “sit” of 11 hours and 42 minutes!!!!
courtesy Bert Schmelzer sr.

That day, July 3, Tijl Schmelzer took a few records from Namibia back to Belgium. He flew 1.121 OLC km.s and a
“Belgian record Out-and-Return Declared + O/R Free Distance 1044km+
Not very often that you can reclaim 2 Belgian records from Namibia to Belgium!
Awesome weather this week…” He flew the VENTUS 3E.
Some really good young pilots there at the Keiheuvel flying 4 x a 1000 in 2 day’s. What about that!!!.
Bert sr. ,proud dad, wrote;”
“On July 3 Jeroen wanted to fly/chase another 1000 km and Tijl was focused on a new Belgian record.Uncle Eddie [from Jeroen] was up early to be their tuggie. And off they went; Tijl far into Czechia and Jeroen in an LS 8 to the neighborhood of Coburg with TP’s in between.”
And they did it!! Great achievements by both. Both declared their flights and the 2 records from Tijl not from Namibia now anymore, but from the good old “Keiheuvel” ;
declared out and return from 1.044 km. and and a free out and return from 1049 km , ….1.122 OLC km’s.
“We experienced Namibia on the Nordsea.”
Even more impressive due to due to challenges of very tight airspace.
I nearly could hear here the cheers at their return.

Last weeks Belgian / KEIHEUVEL 1000 km-heroes . Tijl ,Jeroen en Wim.
courtesy Bert Schmerzer sr.

Quite a FEW “NEARLY” 1000 KM. FLIGHTS!!!That’s a bit sad, certainly when they are as close as 997 in Holland from Lars in ASW 28E from Terlet and 967 km. by Tim from Malden in ASW 20 and 992 in a St Jantar by Markus in Germany [Auerbach]. BUT,…it remains an unforgettable experience!!!
A total of 8x a 1000 in Europe. One from Bas Seijffert from Terlet in JS 1C/21m.
And the 812 in an LS 6 from Ronald Deerenberg is worth mentioning as well.

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News from DG:
“DG-1001E

The FES system is getting more in more popular in nowadays single-seaters. Lots of clubs and private pilots enjoy the benefits of this easy to use propulsion system. It’s a system useable for everyone which elevates the glider back to safe altitude and which is unbeatable when it comes to comfort and easy operation.

DG Flugzeugbau decided to install this system in its DG-1001 family. The well known FES unit by LZ Design will be modified so it delivers approx. 30kW. In combination with a new battery generation we expect a similar performance as shown by FES single-seaters such as the LS8-e neo.

Prototype manufacture will begin late this summer. The first flight is expected to take place in spring 2020.”

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AND…to finish a great picture from a special event in Holland.

“On Thursday June 27 you could see this exceptional formation above Teuge. 36 Parachutists from the European Canopy Formation formed the biggest ever formation over Holland.”
Courtesy KNVvL

Cheers Ritz, by the way after we had 24 dgr.C in the night ,we had a couple of day’s ago MINUS 1.6 in the east of the country during the night…..in JULY!!!!Of course another record,…ha ha!!!

Last 2 days of 18 m. and open class in Hobbs New Mexico. Italy’s 18 m. and open class comps ! Top flights from BE and NL !

Posted on July 3, 2019July 3, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

HOBBS in NEW MEXICO!

Very blue and you can “see” the heat.
As shared by Soaring Society of America

In both classes new, but familiar faces on the daily spot 1 on contest day 7.
Not a super-doper-flash-day as you can read in Steven’s news, but a very blue day.;
“Day 7 US Open Nationals. Not my day. Was not willing to push on into shadow over the desert scrub, so I turned around and went home. Two in my class used their engines to get home, the rest made it around. I probably could have, but just didn’t feel like pressing that much.”

Open; Ron Tabery in his ASW 22 BLE was the best during the Assigned Aere Task from 193 miles; 200 km. in 3.05 “gave” him 1000 points. DB was 5th .
The top 3 Jim [Lee] ,David [Mockler] and David [Coggins] were 3, 2 and 7 for the day in their JS 3 C’s /21m.
18 m; Gary Ittner won the day in his ASG 29/18 m.
1000 points for 198 miles in 3.10.
Not the best day for the overall top 3 with one day to go: John [Seaborn] on 3 , Jerzy on 15 and Keith [Essex] on 10.

Trying to close the canopy of the JS 3 on a HOT day.
Soaring Society of America

Contest day 8 very last day; 3 hour TAT. [Turn Area Task]
Stevens personal view on the last day ;
“Day 8 and the final day of the US Open Class Nationals for 2019. Forecast was for weaker weather, lower cloud bases (at least, there were clouds today!), but generally soarable conditions. We had a 3 hour Turn area Task, with turns at Lamesa (20 mile radius), Plains (20 mile radius) and Andrews (20 mile radius). The area around Hobbs was a little sparse on cu at the start, but things got better as we went east to Lamesa. It was obvious you just wanted to touch Plains, then we had to deal with blow offs coming in from the west for the trip into and back out of Andrews. I had a 45 mile final glide under the overcast. Thank goodness for long wings! Got 6th place for the day! But, sitting out a day cost me dearly in the final scores. Oh, well. It was a fun contest. Looking forward to coming back to Hobbs!”
open; Dave Mockler won the day 1000 points for a speed 75 m./h. No extreme differences so the final scores were pretty fast ready;
1. Jim Lee in JS 1C/21m. with 7.538 points.
2. David Mockler in JS 1C/21m. with 7.405 p.
3. David Coggins in JS 1 C/21 m with 7.205.

With good flying Ron Tabery reached spot 4 with 7.188 points and DB who lost 40 points on the last day on Ron was 5th ;7.183, so a difference of just 5. I guess they had to laugh about it together!

18m. Special day for Robin Clark in ASG 29; he won the last day and moved to spot 3 overall passing Keith, who was 6th for the day.
Final results:
1. John Seaborn in JS 3/18m. with 7.587 points.
2. Jerzy Szemplinski in ASG 29 with 7.420 p.
3. Robin Clark in ASG 29 with 7.319 p.

Bit heavy certainly Jim’s open class one, Congratulations to all!!!
Soaring Society of America posted by Leigh

open;2nd Place, Dave Mockler, winner, Jim Lee ,3rd place, Dave Coggins

18 M: 3rd place Robin Clark, winner John Seaborn 2nd place, Jerzy Szemplinski

Nice comps to follow!!! Also thanks to Steven Leonard and Leigh Zimmerman.

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Coppa Citta di Varese in Italy.
Calcinate Del Pesce June 23-30.

This is also the Italian NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in 18m and open class.
On day 1 NOBODY finished both in open and 18 m. class. The task was 274 for all and the best flew over 250 km but it turned out NOT a valid day.
Task 2 showed a 2.15 AAT and in 18 m. Ugo Pavesi managed to fly 193 km for 441 points. On the not valid day he flew 244 k. for zero points whilst the runner up had 116 k.and the rest under 100 km.
In open it was Alberto Sironi in his Quintus who flew already 259 on the non-valid-day , this day he flew 202 km. for 472 points.
Task 3 with a 245 AAT in 18 m. had a new face; Alessandro Villa in the Ventus 2CT/18m. Ugo was runner up.
In open also a new face Antonio Soffici in Nimbus 4T; 249 k. in time 2.51.
Task 4 was in open a prey for Alberto again. A short 2 hour AAT with 191 km. in time 2.04.
18 m. had the same task and Sandro Montemaggi flew as daily winner 177 km in time 2.02.
The next day was scrubbed and on Friday no task 5.
Task 6 with 2.40 AAT’s in both classes. Ugo seems to be in the right mood and won another day.
236 km. in time 2.46. Overall he is just under 100 points above Sandro.
In open the Nimbus 4T from Antonio was the daily best [231 km. in time 2.42] and Ugo as runner up with only 3 points less and Alberto on spot 6. A pity that Alberto was the only one landing out on task 3, as I know he is an excellent pilot.
Task 7 with another 2.45 AAT. Alberto won and showed his class. With Antonio as runner up it was clear who won the open class in Italy.
In 18 m. Luca Castelli in JS 1EVO won the last day but nothing changed he was 3 and is 3 overall.

The total scores from open and 18 m.
open:
1. Antonio Soffici in Nimbus 4T with 2.543 points. He was 3d for the COPPA.
2. Ugo Pavesi in ASG 29 with 2.463 p. Ugo was also winner of the 18 m. class and runner up for the COPPA.
3. Sandro Montemaggi in ASG 29 with 2.377 and runner up in 18m.
4. Alberto Sironi in Quintus with 2.338 p.

The results to see who would win the COPPA were easy. Peter Hartman from Austria, but flying a lot in Italy, was clearly the winner in the ANTARES 23 T; he won every day!!!!
3.999 points!!! Runner up for the Coppa was Ugo with 3.317 points

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My beloved 2d home, TOCUMWAL, was hit by frantic weather.A terrifying torrential storm, hurricane???tornado???, no clue but it was devastating.

Tocumwal in the heaviest part of the weather. Finley a bit to the N got it’s share as well. So did Koonoomoo a bit more to the S. where, just a few years ago the petrol station [opposite the BIG STRAWBERRY] was wiped of the map and it happened now again.
Courtesy Eddie.

TOCUMWAL: “Many trees down onto houses and several verandas, and roofs destroyed.
One aircraft damaged .
Several hangers with doors dislocated and ….The Air Ambulance Helicopter just left YTOC taking somebody to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.” It looked like a war zone, I heard.
Not good.

The airport was hit , meaning several dislocated hangar doors and what I heard damage on one plane. Town was hit harder, as a narrow strip went straight through town!!!
But only damage how bad that is, no personal injuries or causalities. The people involved with the air-park were grateful for all help so were all town people;
” huge thank you to all the volunteers and workers who have worked through the night to clear roads, properties and powerlines of debris following yesterday’s storm. We appreciate all you do under such adverse conditions. It is not over yet for many, so please be understanding.”

The SES was fabulous;
“The NSW SES Tocumwal volunteers have been working throughout the evening along with NSW Police, NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire & Rescue NSW and other support agencies/organisations. The damage is extensive and more resources will be in Tocumwal from tomorrow. ”
They are still busy.
This all happened last Saturday.

Some pictures shared by SES.

Murray NSW SES

Some of my friends were hit. One lost the back of her house as a huge tree fell through the house. Her son’s car was damaged by another tree close to the house. Another mate lost the roof of his house, just gone with the wind. Many others had minor damage.

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The July -August issue from GLIDING INTERNATIONAL was in my mail box so here are a few of the again very interesting items.
—The first 6 pages are for Hanna Reitsch,”Germany’s ACE glider pilot.” This “tiny” but BIG lady is well described in a story by John Roake himself, who met her as TC for N.Z. in Chateauroux where she addressed the pilots on a non flying day.
—the surprise announcement by Schleicher; AS 34 ME...Electric powered self-launching Standard Class Sailplane.
—Would the start of a membership recovery program help to stop the massive decline in club membership?” Join us to help recover our membership problems?
Gliding International in very worried and interested in this subject.
—The SHARK 304 S.
—Lots of International Aviation News and of course “things with Wings”.
60 pages of all kind of interesting news!!

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Pilots and crew are slowly arriving. The first had hot and bothered conditions in Prievidza in Slovakia.
More next week.

TOP FLIGHTS YESTERDAY : Have a look and study them well on the OLC,….just great flights and loooooonnnnngggg in flat as a pancake Holland and Belgium!!!!
https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/daily.html?st=olc&rt=olc&df=&sp=2019&c=C0&sc=
I had no idea yesterday that the weather was so good but it was. In Holland nearly 1000 km flights from Malden .Tim Kuijpers flew in the ASW 20
A REAL 1000 in a Nimbus 4 as well by one of the Delft Students Jurjan Venema from Terlet.
From Keiheuvel in Belgium 2 young men , Jeroen Jennen [LS 8] and Wim Akkermans [Discus 2T] declared a 1000 and flew it. GREAT!!! Congratulations!!!!Some kind of out and return[yoyo far into Germany and half the leg done again.
Fabulous flights also from our new young Dutch Champion , Roelof Corporaal, flying his Pegase over a declared 750 triangle , together with Sander Terpstra in an LS 4 WL from the club [Gelderse] doing the same. WOW.
The first time , I just read, that a 750 has been flown in a club class glider!!!!!
Sander mentioned after this 10.16 hour flight that it felt like working!!!
A total of 9x a 1000 in the USA , Belgium and Germany.

Roelof and Sander after their extraordinary flight in Pegase and LS 4. Of course with the Frysian flag!
Courtesy Zweefportaal

AND

Jeroen and Wim after their 1000 k from Belgium. Looking very “fresh” after an 11.24 hour flight!!!!
courtesy Sofie Huybreckx [wife from Wim and niece from Jeroen]

Last but for sure NOT LEAST.
IN MEMORIAM.

Today our son and brother from Inge, Dennis would have celebrated his 50-thiest birthday.
A day to remember him EXTRA with all of you who knew him.
ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS!!!!! NEVER FORGOTTEN !!!!

Dennis SCHUIT
03-07-1969……..03-01-1988.
R.I.P.

One week before he died. A happy flight in a P 51.
Courtesy Bas Krebbers who was with Dennis in Tocumwal at the time.

Ritz

USA open and 18m. nationals ! Polish 15 m and club nationals.. OSTROW GLIDE 2019! AMSTELGLIDE!

Posted on June 26, 2019June 26, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

Open and 18 m. Nationals from Hobbs in New Mexico!
18-6/27-6 2019.

as shared by Soaring Society of America

They started last Tuesday after 2 practice day’s with some American icons in soaring as Dick Butler [Concordia] , Ray Gimmey, [ASG 32 MI] Ron Tabery [ASW 22 BLE] in open and Doug Jacobs [ASH 31 MI] and Gary Ittner [ASG 29] in 18 m.
Also in 18 m. class 2 top pilots from Canada Jerzy [Szemplinski] and Dave [Springford] both in ASG 29.

Typical for Hobbs
as shared by Soaring Society of America

Steven Leonard who I got to know in Uvalde in 2012 wrote a nice wrap-up from day 1.He is also the task adviser.
“Day one at Hobbs complete. 4 hour turn area task to Levelland, Caprock Station, Jal, Seagraves and return. Turn area means you have to go “close” to each point. You had to get within 10 miles of Levelland, 20 miles of Caprock Station, 10 miles of Jal, and 10 miles of Seagraves. Fastest guy in Open Class flew 329 miles at an average speed of 79 MPH. I flew 279 miles at an average speed of 66 MPH, good enough for 8th place (so far)”
Open; Dick Butler in the CONCORDIA won this day 1 and he mentioned in an interview that he started straight after the gate opened and was glad to be “home” again. Speed 79.89 miles p/h.
18 m. Jae Walker was the best in this class in his Ventus 3 with just behind him Jerzy and Rick Indrebo 3d. In points the first 8 were very close …between 8 [Ken Sorenson in Ventus 3 ] and Jae the points were 802 to 850 for Jae.

Day 2; June 19
Open…Assigned task from 263 miles. It turned out to be a great day. David Coggins won the day with a speed of 86 miles p/h.
Bad day for the CONCORDIA , Dick was 13th and dropped from 1 to 7. The story seems to be that he got low, more than once, had to fight to get up again with cost him at least an hour. BUT,…he was up again!!!Respect.
18m..Assigned task from 263 miles. The Ventus 3 and the JS 3 were the number 1 and 2. From ..yes Jae Walker again 2d win and Keith Essex.

Steven’s look at day 2 ;”Day 2, US Open Class Nationals in the books. Another challenging day for many. For me, all was going good until getting out of Littlefield, where the wheels fell off the wagon! I have never seen that much standing water in west Texas! Wow! Standing water, and blowing dust. Amazing. Then I missed the climb I needed to get home quickly, costing myself what seemed like at least 30-40 minutes. Oh, well. It was a fun day of flying!”
He was 10th for the day.

Day 3 ; June 20 …..95 F at 10 and 101 [38 gr. C.] during the day, pfff,….
Open.. 4 hour TAT; and again another daily winner ;this time in the JS 1B ,Steve Nichols with a speed of just over 100 miles/h.
Karin from Holland and married to Heinz Weissenbuehler, who flies with her in the ARCUS mentioned;
“Super day at Hobbs. 4 hr TAT – 370 miles at 92 miles. Total 5 hours between 11000 & 17000 ft. Today made effort to come to Hobbs worth it.”

The HW is the ARCUS from Heinz and Karin.
as shared by Soaring Society of America

18m..Jerzy won the day with 667 OLC km’s. and climbed up to 1 overall as well. speed 98.88 miles /h. 9148 km./h] His Canadian mate Dave flew in his ASG 29, 690 km with 125 km.h.
An awesome soaring day even for Hobbs in the USA.
Good speed and great distances.You can find a lot of the flights on the OLC on June 20.
[Take off field INDUSTRIAL]
Ken Sorensen flying the VENTUS 3 F, mentioned in his OLC reaction; 136.6 km./h.675 km. speed
“ Screaming good weather. 4 hr turn area task with 4 turn areas. clouds at 17k+. some streeting. Much of the cruising was done at 105-110 kts, which was probably too slow for the conditions. Winning speeds were 100 mph +/-. Pretty amazing when you’re passing up 6 kt thermals waiting for 8-10 kts. I had one that was showing 13 kts for a while”.

Some happy landings after a happy day.
As shared by Soaring Society of America

Day 4 and 5;;
Too much wind from the wrong direction made it unsafe for take-offs and landings today, so the task was cancelled. More wind expected tomorrow, so it’s been declared a rest day.
Steven mentioned;
“Friday and Saturday flying at Hobbs canceled due to winds being almost 90 degrees to the runway. Friday, was 20 gusting to 25, with higher forecast for Saturday. Sunday looks to be a north wind (under 10 MPH, though) day, so we should be back to flying on Sunday. The rest of the week looks like good soaring.”

Day 6; Task 4 here is Steven looking back at the day :
“We missed the mark a bit on the task call today. Primary looked like it might be a bit much, as none of the advisers were getting climb rates to heights expected (of course, someone did, so that person thinks we “totally f’ed up”. I am one of two advisers in the Open Class). Went to Task B and it turned out that the turn area task had either too little distance available, or too much time required. Suggestion was made to shorten the time on task, but the decision was made to stick with the “B” task as called. As a result, it sort of became a task of flying to the furthest points in the turn areas. Not what we intended. Through quirks in the rules and scoring formulas, I ended up doing quite well“

So what happened. A turn-area- task was set as task B, from 3,5 hours.
Open; Steven was pretty happy with his flight so he should he was 3d for the day behind Dave [Mockler] and Jim Lee. Dave flew 266 miles in time 3.15.
4 x A JS 1C/21 m. in the top 4 at this stage.
DB was 4th and 5th overall now.

Action enough on day 6 ,task 4.
Soaring Society of America

18 m.; 2 pilots with 1000 points in this class .Rick Indrebo in his ASG 29 with 265 miles in time 3.25.and Sean Fidler in the same glider.
Jerzy is still number 1 overall but with only 17 points Jae Walker is close,very close.

Nice to share a task sheet from a USA competition.
In the end Leigh, Sam Zimmermans wife , who writes the daily reports, mentioned :
“Task Change in the air: Task B 3 1/2 hr. TAT. Gate opened at 13:45 posted by Leigh“

Day 7 ; Task 5…CONCORDIA -day!!Another Turn Area Task today;3.45.
The day started a little cooler but still mostly blue early in the day.
Open; you have to admire that gorgeous glider CONCORDIA and in a way Dick as well ,flying it with so much verve. He is such a gentleman!!!
By far the fastest today with 81 miles p/h. over 316 m. The runner up Ron in his ASW 22BLE had 78 m/h. over 298 m.

Nice pictures from the CONCORDIA and Steven’s Nimbus 3/25.5 m.
as shared by Soaring Society of America

18m; Very pleased to see John Seaborn is flying so great in his JS 3/18m, flying 321 miles.
Jerzy had a bit of an off-day being 14th for the day and loosing 120 points on this 1000 points day in this class. Which meant that he lost his first place overall.

Busy at the field .
Soaring Society of America

Day 8 task 6 with one more day to go tomorrow[Thursday June 27.] B task with 2,45 hour.
Stevens look at day 6;
‘”Day 6 at the US Open Class Nationals. Forecast was for an early starting, early ending day. Chance of showers all day, lift possibly all done by 5 PM. Task started off as a 3 hour TAT (concern over t-storms prompted this over assigned task). Launch started, and the gliders couldn’t climb up and get out of the way of the towplanes bringing the next bunch up, so the launch was stopped for a while. Then, BOOM! Like a switch, lift went from 2000 AGL to 10,000 AGl, cu popped, and suddenly the task at 3 hours looked like ti would become another geometry test for maxing out distance and maybe still being under time (max distance would be 295 miles!). The day had a few tricks up its sleeve, but overall, it was a pretty good, predictable run.”
open; Another name another pilot Jim Lee as winner in the JS 1C BUT, DB had the same amount of points ;935, so 2 winners for the day!!!!Dick started 5 minutes earlier. Jim is number 1 overall and DB climbed up from 4 to 3.
18 m;John is in the “right” flow. He won again!!! He is number ONE overall as well now with 5724 points. On contest day 4 he was still 3d. Jerzy is 2d but lost again some points as he was 7th for the day.
Tim Welles in Ventus 3 is 3d overall, with today and tomorrow to go.

Sunset over Hobbs on flying-day 6 and a bit later the message “All tied down, hoping the storm blows by us at the 18-Meter and Open Class Nationals in Hobbs, NM“

“RVs line up to protect their ships from the winds of a passing storm.” Hope it works out well.
Soaring Society of America

More next week.

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9th Polish Nationals in 15 m and club class…Ostrow Glide 2019.

as shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

In my last blog I already mentioned that they had a 3 hour AAT on task 1 in 15 m. ,a bit of a marginal day with 2.30 [only 11 from 20 finished] , 1 scrubbed day and 2 good days;
The good days showed 408 km. on June 17 with task 3, won by Christoph Matkowski in ASG 32MI; 120 km./h. 15 from 19 finished and those who did not finish had airspace violations.
The 2 Lucaszes , Lucasz Błaszczyk in Discus 2A and Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 were on spot 2 and 4 with Jacek Flis on 3 in Discus 2A.
4 hour AAT on June 18 [task 4] showed 473 km. in time 4.31 for Jacek who won the day. 12 From 20 finished.

On Wednesday [June 19] they had task 5 with even more kilometers to fly, now 504!!! Still in the good “flow” Jacek won again; 102 km./h. another 1000 points. Such a pity he had a penalty on task 2 by not” recording the event marker” and on task 1 he was not yet in the “flow; 12th for the day missing out more than 300 points .
After 5 tasks and still a few to go Lucasz Grabowski leads overall with 4.498 points.

Lucasz and the Diana 2. as shared by Diana-2 New Generation

June 20 task 6; a smaller task ,2 hour AAT, flown by all 17 pilots, but nobody finished. Best was Lucasz in the Diana 2 who flew 227 km.Janus Centka did very well as number 3 for the day and climbs up from 6 to 4 overall. Good on him!!!

Daily winner Lucasz Grabowski, and before or after with some mates.
shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

On June 21 they did not fly.
On June 22 and in the end the VERY LAST DAY,[day 10 had no task] it was all or nothing for some and they got 343 km.on the menu. The very first starts were at 1 PM, but Lucasz decided to wait for half an hour. BUT, as Tomas Hornik [ASG 29] was his direct concurrent, he decided to go 1 minute after him. They arrived back together , Tomas a few seconds earlier, so the 15-m CHAMPION was Lucasz. Speed was 120.0 for 120.8 km./h.

NATIONAL POLISH CHAMPION 15 M:
1. Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 with 6.167 points.
2. Tomas Hornik in ASG 29 with 6.089 p.
3. Christoph Matkowski in ASG 32 MI with 5.851 p.
4. Janus Centka in ASG 29E with 5.683 p.
Adam Czeladzki was on spot 8 overall. He lost more than 250 points on the last day. He started as the last one in his class in the Duo Discus XLT , dropping from 7 to 8.
7 Out of 10 valid days!!!

The Diana 2 with Lucasz on final glide.
As shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski

In the POLISH CLUB class 25 pilots fought for the honors among them well known pilot Stanislaw Wujczak the only one I “know” in this class.
Task 3 was a good one with 347 km. Mirosław Izydorczak [St Jantar 3] won the day in his ASW 20. It seems you need an ASW 20 nowadays to win. Stan was 3d.
During the 4 hour AAT Stan was 4th with 368 km in time 5.01.

They had 2 day’s less in this class.Task 2 and 6 were scrubbed for them.
276 on the last day and with Mirosław Izydorczak coming in as number 2 he won the club class. He won 2 day’s and was runner up on another 2.
With 5 out of 10 valid tasks the overall scores were;
1. Mirosław Izydorczak in ASW 20 with 4.598 points.
2. Stanislaw Wujczak in St Jantar 3 with 4.532 p.
3. Marcin Szymura in St Jantar 3 with 4.473 p.

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AMSTELGLIDE at SOESTERBERG.

Courtesy Reinier Koning.
More of his 152 pictures at photo’s google .com under AmstelGlide 2019 zaterdag.

The gliding club from Amsterdam [AZVC] organized their annual 2 day-competition and they were damn lucky with the weather.
By the way we get, as they forecasted a heatwave here in Holland.
This was “our ” weather on Saturday at Soesterberg.

Day 1!!

As shared by Dinand one of the ZES [yes my club] participants.

AND…, there were a lot of participants. AND ,..they had to work for it, as they got nice long tasks, belonging to nice weather, but not as strong/long as expected.
So excitement all over!!!
16 pilots in club class going for a 3.30 AAT….
269 k. min time 3.30 at the dot, was the best result for Simon van den Eijkel.

21 in the combi class having to fly a 4 hour AAT...
13 “made” it back and the best was Jeroen van Dijk in LS 3 with 371 km. in time 4.03.

17 in open class with also a 4 hour AAT…
only 6 finished so a real tough day. Best speed was 90 km./h over 361 km. by Sikko Vermeer. He always was good, still is good!!!!Peter Millenaar was runner up.

Daily winner Sikko in the middle with mate Mark Leeuwenburg who was 7th and the first “out-lander” after 304 km.
courtesy Reinier Koning.

Day 2 with temperatures up to 32 dgr.C. so hot and pretty blue. Later however clouds popped up everywhere.
Club had 157 km. Nick Faber in LS 4 was the best [92.78 km./h] on day 2 and as he was 6th on day 1 he moved to spot 4 overall.
Simon was 3d for the day and with the win the day before he won the AMSTELGLIDE in this class.[1.395]

Combi had 200 km. and local pilot Jeroen won again .[1.576 p.] Rik [vd Boer] from Belgium was runner up [1.388] and with his 4th place the day before he was 3d overall. Smitje was number 3 in the Duo discus for the day , with as overall result ; runner up!![1.411]

open had 228 km. Sikko was 5th for the day loosing 37 points on Peter won the day ; so pretty clear he was the AMSTELGLIDE winner [1.564] Sikko had only FOUR points less! Marco Vermeer ,no not family, was 3d. [1.464]

Peter and Sikko
courtesy Janni [Peter’s proud mum].

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Some great flights

UK; “The forecast was promising today and Edward Downham from London Gliding Club launching at Dunstable certainly made the most of it with what could be a new UK triangle distance record!”
837 km in ASH 25EB 28 on June 21 the longest day in this part of the world.Well done!!!
Look for more at https://www.bgaladder.net/DailyScores/Enquiry
In Germany Peter Fischer flew that day nearly 1000 km. ;964 [669 FAI triangle]

Great weather in the UK also on a-normal-flying-Saturday June 22.
50 Gliders out at Lasham and 6 tuggies. GOOD DAY!!!!
Andy Aveling and Garry Coppin flew in the ARCUS 755 k. and Roy 655 in the ASG 29E. Martin Clark in JS 1 C 760 k.

as shared by British Gliding Team

Keiheuvel in Belgium had another top-day on Saturday as well;Young Jeroen flew in the LS 8 760 km. and en route he took this picture.
His mate Tijl flew in the Ventus 3 702 km. and Tijl’s dad Bert sr. 600k in the Ventus 2CT/18m.

courtesy Jeroen Jennen.

Finland was good!!!! Kristian Roine managed to fly 1000 km in his LS 8/18m. from one of my favorite fields Rayskala!!!! Great job!!!
1020 km Declared 3TP task…even better!!!!! Well done!!!

Selfie from Kristian…..Finland is really BEAUTIFUL!!
As shared by Kristian.

Ramy Yanetz flew a 1000 from Parowan [USA] .[ ASG 29 /18m.]

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That’s it for now. EUROPE suffers under a heat wave, we all feel a bit tired. All kind of records will be broken,…hottest ever month, hottest ever day’s etc. Yesterday we had officially 34.4 in Holland [38 in my garden] which was the hottest ever June 25 on record.

AND,…do not forget to fly safe!!! We lost in Europa over the last 2 weeks, several “mates” by accidents with gliders and small airplanes. BE CAREFUL.

Not long and the WGC will be flown for the small ships. Prievidza in Slovakia is the place to be.
July 7-20 2019.
www.egc2019.sk

Cheers Ritz

Rain, rain and more rain. Uppsala !Schempp-Hirth… new milestone. USA Club class Nationals.

Posted on June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

UPPSALA MASTERS 2019.

Continued and like at more places their weather was not really “helping”
The Britt’s say it so nicely:”a week of apocalyptic rain .”
They squeezed out day 3 on Friday with 1.30 and 1.45 AAT’s….better than nothing. Pffff….

As shared by the organizers with the text;
“After a cloudy morning, finally scattered clouds. Pilots now ready to give it a try.”

Open; 1.30 AAT… 182 km. was the distance flown by team Acketoft & Wendt [EB 29DR] followed by Wolfgang and Andy in ARCUS M with 171 km.The winners flew the task at the dot, Wolfgang/Andy needed 13 min. more. Antti was 3d.
11 From 13 finished.

Racing; 1.45 AAT…181 km. was flown by winner Aku, who I still know from my several Finland visits. Nice talented young man. He needed 1 more minute [as the set time] for his distance.
14 From 17 finished, among them Visa Matti, as number 14, so just in. Martti was just out but missed out on only 50 points.

A 500 k-day!!!
As shared by Uppsala Masters

AND THEN,…...the waiting for good weather was rewarded with 518 in open and 462 in racing class; AND,…all who started FINISHED on Saturday the last but one day!!!
open; 518.52 km… Another Acketoft & Wendt-day . Speed was 116km./h., 7 k./h. faster than Boerje in the Ventus 3T who was as runner up. After all the “window’s” such a great long taskis a pleasure for pilots ,crew and organizers.

racing; 462.94 km… and 15 from 17 finished and the Finnish mates had a great day with 4 of them in the top 6. Olli Teronen [ARCUS E] was the daily winner with Aku on his heels.

And then it is Sunday ,which means last day of this Uppsala Masters. Day 5 out of 9 not too bad, in these difficult times. The 4 tuggies were ready to go ,so were the pilots.
open; 314 km….later changed in 1.45 AAT
They started with the knowledge that it was nearly impossible to go to spot 1 overall as Jim and his mate were nearly 400 points ahead. In the top 4 were still some possibilities as Boerje was just over 100 points ahead on the ASH 25/EB 28-team and 138 on Antti.
All flew just over or under 200 km. but the the best were Wolfgang and Andy winning the last daily 548 points keeping them on spot 5 with 3.011 points.
Boerje was runner up and stayed on the silver spot overall. Jim and his mate lost a few points but nothing to worry about. Antti did well, very well . In his Ventus 2cxaFES he moved to the bronze spot, good on him.

Final results in this class;
1. Acketoft & Wendt from Sweden in EB 29DR with 3.574 points.
2. Börje Eriksson from Sweden in Ventus 3T with 3.269 p.
3. Antti Lehto from Finland in Ventus 2cxaFES with 3.082 p.

racing; 295 km.…later changed in a 1.45 AAT.
The overall top 5 was between 2.943 points and 3.122. Aku, Tapio and Olli from Finland on spot 1-2 and 4 and from Sweden Ronny and David on spot 3 and 5.
Olli, Tapio and Aku did what they had to do finishing on spot 1-2-4 with on 3 the LS 6 from Norwegian pilot Per Morten Løvsland . Still small changes as Aku lost his first spot to Tapio; only 14 points but they are all friends so no worries after a beer and a sauna “they live all happily “.
3 Finnish pilots in the top!!! Aku and Tapio both topped the overall scores each on 2 day’s this week, the last day is for Tapio.

Final results in this class;
1. Tapio Tourula from Finland in Ventus 2BX with 3.614 points.
2. Aku Jaakkola from Finland in Discus 2A with 3.600 p.
3. Olli Teronen from Finland in ARCUS E with 3.486 p.

Prize-giving-ceremony-pictures shared by Uppsala Masters

With other words,…the Fin’s did well!!

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Some great flights last week!!!

Whilst some countries had miserable weather others had ripper days.
June 11; indeed also with showers during the flight, Mathias Schunk in Quintus M. flew from Königsdorf a distance of 1.296 km!! As good /great ,but from Unterwössen a superb flight in a KA 6 by Jan Lyczywek; 822 km.And best for that day; 1.164 km. from Wiener Neustadt by Markus Gusenleitner.
June 12; 1.326 km. in DG 600M /18m. from Niederoblarn in Austria by Johannes Hausmann. And 2x a 1.150 km. one in Austria and 1 in Germany. 827 km. in Hornet from Kufstein is not bad either!!!
June 13; Another great Robert Pratt day flying from St Gaudens in France in ASG 29E/18m. ;1.286 km. And in an ASH 26 1.022 km. from Oeventrop in Germany.

On Monday,June 17, most had to go to work again, the skies “exploded”. You could fly from Holland to Russia, clouds everywhere AND,…between 9AM and 9PM. From Holland one of the young ones, Lars flew in the ASW 28 E/18m. a distance of 714 km. from Terlet, first to Veendam [NE] and then straight direction far East into Germany .One of the students from Delft, Sylvain, flew from Terlet in an LS 6 653 km.
From Locktow in Germany another 1000 km. flight ‘with a Namibia -feeling” by Bernd Goretzki , who shares his soaring-time between Locktow in summer and Namibia in winter.[Ventus 2CM/18m]
Tijl started in Belgium at the Keiheuvel and flew in the Ventus 3E 794 km. and Neil Dijgers in his St Libelle flew 617 [500 km. triangle]
Jean Luc from St Hubert 830 in an ASG 29E.
Tomas Suchanek fle in Czech Rep 768 km and Uwe Thiel with a friend from Spain [ Cuenca Sotos] 838 k. in Nimbus 3DM.
Many between 500 and 900 km flights from all parts of Europe for those who were free/ ghad a day off.
Yesterday about the same hot and dry weather with a 1000 for Alexander in his EB 29 from Bayreuth.

Schempp-Hirth.

We all know they make great gliders and a new milestone was reached in building their ARCUS gliders; number 300.

“We are very proud to announce we’ve just delivered the serial number 300 Arcus this morning to our friend from Namibia from Bitterwasser. We wish them, their pilots and customers plenty of nice adventures in the air around the world with this beautiful sailplane!”
With from Schempp-Hirth, Tilo, Brigitte and Biko.
Have n’t seen Brigitte and Biko for ages but they have n’t changed!!

AND

To never forget Klaus either, I share their picture from him as well. Remember the many times we met at comps or at the factory and specially his visit with Ralf to Tocumwal and Leeton.

As shared by Schempp-Hirth

AND

Flying the then brand new NIMBUS 3D in Benalla by George and Dennis in 1987.

Turbulator-tape under the wings gave some problems but Klaus fixed it himself.

A family-affair with mum[me] and daughter Inge cleaning the glider, Dennis concentrating at the wing, George talking to Bruno [Gantenbrink ] and his brother Adrian and good old friend Tony Tabart .
Pictures from WGC in Benalla 1987.

Unfortunately some sad news reached me as well,as last Sunday a 62 year old pilot died after a brand new Ventus 3T crashed straight after it was up in the air. They say it was a test flight from the Hahnweide. The glider is beyond repair and it was the Ventus in which Tilo won the final FAI SGP in Spain last week.
Hope they find out quickly WHY.!!???Just terrible.

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CLUB CLASS NATIONALS IN THE USA from Sunflower!!
June 4-13.

As shared by 2019 US Club Class National Soaring Championship

Sunflower has not hosted a National competition since 1989 [in Open Class], but they invested, made important changes to the airport in Yoder and it seems everybody was happy with their host the Kansas Soaring Association.
“Yoder is the closest town to the Sunflower Gliderport. It was originally built as Hutchinson Naval Air Station in WWII, was home to the Kansas Air National Guard in the 50’s and 60‘s.”
Pilots had to deal with wind , blue day’s and overcast but also a great day and they still flew on 6 out of 10 day’s; 3 Assigned Tasks, 2 Area Tasks, and one Modified Assigned Task.
CD was Hugh Grandstaff and the competition manager Tony [Condon]
The 22 pilots had their first valid flying day on Friday June 7 after 3 cancelled day’s ,with Mike Westbrook in the Discus 2BW, winning the day. The task was a three hour TAT.
“Mike Westbrook raced around at almost 65 mph raw to win the day with Tom Holloran right on his heels. There is a big wad of pilots behind them with 100 points separating 3rd through 13th.”

as shared by Midwestern Soaring Association

June 8 was a prey for Mike again. A blue day very windy as well and 7 finished . The rest was “out” .
“Four gliders landed in the vicinity of St John, KS. Three landed at the Stafford airport, two at the Roberts ag strip and one landed out between there and Sunflower. All of these are along Highway 50 so there was quite the parade of trailers up and down that corridor late in the day.”

June 10 was the next flying day a fun day of flying in the BLUE and Jacob Fairbairn, in H-201 Standard Libelle was the next winner. Tony [Condon] was 11th and Daniel Sazhin, the USA top junior had a bad run this competition with this day a 20thiest spot in his H-301 Libelle.
Not long and Szeged in Hungary is waiting.[JWGC 2019 July 28 August 10]

June 11 was flyable too and Mike was the best again , so 4 day’s in the pocket, 3 for him. Tony mentioned ;
“Had fun working the gaggle today. It was basically a Grand Prix task.”

June 12 , day 5, was for Danny Sorenson [Discus 2AW]who was already runner up , but beat Mike this day. A special day, with cloud streets, “we were post frontal with all indications pointing to an excellent soaring day. Hugh and the task advisers consulted with our weather experts and set a 226 mile Assigned Task. We were not aware that the longest Club Class Assigned Task was 227 miles from Hobbs, or we would’ve made it a little longer! ”
You surely remember that Hobbs was the place were Kees Musters became world champion.
Danny by the way, is the son from Ken Sorenson the CD of the 2012 WGC in Uvalde Texas.

June 13 last day and won by Tony in the St. Cirrus!! Good on him. An Assigned task from 75 miles.
His enthusiastic reaction later;
“I GOT FINAL GLIDE WITH A BALD EAGLE!”

Tony here, without bald eagle.
As shared by Tony and Photo by Paul Sodamann.

In the end there are winners and here they are.

1. Mike Westbrook 4.434 points.I must have seen him already in Rieti as he was in one of the first junior teams they send from the USA. I was the competition-editor there. I checked with Tony and he also ” has flown the last two Club World’s in Lithuania and Poland.” He is back in my mind now!!And indeed looking better at the picture,…. I remembered him.
2. Tom Holloran with 4.167 points. Sorry do not know anything about him.
3. Danny Sorenson with 4.164 and that IS close!!! 3 Points!!!!He lost them on the last day when going home the SW of Sunflower “was under complete shadow.” and he struggled.
Tony was 6th.

The winners.
Mike [Westwood]as the best and Danny [Sorenson] as number 3 and Tom [Holloran in LS 8[ as number 2 to the r.

and those special very nice trophies a bit “closer”.

Very special prizes
“Top three trophies are done thanks to KSA Treasurer Kirk Bittner. They turned out really nice with Railroad Spike Sailplanes spiraling around three stalks of wheat. ” They were awarded at the banquet.

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I was impressed by the words from Brian Spreckley, during the last FAI SGP Final, where he spoke about a strategy of survival, …why we loose so many mates in gliding.
Keywords; maintain the margin,….stay on the safe side….TODAY IS NOT THE DAY.
On youtube.com you can find it.

CU next week and indeed have fun, great fun whilst gliding but stay on the safe side.
Next week more about the 9th 15m National Championship in Poland with 20 pilots. They started on June 13 and go till June 23 from Ostrow; OSTROW GLIDE 2019.
They had 2 average day’s 1 cancelled and 2 good day’s with a 4 hour AAT and 408 km.
Also news about the always interesting USA 18 m. and open class Nationals from Hobbs in New Mexico.

“Dry as a bone”
Shared by Soaring Society of America

After 2 practice days the 13 pilots in open and 30 in 18m. started yesterday with a win for good old Dick Butler in his CONCORDIA and Jae Walker in Ventus 3 just ahead of Jerzy in ASG 29.

Cheers Ritz

Uppsala Masters 2019 ! Danish Nationals 2019 ! Kiewit Cup !

Posted on June 12, 2019 Posted in Uncategorized2 Comments

Uppsala Masters 2019.
6 June 2019 – 16 June 2019

No flying at Pentecost, but on Monday there were tasks again; day 3 with task 2 and very good looking weather.

open 3 hour AAT; Flown by 11 out of 14 pilots. And they did pretty well. Specially team Acketoft & Wendt in the EB 29 DR, being more than 10 k. faster than the runner up Peter Cutting in ASG 29 E; 1000 and 848 points for 375 km in time 2.59 and 336 km. in time 3.09.

Racing 302 km; Swedish pilot David Gustavsson won the day with a speed of 90 km./h in the LS 8. Runner up Tapio Tourula from Finland was faster 93 km./h but he flew a Ventus 2 BX. [handicap 114]
12 From 18 finished and some of my Finnish mates had a “bad” day. Visa- Mattiwas out after 45 km and Martti after 29k. , this time by violating the airspace.

Day 4 and task 3,.. only for open class and a small one 197 km. But in the end the day was scrubbed.

With the message!
“Tuesday canceled.
Waiting for greek buffet with live music tonight at 7pm! (Not greek music, though...)”

Still a few day’s to go , so more in my next blog.

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Danish Nationals 2019 from ARNBORG.

As shared by Aarhus Svæveflyveklub

Know quite a few Danish pilots and then it is nice to look back at their comps between May 30 and June 9.
They had 5 classes and in each class a good number of pilots and 4 out of 11 days.
In standard class flew 13 pilots and the 4 days showed tasks from 209 km., 3.30 AAT and a 1000 points day , 372 set task and a 2 hour AAT , on which only 2 pilots finished.
Jan Jørgensen [LS 8 neo] was one of the 2 and though it only gave him 338 points ,…. in the end he was the CHAMPION with 25 points more than the runner up Filip Bojanowski.[LS 8]

15 m had 9 pilots and 6 of them flew VENTUS. Tasks from 209, 3.30 AAT , set 360 km and a 2 hour AAT flown in this class by more than 2 pilots; 6.
Morten Bennick is the new CHAMPION, flying a VENTUS 2CT. Morten topped this overall score-list 3 day’s so very consistent. He won the 1000 points on the 3.30 AAT with 355 km. in time 3.45.

18 m. had 18 pilots from whom I met or know 4. AND,…one of the pilots I follow already for a long long time, won the 18m. class!!! Henrik Breidahl, he is and was an interesting pilot when he was very young and now. He has a new JS 3 and he must be pleased with it as , as said,… he won.
A good mate Arne flew a JS 3 as well but he was some what unlucky.
On task 1 he and Peter Eriksen were 1 and 2 flying with a speed of 84 km./h over 257 km.
The next task was a 4 hour AAT won by Henrik with 467 km in time 4.58, so another pretty tough day. Stig Oye still going strong was 3d and flew 5 hours. Only 3 “in” and 11 “out”.
The next task was 408 km. and won by Chris Møller with Peter and Henrik following. Arne lost 500 points that day . 8 From 13 were out.
On the last day a 2 hour AAT with 8 finishers. Henrik won,Arne was out loosing another 300 points -plus.
Henrik had a total score of 2.912 points . Peter 2.760 as runner up . Stig was on spot 8 and Arne on 9.

This picture was shared by Jonker Sailplanes with the text:
“Congratulations to Henrik Breidahl who wins the Danish 18m Nationals with his brand new JS3, “14”. In average to very weak and low weather conditions that called for changing gears constantly Henrik managed to be the only one who didn’t land out on any of the days. Henrik took delivery of his JS3 earlier this year never having flown a JS3 glider before. On his first flights Henrik expressed being pleasantly surprised with the JS3’s light and responsive handling and overall performance. Henrik is one of the danish top pilots who is often found in the top 10 at the Europeans and World Championships. Keep it up Henrik!”

Club class had 13 pilots among them Jan Andersen. I am used to see him in open class but now he flew an ASW 20 WL. AND,…He is the new CHAMPION, which I like, also a pilot I follow for a long, long time.
They had 4 tasks from 180 km., 3.30 AAT, set 311 km. and a 2 hour AAT on which he was 1 of the 3 finishers. The 3.30 AAT was won by Jan as well with 323 km. in time 3.35. On the first task he was runner up and on the set 311 km. he won again with a speed of 90 km./h.
He won club class [ 3.243 ]with more than 500 points on his runner up Morten Hoeck Pedersen.[2.712]

2 seater class had 10 teams and the winners were Hoelgaard/Andersen with 3.344 points. They flew an ARCUS and there were 6 of them in this class. T and M. Also 3 x a Duo Discus [T and XLT ]and a DG 1000 T.

I missed a few pilots mostly flying these comps, as Ib and Ole and his brother.

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42th KIEWIT CUP in Belgium.

Is one of 3 comps flown from 3 airfields in Weelde [early in the season] Hasselt and Keiheuvel [ in August] .
The winner over 3 comps wins the Cup of Flanders.
Hasselt was host for 31 competitors in 3 classes last weekend.BUT,…the weather allowed only for one [out of 3] day of valid flying on Sunday. They tried hard on Monday as well but the best pilots only reached 51 and 40 km.

Jeroen shared this picture from the weather on Monday.

In the open XPDR class a 2 hour AAT was set and sharing-the -LS8-pilots from Keiheuvel Jeroen/Wim won the day with Pieter Daems as runner up in Discus 2T. Jeroen flew on Sunday and covered 219 km. in time 2.07 and Pieter 191 km. in 2 hour at the dot!!!
In the Sport XPDR class they had a 2 hour AAT and Frederic de Groote in St Libelle and Eddy de Coninck in Pegase were the best; 190 km in time 2.09 and 182 km. in time 2.10.

As far as I read the task setting for the one-day-of-flying was perfect.

In the weekend from August 24/25 I hope to be at the Keiheuvel for the next comps.

———————————–

A short blog today as for sure you noticed that I published one last Sunday , about the last day’s of the world final of the FAI SGP and the Dutch OMK.

To finish this great picture from some morning glory clouds rolling over Australia between Adelaide and Cairns.
Matthew from SkySight was interested to see how their forecast was for this area.
After he got some more info he mentioned ;” Found it – within 500m of when and where forecast.”
Matthew and Adam are both young guy’s I met when they were even younger. Great to see how their lives have been influenced by soaring at young age. Adam is an airline pilot now and flies from Japan, Matthew has his own SkySight- business.

Picture courtesy Rosy Helbig from an airliner on June 10 and shared in
Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

And,….when we are talking about weather this is a good clear picture as well

shared by many but courtesy commons.wikimedia.org

Cheers Ritz