To make the blogs not TOO long, which happens when there are a few comps at the same time, I publish on Sunday now too.
SO EXTRA BLOG.
Enjoy.

AND

TIIIIMMMIIIEE is one of those happy shouts of excitement and pride from his young mates, when Tim Kuijpers wins a competition. After he became JWGC champion, he now is European champion as well. You can read the story below. CONGRATULATIONS TIM!!!

The continuing story of the last days of the EGC in the Czech Republic.

As shared in the gallery of the organizers.

The last couple of days are always exciting ,sometimes stressful, but mostly great fun to follow. Tactic’s, reading the weather well and staying calm,…. all ingredients for those last days. Here we go with the last 3 days and hopefully after the bad first week the weather holds now for a few day’s more !!!

Wednesday…August 2….day 11…task 5; after morning-rain there were good looking skies , task A was on …so what happened!?
club; 241 km.
UK_DAY!!!!! Ge won in the St. Libelle. Not an easy flight, but he made the right decisions is what he said. It seems that the last leg had 2 possibilities a good fast one and a less good hard-working-one.
Boris Zors from Slovenia was 3d and overall he is on spot 2 now .
Tim is still on spot 1 ,[3.709]  lost a few points being 9th for the day.
Fabian Peitz has 3.510 points on spot 3 overall and on 4 with only 3 points less Russian pilot Sergey.
Most started around 14.51 Tomas Suchanek at 14.36, that turned out in the end too early, he was on spot 16 for the day.

As number 1 overall you are a prey for the press. Tim is used to it as JWGC champion.
As shared by the team.

standard; 257 km.
Czech -day as Pavel and Miloslav were on spot 1 and 2, after an early start and for them it worked. Starts between 14.56 and 15. 21. My Belgian mates were on 3 [Jeroen] and 5 [Dennis].
Overall with 2 days to go;
1. Pavel with 3.518 points, 2. Miloslav with 3.500 and 3. Dennis [3332] and 4 . Jeroen with 3326 points all pretty close.
20 m; 2.15 AAT.
Kilian and his mate were the daily best, but team Kawa had only 3 points less.
Overall results at this stage ;
1.Kawa/ Matkowski 3.564, 2.Jones/Coppin  3.517 , 3. Cronjaeger/Heidemeyer 3.383 and Kilian has ONE point less!! Wim Akkermans and his mate are still in the race as well with 3.325 points.

Nice finish picture. As shared by the German team.

Thursday…August 3…day 12…task 6; “We will fly soon and fast”  , but in tricky weather. The morning alarm clock was not necessary, as a loud thunderstorm passed by with as loud rain. Launching starts at 11.30!! That was delayed to 12 o’clock. But in between the front slowly arrived!!! Thunderstorms were forecasted for later in the day.Such a day could be a real LOTTERY, but it turned out not to be.
They left , had a few drops of rain during start, but messages for the crew were ” 2300 m.”. Not bad. The task just fitted the weather, though JUST!!! A real fitting-WINDOW!!!! Some finished however in heavy rain.
Differences in points in club and standard are MINIMAL.
Club; 2 hour AAT.
They ALL finished and Tomas Suchanek as the best;171 km. in time 2.01. Pretty good! The overall toppers did well Boris was 10th , Fabian 3d and Tim 5th. So nothing changed. About 100 points between 1 and 2 and 2 and 3. Russian pilot Sergey “smells” podium-victory and is only 17 points behind Fabian.
The other German pilot Dennis started after the bad weather had passed for the second time, about 45 minutes later than the rest. Quite a risk but it all went well he finished as number 12 in his Libelle. After it was WET REALLY WET.
Standard; 1.50 AAT
Miloslav was better during the day [6th…98.50 km./h.] than Pavel [11th..97.64 km./h.] but there is still some points between them; EIGHT to be correct!!!! So Miloslav is chasing his mate and for sure it’s less team work now for the last day’s, though they both started and finished together, but Miloslav flew 2 km. further.
My Belgian mates swapped overall places too. They flew together  as well,but Jeroen , still a junior, is on 3 overall now and Dennis on 4. Difference ; THREE points.
20 m.; 1.45 AAT.
Jones /Coppin lost a few points this day whilst Team Kawa  won . Still on spot 2 though behind Kawa,  but enough points difference;4.101 for 3.973. Only 3 outlanding during this very tight window, and in this class.

as shared by Sebastian Kawa who won his third title this year.One in 15 and one in 15.3 and now in 20 m. class.

LAST DAY OF THIS IN THE END EXCITING EGC.
After the very bad first week they flew in week 2 EVERY day EXCEPT THE LAST DAY; 6 days out of 13.
So the scores from August 3 stand and NO way to gain 3 or 8 points anymore, to be just a tad better,…it’s all in the game.
“NO WINDOW”  to fly in today, a pity on the last day, but you can only accept that and go to the party in the evening and CELEBRATE!!!!!

Champions;
Club class;
1. Tim Kuijpers    4.248  [The Netherlands]
2. Boris Zors        4.158    [Slovenia]
3. Fabian Peits    4.048   [ Germany]

as shared by the Dutch team.

Standard class;
1. Pavel Louzecky  4.024    [Czech. Rep.]
2. Miloslav Cink    4.016     [Czech. Rep.]
3. Jeroen Jennen   3.846    [Belgium]

as shared by OSKARKILO

20 m. class;
1. Kawa & Matkowski                4,101   [Poland]
2. Jones & Coppin                     3.973    [UK]
3. Cronjager &Heidemeyer     3.895 [Switzerland.]

As shared by Sebastian.

Congratulations to ALL!!!
The TEAM CUP was won by Poland [871.70] with as VERY good and close runner up Germany [871.22] and then France [ 866.79]and Belgium.[855.92]

————

The continuing story of the JWGC in Pocuinai.….thunderstorms…..
Wednesday …August 2 ….day 4…NO task .

Thunderstorms again,..they had tasks, were at the grid,…..but the skies looked BLACK and they had to run for the storms.
Tony from Team USA mentioned :”
“That was a thrill. Grid. Watch storms approach. Launch delayed half hour. Wait watch wait. Day cancels 15 minutes before front arrives. We got out quick and got the glider in the trailers quick.”

As shared by team USA and Jill from New Zealand.

Thursday…August 3…Day 5…no task.

Friday…August 4…day 6…task 2. FINALLY THEY COULD FLY!!!THE WEATHER- GODS GAVE THEIR BLESSING.
It’ s pretty demanding for the young pilots to be ready every day to only find out that there will be no flying. But,…it’s over now ,…they fly!!
club; 252 km.
Standard; 275 km.
But the task might,   have been overrated, after 4 days of rain,too ambitious or optimistic.
NOBODY finished.
Here is the story from team NZ.
“Today the whole fleet of 70 gliders in both classes landed out all over Lithuania! The day started with great promise and the grid was launched at 12pm into a great sky. Alex and Nick were blasting along well then high cloud moved over the track and made things tricky for everyone. We (M3 crew) got the call to hook up and roll about 4pm so we headed off for an easy retrieve to pick up Alex out a field after he did 117km. He had a German and Italian sharing the paddock. Nick pressed on in his Libelle and squeaked out 212km to gain 5th overall for the day. 
A good day to test the crews and we had both Kiwi battlers back for tea by 8pm .
Tomorrow we fly again!!
Mike S (Crew M3)“

Pictures shared by Junior TEAM NZ.

Saturday…August 5…Day 7…task 3;
Club; 312.12 km.
YES a better day, THOUGH some had to make a restart and one “light” shower still past by before launching started!!! However….1000 points for Wojciech Wojtaczka from Poland in an SZD-48-3m. THOUGH ….23 from 36 only finished. Did the USA team a great job on task 2 , on task 3 they were all out and last. A Pity.
Standard;340.48 km.;
Great day for the young Swedish pilots; number 1 and 2; 1000 and 999 points. No need to tell you they flew together. Well done!Enrique [Levin] from Germany was on spot 3. Dutch pilot Sjors van Loon on spot 4!!
14 From 32 finished so a lot of the “young ones”  saw more paddocks these days and with that more from Lithuania than they hoped for.

Today SUNDAY they might fly there was some drizzle….. more on Wednesday.

THE CIM…continued story.

On Wednesday Clara wrote;
“For today we are expecting dry, very strong and high thermals: between 3900 m and 4700 m! Temperatures are rising during the day and will reach 37 degrees, the QNH is 1019 hPa, take offs will start at 13.00. Open class has a task of 500 km with 4 turning points.”
So another excellent day in good old Rieti!! Where other places suffer from rain and thunderstorm , the south of Europe suffers from the HEAT.Clara mentioned ;” Weather forecasts announce long convergence lines on the ridges; there are 38 degrees and air is very dry: 20% of humidity, the QNH is 1018 hPa.”
Task 2 for all classes.
18 m.;425 km.
Former world champion Leigh Wells used those convergence lines best and won the day with a speed of 154 km./h. Jon Gatfield flew with him and had 992 points. All pilots finished.
open; 502 km.
Alberto Sironi, from Varese,  showed his skills in Rieti where he flies a lot. His speed….159.30 km./h. in his Quintus M. Alvaro was runner up. 6 From 10 finished.
mixed; 412 km.
Austrian pilots Pirker/Wolff flew the task with a speed of 128 km./h.

On Thursday good tasks [3] again :
433 km for 18 m. and again Leigh who showed his skills so did Jon; again 1 and 2.All finished ,”worst speed “115 km./h.
500 km to fly for open and Alberto won again with the 2 German pilots [JS 1 C and ETA] on his tail. Worst speed 124 km./h.
Vitorio Pinni and his mate won in mixed, the 3.45 AAT with 525 km. and a speed of 138 km./h.

Friday; Task 4…It’s getting boring,  but stay with me,….AGAIN in 18 m. Leigh and Jon; 1000 and 999 points for speeds of 139 km./h. over 541 km.
Open; 498 km. and Peter won the day in his ANTARES 23 T.
mixed; Austrian team Pirker won the day with a 3.30 AAT; 531 km.!!! in time 3.40 so a speed of 144 km./h.

Saturday was another good day with task 5; Clara mentioned in the morning;
“A great meteo also today with strong thermal activity (4,5,6 m/s), good ridge with enough west wind and with convergence conditions to fly straight ahead!”
18 m.;Something went “wrong” Between Leigh and Jon as it was now Jon who won the 465 km. with a speed of  146. km./h. Dane was runner up and Leigh “only” 4th. [120 points less than Jon!!]
Open; A 3.15 AAT for open and Peter [Hartmann] managed to fly 498 km./with a speed of 149.66 km./h.
Mixed had a 3.15 AAT as well and here the 1000 points were for Pirker and Wolff [ARCUS M] though,….they got 990 as they delivered the paperwork too late.They flew 482 km. in time 3.29.

What great weather in ITALY. Rieti the MECCA of soaring ,,,yes it proofed it again.
3.45 AAT’s for TODAY for 18 m. and open  and 425 km. for mixed.

———-

18 m. NATIONALS in UVALDE [TEXAS]

First daily win was as said before, for Bruce .

Nice prize as shared by Bruce.

Day 2 according to Bruce;
“Today we have an MAT, which has a mandatory Start point and first turn, then we get to choose the rest of the points, a little like the old POST task. This was chosen as the weather is an unknown today. The forecast says it will be terrible, but looking out the window it doesn’t look too bad at present. “

Aussie mate Bruce as shared by Bruce.
Taylor’s Gliding Page on FB

It turned out a tough day  2 , with a 3 hour MAT !!!
Here is what Bruce said;”There we were, averaging better than 85 mph when the sun went out and the rain started! I took my last climb to cloud base, which said I was about 1500 feet above a 4 knot glide home… but there was rain to go through and all that height vanished. I made it into the finish circle, but below the required height, so I don’t know what the penalty is for that. Three of us landed on the Continental Tyre testing facility near the airfield, including Brad. Interesting day, and a bit of fun really.”

Winner of the day good old Dave Leonard, good on him. ; 277 miles in in 3.29. He tops the overall list now together with Dave Mockler; both 1743 after 2 days.Bruce and Brad had difficulties in the end. Jerzy and Keith [Essex] ,Ray [Gimmey] ,Dave [Alexander] and Dave [Nadler] all had not a top day.

Day 3 as seen by Bruce;
“As expected, today became a very difficult trip. At launch time, it was reasonably easy to climb to cloudbase , but within half an hour or so everything was over developing. Most of the field started very soon after the gate opened, and it was obvious that we were in for a challenge. By the time we arrived at the southern turn, anything going up was great, and for a few hours we worked between 1,000 feet and 2,000 feet. Hey wait! Is this Uvalde we are talking about? I was sure that we were in for an enormous outlanding event for the entire field, but eventually 16 out of 35 made it home. It was a really interesting day, and in an odd sort of way quite enjoyable.
Tonight we were entertained by Mark and Kim Huffstutler at their house, which is just gorgeous. It was a super evening with lots of talk about the day’s flying, great food and fine company.”

They flew, so there was a daily winner; Bruce won the day!!! In an ASG 29 and there are 18 from 35 in this competition. Equal points so 2 number 1 places ;Gary Ittner had 974 points as well.

Day 4 as seen by Bruce;
“another tough day 😅 As of 8:00pm, the scoresheet shows just 11 finishers. We had a 4 hour AAT, and the problem was the overdevelopment in the first photo turned into a pretty big storm, which wiped out a huge area in the middle of our northern turnpoints. The outflow from the storm made it difficult to navigate around it, and caught a lot of people out. The finishers, except for one or two, mostly did a circumnavigation of the storm, which made for an interesting flight indeed. The other photos are heading south past the far side of the storm, final glide into Uvalde about 30 km out, and a Texan sunset.
Today will shake the scores up a bit more. This comp is becoming a bit of a battle of attrition!”

And the winner was……Canadian pilot Jerzy with Aussie Bruce as runner up. Bruce tops the overall list but flies HC with Jerzy now as runner up.

as shared by Bruce!

———-

More on Wednesday, also on Klippeneck.

Cheers Ritz

19th FAI European Gliding Championships

Moravská Třebová, Czech Republic
23 July 2017 – 4 August 2017

It’s such a pity for pilots, but also for the organisation, that the weather gods REFUSE to co-operate.
Wednesday was cancelled too, but you can only wait for the better weather to come. Many parts of Europe suffer from miserable weather ,but there is always hope!!!
Pocuinai, was “optimistic” for their first training day on Thursday.
Thursday in Moravska, was scrubbed too and a kart race for all who wanted was on the menu.
I have done that once too with all pilots and I can tell you some pilots/crew , really “turned into madmen”.But it was great FUN!!!! I was the slowest but had the fastest start.

They moved the INTERNATIONAL EVENING to this rainy week,..good thinking,…. and as you can see the pilots still had good fun, though some are “BORED”, we all understand.

All teams did a good job !!!
Picture shared by the Dutch team.

Friday…July 28…day 6 …flying day 1 ???;the first news for the day was “CZECH EVENING, 19:00″.
BUT they had a briefing at 10 and gridding after the briefing.Team UK mentioned in the early morning;”we are sitting in the rain currently but we are hoping for a gap.”

Hope grows on Friday, as shared by the Belgian team.

The organisation mentioned;”Please remove the gliders from the grid ASAP. More water is coming.”
Scrubbed again BUT,……..you can’t try harder than they do!!!!!AND,….
From Saturday on,  it looks very promising for a full week so,…NO WORRIES.

Saturday…July 28…day 7 …Task 1;

The weather on Saturday morning. As shared by the Belgian and the Dutch team.

The message was  “Dnes poletíme!” ” We will fly today”!
A few words only but they express SO much happiness. It’s HAPPENING…finally!!!!!! Organizers and pilots…… Everybody is ready and HAPPY.
Club; 327.91 racing task.
A good day and 1000 points for daily winner Thomas Suchanek in the St. Cirrus. Runner up , same glider but a Dutch pilot Tim with 931 points. Only one out landing and he still flew 311 km. in his ASW 24.
standard; 358.14 km. racing task.
Miloslav Cink won the 1000 points. He flew together with his Czech mate Pave ,also in LS 8 and he “got” 984 points. They had a very early start at 13.36. Danish pilot Mogens had a very late start [14.23], for what reason I don’t know, but he just could not make it back in his Discus 2A; 284 km.
20 m.; 356.61 km. racing task.
The combination Kawa/Matkowski in an ASG 32MI looks like a winner !!!!They won the first 1000 points.[ 110.82 km./h.]  UK team Jones/Coppin [106 km./h.]was runner p with Belgian team Akkermans/Vandebeeck[ 104 km./h.] as number 3 just ahead of French team Walbrou/Corbille.[102 km./h.] All in ARCUS T or M.
3 Out-landers.

SUNDAY…July 29…day 8…task 2 ; A blue day ,…quite challenging….and it turned out to be challenging for some. 30 dgr. C.

As shared by the Dutch team.

club class ; 3 hour AAT.
The best time combined with kilometers was for Russian pilot Sergey Serov. He flew in his St. Cirrus, 221 km. in time 3.04 and received 858 points. Only 17 from 37 finished and for some this first day after waiting so long with still some hope, was a big deception.
Standard; 2.45 AAT.
The Belgian pilots did a great job. Dennis and his cousin Jeroen, flew together in the LS 8 and reached 253 km. in time 2.52 for 950 and 946 points. They started straight away at 14.05,far ahead of the rest who were still  playing the departure game. The last pilots on track, left at 14.48 but still finished on spot 6 and 11. Only 2 from 27 did not finish.
20 m.; 2.30 AAT.
Czech pilots Rendla/ Rendla flew 235 km. in time 2. 29 in the ARCUS M!Experience enough there.800 points for them and ALL pilots in this class returned home.

MONDAY…July 30…day 9…task 3; with a base of 2000 m.!!!But also thunderstorms expected to be ” staying” in the N.

Ready to go .
As shared by the organizers.

club; racing task 236 km.
With no out-landers a good day. Specially for Thomas Suchanek as he will be given the daily prize in the morning. Good on him. Those former hang-glider pilots “feel”  the air.  Good day for Rasmus Orskov from Denmark with a 5th place. Less good day for the Dutch and German pilots. But “only ” around 200 points less for the slower pilots, who followed another route than others.
Standard; racing task 259 km.
Winners for the day were from Germany Marko Zettier and Holland Sjaak Selen, with a nice speed of 116 and 111 km./h. and 688 and 628 points. No one “aux-vaches”.
20 m.; racing task 251 km.
Another team- Kawa- from- Poland- daily- win. But good runners up from Finland Visa Matti and Harry. GOOD!!!600 for 549 points. All pilots were “in”  and team Rendla now was last.

TUESDAY…August 1…day 10… task 4; base between 1700 and 1900 up to 2000 m,…crosswind and tough/strong-ground- wind.
club; 2 hour AAT.
A great day for the Dutch, with Tim as daily winner [643 points for 212 km. in time 2.06] and Frank as number 3 with between them Danish pilot Rasmus. One non-finisher  and UK pilot Ayala as number 4 …good on her!!
Only 3 days to go and overall Tim is now number ONE!!!
standard; 2 hour AAT.
2 Finn’s [Aku and Juha with 618 and 617 points] , 2 Germans  [Marko and Andreas with 646 and 643 points]and 4 Discus 2A/b in the top and 2 non-finishers
20 m.; 2 hour AAT.
Team Steve Jones/Garry Coppin had the best combination km’s and time;251.39 in 1.58 for 588 points. Just ONE point less for Swiss team Cronjaeger/Heidemeyer. 5 x ARCUS T /M in the top.

More news next week, or maybe Sunday evening.

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10th FAI JUNIOR WORLD GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Pociūnai, Lithuania
30 July 2017 – 12 August 2017

They were a bit more lucky with the weather. After arrival , it was not really flyable but no worries,  the pilots could organize their “infrastructure” for this JWGC period, do their shopping and relax from the long trips for most.
“Infrastructure” looks different for all.

Team USA with their beautiful base. HEINEKEN GROUND,.. can only be DUTCH. Team France setting up the “radio-tower”.
As shared by the teams.

The 3 official practice day’s showed set tasks and 2 hour AAT’s in which practice was really possible,as well as out landings.Only 6 from 22 in standard ,finished on day 1 a day with a set task from 273 km.In club 14 from the 23, who were flying.Distance ;249 km.
Practice day 2 had 2 hour AAT’s. The weather looked good but was not as good as it looked. Some flew the task others choose the “fly around”

As shared by the Dutch juniors.

Practice day 3 had set tasks; 170 km. in club and there were 3 winners all 512 points Dutch pilot Nick and UK pilots Thomas and Jake with Robin from Holland just a tad later 512 points.
So enough good training,…. the REAL thing happens NOW. First the opening in a big sports-and entertainment-arena, in the local town of Prienai.
Here all team captains. Dutch Annemiek proudly in the middle.

With to her right the CD of the comps Vytautas Sabeckis  and top TC Benjamin from France.
As shared by team USA via Tony.

as shared by the teams UK, USA New Zealand.

Team Germany, as shared by them.
President of the jury Juha Silvennoinen, who was CD at the JWGC in Rayskala [2005]and the EGC .As shared by Juha.
Team Holland as shared by them.

SUNDAY…July 30…day 1…task 1;
Club; 281 km.
A great beginning of the comps for the German team with Stefan and Julian on spot 1 and 2 in their Libelle’s. 1000 and 997 points. Great spot 3 for Nick from NZ. He flew together with Alex but Alex missed a “connection” and landed just 20 k. short. 29 from 38 finished this first day. So a few disillusions for some but it was only day 1 a LOT can happen.
Standard; 336 km.
The Polish pilots Thomasz and Jakub, in this class had a great start as well. Flying together to spot 1 and 2 in the LS 8 for 1000 and 921 points.

MONDAY…July 31..day 2…no task ; No, they gridded, had tasks,… but decided NOT to fly!!

Thunderstorm close by .
as shared by Tony.

TUESDAY…August 1…day 3 … no task.Partly sunny with thunderstorms …..AGAIN. Seeing the pictures,…good ones too.

————-

18 m. CHAMPIONSHIPS in UVALDE TEXAS.

As said before Bruce and Brad , my Aussie mates, are flying this competition and as you know too, Bruce always reflects on his flights in his  Taylor’s Gliding Page
“Arrival in Texas has been greeted by heat, dust, storms and the usual fantastic cu’s and streets. Can’t wait to get airborne.“

That’s exactly, how I remember my 2 trips to Uvalde in 1991 and 2012 as well.
As shared by Bruce.

“An average day in Uvalde is better than a good day in most other places 😊Today started a little bit blue, but some clouds started to appear not long before launch. Brad and I flew for about 3 1/2 hrs, and did a run to the south, (where it looked the worst but was actually the best) then north-west and north-east (where it looked great, but was a bit of a fiddle to find the best climbs)
The photo is to the south of Uvalde, and Brad is just above my winglet. 
Good start, we are rigged and set up, and the flight discovered no real problems. Tonight we are eating in, so we can all get a decent sleep. Yesterday was a big day of driving, and we got to bed rather late.”

As shared by Bruce.

Yesterday was the first day and with an assigned  task of 285.29 miles the 33 pilots made the best out of the day. Bruce WON !!! Good on him, speed 88.13 miles /ph. Jerzy was runner up  but as Bruce flies HC, Jerzy won the day.All AG 29 in the top 6.
Brad was on spot 18.
“A big part of today was smokin’, and the other part was a bit rubbish. The trip was pretty fast until we went down to the south east, where the cirrus was a bit thicker, and the air was not as happy to go up. We had to slow up for about 40-50 miles, then it came good on the way home. Today was fun; there were a couple of fast guys just ahead of me, and I almost caught them at the edge of the difficult bit, but then I went slightly the wrong way and they stretched ahead again.” By Bruce

————

HpH Sailplanes UK
NEWS
AND THEN THERE WERE THREE… Evening of 25th July with a very strong wind blowing, Jaroslav Potmesil, owner of HPH sailplanes took the TwinShark on a short maiden flight. A huge thanks to the team who beat the odds to make this happen. The Twinshark is now the third and latest 20m flapped sailplane to market.

As shared by HpH Sailplanes Uk.

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49th KLIPPENECK competion in GERMANY

Between July 29 and August 5 , 83 participants are flying in 5 classes for the highest honors  .
On day 1 the pilots got IN THE AIR the B task so change of instruments and mindset.
So also there not the best conditions and a struggle for tasksetters to “work around the thunderstorms”.
2 Days of reasonable short tasks  around 200 km. and 1.30 AAT’ s and 2 days of no- flying in 4 classes,
Only Standard flew yesterday ,  so “only” 17 pilots in the air and nobody finished.
The set task was 171 km. and the best pilot flew 119 km. Tough day in the office!!!!

———–

C [oppa] I[nternational] del Mediterranio]  in Rieti in Italy
August 1-12

Aero club di Rieti ” Alberto Bianchetti”.
As shared by the organizers.

Aldo , my Gliding International colleague, from Italy is the CD from the CIM in Rieti; His message ;
“I’m directing the CIM in Rieti. Astonishing weather! 167.3 km/h in the Open Class…I envy them!” 
They started yesterday,….38 competitors in 3 classes. I visited the CIM several times, great fun, STRONG competition!!!!

Day 1 in 18 m. was a prey for Leigh Wells from the UK and Dane Dickinson from NZ. Both 1000 points for 154.94 km./h and 154.97.
In open Alvaro was the best in his ASH 31 MI; 167.28 km./h. WOW!!!!903 points. He was followed by pilots who fly there every year, as Alberto [Sironi 163 km./h] Peter Hartmann [ 161 km./h.] , Bruno Gantenbrink [159 km./h.]
In the mixed class the best speed was 157 km./h. in an ARCUS.
You can visit the next site to follow this competition. Scores on www.soaringspot.com   AND
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=aero%20club%20di%20rieti%20alberto%20bianchetti

———–

To finish some sad news.
One of our longtime friends and guests at Sportavia and a special friend to me, Maria Boettcher from Muenich,  has died of cancer on July 26 at age 81. She was one of those people who impressed others by how she looked, reacted and with her wisdom and interest, specially in soaring.
Her husband Dieter, who lives since nearly 2 years, in a house for people with dementia, survives her.
The manana tree at SPORTAVIA, was already sad , now it will NOT be used anymore.
My good friend Margie from Tocumwal, who was one of the Sportavia owners before us and who knew her well too mentioned ;
“I will remember Maria as a happy, friendly person who was still knitting woolen socks when it was 37 deg.”

A pretty recent picture which Maria send to me a few weeks ago.

RIP Maria.

Ritz

19th FAI European Gliding Championships

  Moravská Třebová, Czech Republic.

The small ships ,- non flap ships-, were ready on July 19 for a few practice days and a great European soaring-get -together between July 23 and August 4 , if necessary August 5.
All 79 pilots flying in 3 classes were ready as well. I followed them on their trip by car to this place with the difficult name, travelling from all countries in Europe to this by the FAI selected place I never heard from . NOW I know…we all do!!!
The Chief steward is from Belgium, Patrick Pauwels and the president of the jury from Germany; Peter Ryder.

Practice-day ….as shared by my Belgium friends.

The  practice day was a good one, not only because the 2 Dutch pilots Tim[former JWGC champion] and Frank [they followed a great “street”] won the day with speed of 124 km. and 118 km./h. over 314 and 307 km. in club class.
A 2.30 AAT was set and the 2 Italian pilots Ricardo and Davide followed with a speed of 115 km./h.
S a nice speed for the 4 St. Cirrus gliders.
Standard had the same task and,…ALSO THERE a Dutch winner Sjaak. He flew 356 km. with a huge speed of 141.75 km./h. in his Discus 2A.
Great start for the Dutch pilots.

The happy Dutch team and the 4 pilots in the car; upfront Tim and Sjaak, on the back seat Robbie and Frank.as shared by them.

The 2-Seaters had the same task and team Cronjaeger [ Switzerland] was the best on this very first official practice day; 361 km. with a speed of 139.39 km./h.
The 2d practice day was cancelled but free flights were possible as long as everybody took care of the thunderstorms.
The opening of the 19th EGC by Peter Ryder, was in a ” chateau/castle from Moravska Trebova.”

Opening in front of the castle with several teams and as the pictures were shared by the French ….Eric Napoleon with his team.

Team Belgium……Norway and ……….Sweden.
As shared by team Belgium and from Sweden Per Carlin.

Team Germany and Team UK.

Hope thunderstorms like this one on July 20 and  shared by team UK will not return. Pretty spectacular though and a great picture!!!!

“Those of us propping up the Aeroklub’s bar this evening were treated to a pretty exceptional light show. Certainly beats a bit of British drizzle.”

SUNDAY…July 23…day 1…no task;
Any hope for NO thunderstorms was in vain!!! They passed by, left right and center as forecasted , so it was mainly “waiting”  on day 1, IF there would be a window to fly in each class. A 2 hour AAT was set as A task , but the 1.30 AAT as B task was the one to fly after delaying and delaying [between 13.00 and 14.30] .
“ We are observing development of thunderstorm in vicinity. Be prepared for glider removal from the grid.”
I know that in the Eastern countries they ONLY cancel a day when NOTHING is possible. That happened on day 1 ,so the day was cancelled after a long wait.

Day- 1- weather.As shared by the French.

MONDAY…July 24,…day 2…no task” cancelled due to the weather conditions“. AND,……”For tomorrow there is a small  window for  flying ……..maybe“

TUESDAY…July 25,.…day 3..TASK 1; 1.30 AAT’s in all classes. CANCELLED!!!

Tuesday’ s Weather in the morning as shared by team Belgium and the water-filling-system at the site of the field shared by Team UK.

After a “huge”  amount of rain, they started with an early [ 9.30] and a later briefing [12.00] in the hope for a window to fly in .
ONE REALLY GOOD MESSAGE from the meteo,…there will be no more rain!!!
Gliders were on the grid and full of water , now IN the wings, not ON.
They postponed till 15.00, the sniffer reached 750 m. and that was that…..no flying.

WEDNESDAY …July 26…day 4…task 1;
“Latest news: Good morning, Do not make grid yet. Briefing at 10:00LT in hangar I.”
Today….. let’s hope they can fly…. More next week.

——

Ostrów Glide 2017 – July – PreWGC

The first days I wrote down in my last blog. The Aussies did well in 15 m. class.
Did Dylan win 2 days,  Adam and Butch won task 4 , a set 535 km. … and both got the 1000 points. Poor Dylan missed out, though the Aussies started together, Dylan somewhere lost the “connection” and landed after 255 km.; 346 points!!!
Task 5 on July 19 ; a small  1.30 AAT showed 3 Aussies in the top; Adam. Butch and Dylan… The Ventus 2A borrowed from Thomas Gostner seems a real good one for Adam.
4 From the 7 in this class finished.

In club…..another Aussie-daily-win, well known Alan Barnes, who flew during the 1.30 AAT a distance of 123.91 km. in time 1.42 in an LS 1f.
17 from 26 finished.
NO FLYING on July 20 and 21.
AND….
The last possible flying day on July 22 looks like this in the early morning. FOG……As shared by Adam.

Adam is ready to go, so is Dylan, the weather still hesitated.

No flying anymore…..; So in open class;
1. Adam Woolley [Australia] with 3.577 points in Ventus 2A. His first European WIN !!!! Well done!
2. Piotr Jarysz [Poland] with 3.461 points in LS 6.
3. John Buchanan [Australia] with 3.446 points in Ventus 2CXT
4. Daryl Lampard [Australia] with 2.909 points in Discus 2A. He flew HC and only a few days on his way to the JWGC.

In club;
1. Piotr Jarysz [Poland]with 3.613 points in Libelle.
2. Jedrzej Skłodowski [Poland]with 3.513 points in St. Jantar.
3. Marek Sawczuk [Poland] with 3.357 points in St. Jantar.

Kiwi’s and Aussies in Poland with winner Adam in the middle surrounded by Allan and Daryl[l] and Butch [r]
Nick [Oakley] and Alex [Mc Caw] from NZ on the l and r.
They are both on their way to Pocuinai for the JWGC.

————-

42nd Polish Open Class Nationals

Ostrów Wielkopolski Michałków, Poland,
13 July 2017 – 23 July 2017

This competition ran parallel with  the Ostrow Glide 2017.As always a very strong competition in this Polish open class.
19 Pilots were competing to be the open class winner 2017.Not one REAL open class glider as EB , Nimbus or ASH 25.
They flew 5 out of 9 days , as the last 2 days had to be cancelled.
So winners/champions  in open class;
1. Karol Staryszak [ASG 29 E/18m.] with 3.940 points only 33 points more than
2. Zdzisław Bednarczuk [ASG 29 E/18m.] with 3.907
3. Lucasz Wojcik [JS-1CTJ 21m ] with 3.766 points.

———-

DG GROUP-NEWS.

LS1-f neo Winglets and Fuselage-Wing Transition Certification Completed!!!

July 18 2017-NEWS:
“Our brand new LS1-f neo Winglets and the new fuselage-wing transition are officially certified now! This week we received approval for TN63. We’d like to say “thank you very much!” to all our customers who supported this project by placing an option! All pilots are very happy with their winglets and we are sure that we will hear a lot about the LS1-f neo during the next club class competitions.”

Very interesting concept!!!! Great news! https://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/…/dg-…/ls1-winglets-tm63/14675

————-

FUENTEMILANOS
the SPANISH SOARING MECCA.

I knew that August  is a great month for soaring in Fuente but this year July is very good as well with several 1000 km-flights, one even on July 20 from 1.210 km. by Guy Bechtold from Luxembourg.
This was a 1000 FAI triangle as well,  flown in his Quintus M.
Nearly all guests are from Germany, but a few also from Switzerland , Holland , Belgium or France and of course some Spanish pilots.

————

SUMMERCOMPS AT MALDEN[Holland]
16 July 2017 – 22 July 2017

The fabulous 2-stor[e]y-new hangar at Malden and the great skies behind it, still at 6 PM.

Visited Malden last Friday. Summercomps were in progress over there. Not too many days due to rain , but when I visited the weather was gorgeous, clouds everywhere and 401 km. for mixed open class and 348 for club.
As it was the last day of the NIJMEEGSE VIERDAAGSE ,a walking tour from 4 days with 43.000 participants from all over the world, it was difficult to reach the field, but we managed.
Though some pilots had difficulties to stay up , others left on track at 1500 m. on this 2d flying day.
All 16 pilots finished in open class and the president of the Malden Aeroclub, who just bought Peter Batenburg’s Nimbus 4T ,won the day and the 1000 points.He was 53 minutes faster than the runner up.
Mind you there is quite a difference between an Nimbus 4T and an LS 3 a. Handicaps are not always “fair” .[118/98]
In club 9 from 10 finished and the 1000 points were for one of the son’s from longtime soaring mates,  Martijn Alders in his beautiful polished St Cirrus with winglets.

Martijn in his nice glider, winning day 2. He shared the picture from Jeroen Verhulst.

The balcony on the 2d floor of the hangar,…part of the camping area in the woods and ……the beautiful winch from the NIJAC.

DAY 3.
There was hope for a day 3 to make it a valid competition and,…..indeed,……hey found a small window to fly in. Early local thunderstorms were predicted, but a 135 km. task for the mixed open and 102 for club seemed possible.
Not all finished but there were winners and a score to make it a valid competition.
In club, 9 started on the last day and 7 finished.
Overall winner; Martijn Alders [1.720] and runner up Anne Hoekstra [Ls 4] who moved from 4 to 2 overall.
In the mixed open a clear winner, as he won the day again in his Nimbus 4T; Johan Hamelink [2.092 points] In this class 9 from 15 finished.
THANK YOU to Joris ,member from the club ,who so kind to check my laptop!!!!

After the flight, totally blue; cleaning and talking ABOUT the flight.

————-

First before I finish , another great flight from Gilles Navas yesterday, he IS in the mood!!!!He flew from Vinon in 14 hours and 23 minutes over the mountains in wave over 5000 m. sometimes nearly 6000 m.[5950 MSL/4424 AGL]  a distance of 1.526 km. with a speed of 105 km./h. in an 18 m. ASG 29E. WOW ….WOW.
And from Fayence Baptiste Innocent flew in the ARCUS M. 1.362 km.

CU next week with…..
The EGC continues and the JWGC, with 39 participants in club and 33 in St class,  is about to begin on July 27  [tomorrow  with official practice days, first flights on July 30-August 12] ,so enough to keep an eye on and for you to read.
On August 1 the US OPEN NATIONALS start in Uvalde Texas with 37 pilots , 2 from Australia,  Brad Edwards, who won  the 1991 version there and Bruce Taylor and 2 from Canada Jerzy Szemplinski and Dave Springford.

The Pocuinai airfield where it will all happen for our juniors from the world.
Picture shared by team UK.

Cheers Ritz

It remains special,… not so much anymore as in the past but still,…the 1000 km. , certainly the first one.
Not only ELY had several over-1000 km.-flights last week, but also Europe was at some places AS GOOD,on July 6, with at least 5 x a 1000- plus in an 18m. Ventus 2CM , an ARCUS T ,ASW 22 BL and Antares 20 ,flown in Germany and in Switzerland from Bex in an ASH 31/21 m..
Gilles Navas just missed out from Vinon in France, [he has many already];999.31 in an 18 m. ASG 29 E. And 950 in a Discus 2  is worthwhile mentioning too.
On July 5 Germany had already a 1000 in a Duo Discus X from Scheuen Celle [NW of Braunschweig] .

France …Paris.. had 50 mm. of rain last Sunday,…that’s a lot!! So the weather changes from very good and hot to very ” heavy”, cool and wet with severe storms.”They” say we have to live with it, so we do.
We expect here this morning 50 mm. only in the morning, it seems they are correct.

———-

2d WGC 13.5 m. in Hungary!
Szatymaz,    Jun 29 – Jul 16, 2017

Got a mail from Tony who flies the 13.5 m. -WGC for the 2d time and I know how much he loves participating. He had a minute
AND
“Even though the scoresheet says so, Florian is not flying with FES. All the MiniLAK’s here are flying as pure gliders. Couldn’t fit the FES and a pilot in and stay under 35kg/m^2!”
So we are even better up to date!!!

Serious flying and serious fun after and great clouds during launching.
As shared by Tony, who had a great day and felt like a “happy chappie:
“Had a great time running with Sebastian Kawa,Sebas Riera, Uli Schwenk , and Florian on the second leg today. And the pool here is really nice for cooling off at the end of the day.”
Picture 3 shared by Sebastian K.

They postponed the first launch from 11.45 to 12.15 to have the best circumstances for the day.
Day 3; 331 km
No Sebastian’s on spot 1 this day , OK,… Sebastian K. shared spot 1 …BUT good old ULI with his big smile!!!
Yes, the Seb’s were  1 and 3 , but great job from Uli!!! 115 km./h ., so 952 points for both Uli [115.06 km./h.]and Sebastian K. [115.02km./h.] and Sebastian R. had 949 points. All very close as Thomas, Florian and Stefano had 934 [2x] and 931 points. And with 930 points Ukraine pilot Vladas had a good day too.
After 3 days the overall scores are interesting as well.
Sebastian K. with 2488 points, Uli with 2416 and Sebastian R. with 2408.

Sebastian and his dad Tomasz
as shared by Bacskai Vera.

Day 4;a 3 hour AAT and,…he did it again… Uli won the day and “received” gracious the 1000 points. Uli flew 300 km. the ONLY one just over 300k. [97.12 km./h.]Good on him.
Sebastian K was runner up with 292 km [93.94 km./h.]and after 4 days still leads the pact BUT,…only with 7 points!!!!
Thomas was 3d.
Tony had a good run and was 11th; “Had trouble lining up climbs today. Seemed like every leg was crosswind. And then of course just when you need that last good climb for final glide the day starts dying. Oh well tomorrow is another day“so…

Day 5; a set task from 197.78 km.

As shared by Tony who was on spot 1 on the grid.

Day 5 was DIFFICULT. According to Sebastian” typical Hungarian weather that I was afraid of. Blue and stable. Than very fast overcast .”
And US soaring team mentioned:”Today we have a short 200 km racing task due to expected precipitation and thunderstorms developing around 4pm. First launch is scheduled noon local.”
9 Finished ,…a few pretty low . A winner ,…for the day….yes Sebastian and he was the only one who “hit”  the 100 km./h. Thomas and Stefano were the next best with 88 km./h.
They fly ” the Italian VersUs, which are Diana 2s modified for 13.5m and 15m tips, as well as self-launching FES. These guys litterally fly away from us, with glide ratio about 20% better than ours at cruising speeds also about 15-20% higher than us. We rarely see them for more than a thermal or two.…” as by US Soaring teams.
” Finished at 70kph. Thrilling final glide!” was the comment from Tony who started at the same time,  but finished a bit later than Francois who just made it in . Guess Tony “found” some extra height before landing.  3 Points difference between them,..what the heck!!
Tony’s story:”Well, we started early and prayed for rain. And the storms didn’t come. They still haven’t come in fact. Was a challenging day for us with thin cu on the first leg that got us split up, then the first turnpoint was in a hole which featured both of us getting really low. Second leg was a nice line of clouds with one really good climb and another one or two weak climbs. That didn’t quite get us final glide though and the second turn point was, you guessed it, in a hole. Francois finished a little low and I just squeaked in above minimum height thanks to a thousand birds soaring along the edge of the lakes on the arrival. Onward!”
A few just missed out in between 1 and 5 km.!!!

Day 6 and TASK 6 , great average AND…. WHAT A TASK!!! Speed task of 499 km. so a 500!!!!
Great weather…OR,…. mind you these guy’s do not have an EB 29 but a good  and high-quality -13.5 m. wing-glider, mostly with an engine , they can’t use, because of the FAI weight rules!!!
So I was anxious to see if there would be pilots finishing.And,…they were in the end less happy with the day. Some who had the FES and the correct weight ,put it on to bring them  home as there was RAIN ‘on the track which was NOT forecasted.
” Washed out of the sky by a line of showers on a day with 0% forecast precip..”
So a bit of a shock to the system, but some pilots still reached nearly 400 km. And whilst waiting at 8, I had good hope that MAYBE there would be finishers. There were NOT,as I noticed the next day.
Uli and Sebastian R. flew 391 km. for 1000 points each.Good!!But most had to be picked up from a field .The Silent pilots cruised home “under steam” and had their dinner in time.
Tony’s OLC comment;
” The day was going really good for the first two turnpoints. We did a nice job on the first leg and managed to get in and out of the first turn without much trouble. Then got an awesome climb and a nice run along a street towards TP2. 

Found Florian and Kawa at the second turn and tagged along with them as long as I could hang on. Approach shadow from line of rain messed up the rest. I just wasn’t willing to take the size of deviation required to get out ahead of it. Then I was too low to get out ahead of it. 

Started the motor and quickly was in a great thermal that got me plenty high to fly home as I bounced through lift all over the place! Have never been so mad about finding a thermal!”

Daily winners…

with Sebastian R on spot 1 and Uli and Florian to the l and r.

Day 7; NO …not a rest-day after 6 days of flying, they continued with a 3 hour AAT, later changed into 2.30.AND,…a new face on the daily number 1 spot;Vladas Motuza who flew his mini-LAK over 246 km. in time 2.28 for 800 points.
Stefano followed with 245 in time 2.29. And Sebastian with 239 km. in 2,30 at the dot.

After 7 days of flying Sebastian Kawa still leads with 5.687 points followed by Uli with 5.603 and Vladas with 5.341.
Monday is a well deserved rest-day!!!

So the new and last week started for the pilots on Tuesday at 10 with the briefing and yesterday….a set task number 8 was handed out from 296.66 km.
The  weather .”Moderate West wind, good cu, streeting, and potential late over-development are all expected.” It turned out MORE wind and less lift and,…NO FINISHERS but 752 points for Tony who won the day with a distance of 218.41 km,. GOOD ON HIM. Sebastian just ,missed out on “nothing” 218.31…10 meters!!!” I made it 18 mud steps further than the great Sebastian Kawa“.
Congratulations I know how much this means for Tony who is very down -to -earth.
Here is his OLC comment

“13.5m WGC Day 8. Difficult start with hardly any lift near the start line. Worked some clouds to TP1 and on the way out. Then it got blue and progressively weaker and weaker. Good team work and a few other gliders around helped us keep moving. Limped into the turnpoint and found one last weak climb. Watched Uli land out and then floated it as far as I could.

Ended up, by pure luck, going 100 meters further than Sebastian Kawa to win the day! Wahoo!”

As shared by US soaring teams.

Tony is supported by many and at every big competition he shows his gratitude!!

Private sponsoring and by business as Paul Remde’s Cumulus Soaring.

TODAY….Day 10…Task 9; 2.30 AAT. “25-40mm of rain overnight, late start expected. First launch not scheduled until 12:45.“

———-

Stendal[Germany]
Nationals for 15 m., 18m.,and open class

As shared by the organizers

The weather did not really improve here  , so small tasks,but still  happy pilots and Arne Boye Moeller ,who arrived for a few days crewing for Katrin [Senne].

Does n’t look too bad !!!! And with Arne and Arnaud……….Stendal not too big as seen by Michael Eisele.
As shared by Katrin.

Day 2 ;
15 m; 147 km.
Won by Tilo Holighaus in his Ventus 2AX. [ 81.5 km./h.] 26 from 35 finished.Bad day for Kai [Lindenberg] ; only 69 km.
18 m.;182 km.
Won by Mario [Kiessling] in the Ventus 3T.[110.59 km./h.] The “girls” did well with Stefanie [Muhl[ on spot 3 and Katrein on spot 4.
open ;187.6 km.
Markus Frank in his EB 29 flew around with a speed of 110 km./h and with such a speed in such a machine you know that it was difficult.All 31 pilots finished but the last spot for an ASH 25 with 73 km./h says enough as well.
Michael [Sommer] was runner up, Bruno on spot 9 and Holger Karow on spot 16 with the THE Broquevilles on 21.

Day 2 in 18 m. class
As shared by Segelflug- DM Stendal.

Day 3;
Finally GOOD weather!

As shared by Arnaud with the words:”Very nice day @ Stendal...”

15 m.: A 3.30 AAT gives lot’s of possibilities for the pilots and ,…they used them. 1000 Points for 411 km. in a Ventus B in time 3.46. for Henrik Bieler.
18 m.: A 3.30 AAT as well and good runs by the “young dog’s” and one “old” Fox. Mario won the day with 425.6 km. in time 327.48 in his Ventus 3 and collected the 1000 points.Matthias was runner up with 944 points and good old Reinhard Schramme was 4th in the Ventus with 935 points.
open class; The The Broquevilles loved their day, did not win, but finished on a good spot 6.
Michael won again and flew 528.5 km. during a 4 hour AAT in time 4.12.
4 EB 29’s in the top 4.

Michael, vice- world champion and number 1 at this stage in Stendal, interviewed by the MDR.
As shared by the organizers.

Day 4;

15 m.; 2.30 AAT....2 Pilots at spot 1 for the day and,…at 1 and 3 overall.Sebastian Bauder [Ventus 2] and Jan Omsels [Discus 2 A]both 800 daily points and a total of 2974 and 2967. In between is Michael Pfennig[799 points for the day] with a total of 2968…..The 3 of them fly together and it seems it get’s the best out of them; 251 km. for the boy’s in time 2.22.
So excitement enough and still a few days to go to follow them all, as it seems they are not totally satisfied with the flight,…the 2d “leg”  could be better.
18 m.; 2 hour AAT….. a short day for the pilots after the long day and because of the weather. Mario was 3d, Matthias 7th and Sikko 9th BUT,….Andreas Kessler won the day in the ASG 29e; 242 km. in time 2 hours at the dot!! Claus Triebel was runner up.
open; 2 hour AAT….696 points for the daily winner…. Michael!!!!251 km. in time 2.14. He won 3 from the 4 days already.
Also  nice to see was that the runner up, was Kornelius Volociuk, [ASW 22 BLE] who I met years and years ago and it’s not him but the car and the “ornament ” on the nose I still remember.
Young Felipe Levin is climbing on the overall scores to spot 2 and the first 9 gliders are all EB 29’s, so it seems you need such a very expensive, but gorgeous toy, to win.
Oliver Binder from EB is on spot 4 behind Markus Frank.

The Nimeta YY from Bruno, …..a lot of cleaning….
As shared by the organizers.

Day 5; Briefing first,….. not one but even 2. The weather in the end turned out better than expected, so they could start day 5 out of 5 with a smaller task and the first launch at 2 PM!!! When you look at the weather it’s all understandable.

Meteo forecast………..Briefing with lot’s of pilots ……………and the weather when they were launching.

As shared by the organizers.

15 m; 138 km…..and a big “bunch”  of pilots started at 15.58,…so did Katrin and she shared spot 1 for the day. Good on her.327 points for her and Thomas Wettemann and the rest had just a few less.
18 m; 216 km…. started first and they shared it with a live video.NICE!!! Matthias was the best and not a real good day for Mario, [19] Matthias had 630 points, Mario 543, not a lot of points to win or loose.
The overall-difference between is less now though,  Mario still leads with 3376 and Matthias has 3236.
35 From 41 finished!
open ; 197 km… Felipe and Michael flew together and both shared spot 1 for the day.  Only Alexander was “out” a pity as there were only 172 points for him!!BUT,…the toppers “only” shared 483 points ,so no worries.
In the evening a real shower passed by but most were ” home”then.

Day 6 out of 6 in Stendal; with a sunny morning and task’s ,but it all rather started late and B tasks popped up. First start at 2 but 1.5 and 2 hour AAT’s.

As shared by the organizers

In the end the day was cancelled. A bit of rest will do them all good.

A new week and a new day and as the day was cancelled some nice pictures from day 4 by Philipp Stern shared by the organizers.

Tuesday July 11 ; the weather did not improve yet , in fact it was “raining cat’s and dogs”.A small C task was set for open class ONLY;1.30 AAT.
There were winners!! 2x Nimbus 4 M not EB’s they were on spot 3-4-and 5 with Michael, Felipe and Alexander followed by Bruno in the NimetaX.

RAIN today there,  as here in Holland, lot’s of rain!!!!

————

Czech Nationals….finished with still  6/7 days out of 12!….
Pribram
25 June 2017 – 7 July 2017

RACE 9; 3 hour , 3.15 and 3.30 AAT’s were set.And flown by most!!!!
Club; Flying day 5 with 317 km.as the best distance in this class and 1000 points for Jaroslav Tomana in the St. Cirrus.
5x A St. Cirrus in the top 5.
Mixed 15m.;Flying day 6 with 397 km. in this class by David Mach and for him 1000 points as well and 4x LS 8 in the top 4!
Mixed open; Flying day 6 with 443 km. by Polish pilot Zdislaw in the ASG 29. Roman [Mracek] was a good runner up with 995 points.

Race 10; 3 hour AAT’s in all classes to define the champions as it turned out that July 7 the real last day had” have overcast, windy and rainy morning as usually during this competition. The weather is influenced by passing cold front.” So pretty unstable and complicated. They tried however…In the end race 10 was the last one.
Club; flying day number 6 and Jaroslav won again this time 1000 points and …..he won the comps as well in hist St. Cirrus.
4. 209 for him . Runner up Ivan had 4.045 points same glider and Petr Stepanek in the ASW 19 B was 3d.[3.946.]
mixed 15 m; flying day 7 and 376 km was flown and won by 2 Jan’s; Jan Boruvka [Ventus c/15m. ] and Jan Horak as runner up in the ASW 20 A WL flew 303 km. Not enough to win the comps as Miloslav Cink won, good on him;5.256 points . Pavel was runner up and Radek Krejcirik number 3.
Mixed open ;good day for Roman who won the day with 382 km in time 3.02, and moved overall from 5 to 4. The same  jump for Petr Krejcirik from 4 to 3 and Lucasz Wojcik [5683] and Petr Tygy [5262] remained on  spot 1 and 2 for a long time and also on the last day.
My Aussie friends Adam and Butch finished on 9 and 10 overall and my Dutch mate Steven on 11.Here is Adam;
“That’s that, the CZ Open Class Nationals are now done & dusted. John & I got everything we wanted out of it, team flying experience which we can’t get (in AUS it’s called cheating 😢), plus local knowledge gained from the site & weather.

Much learned as one would expect, one poor day for John & two for me – which finalised us in 9th & 10th. Thanks naturally to the great organisation, John & I both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves – also to our crew, Marek!

Tomorrow we start our journey for the POL pre-worlds where we’ll both compete in 15m V2’s :“

Over and done with. The good weather starts!
As shared by Adam.

————-

Austrian Nationals
Mariazell
30 June 2017 – 8 July 2017

NO flying on day 1 for all 4 classes ,but flying-day 1 started on day 2.
18 pilots in 18 m. and the first day was for Reinhard Haggenmueller [ASG 29/18m.] just ahead of Wolfgang Janowitsch.[Ventus 3T]  A 2 hour AAT and 589 and 587 points .
No day 2 and no day 3,…..so Flying day 2 started again  BUT only for open and 18 m. with Guido Achleitner and Andy Lutz as winners for 264 and 585 points.
BUT THEN,…. the good soaring weather arrived on July 5!!!And,…the 1000 points!!!
No AAT’s but nice longer tasks;444.67 km. for ALL classes!!!
Best speed in 15 m. ;112.16 km./h. over 444.67 km. in an ASW 20 C.
Best speed in 18 m. ;120 .25 km.h. nearly a class apart by Wolfgang in his Ventus 3T. Next best; 111.79 km./h.
Best speed in St. class; 100 km./h in an Discus 2 b, but,..not the best daily flight; 96 km./h. in an LS 1f and 1000 points.
Best speed in open class;129.75 km./h.  by Sebastian Eder in the EB 29. Also a class apart as the runner up had 112.25 km./h.

July 6 was another good day with  3 and 3.30 AAT ‘s and off they went. Another 1000 points day.
15 m.: 3.30 AAT; 437 km. in time 3.45 in Ventus 2B by Eduard Supersberger.
18 m.; 3 hour AAT and won by ,…Wolfgang…again….398 km. in 3.07 so a nice speed of 127 km./h.
st.class; 3.30 AAT  and 383 km. in time 3.35 was flown in the Discus 2B. An LS1f was runner up with 334 km. in time 3.26.
open; 3.30 AAT was again a prey for Sebastian Eder in the EB 29, what a “machine” that is.
473 km. in time 3.31 so a nice speed of 134.34 km./h.

July 7 set tasks from 367.26 in 15 m and St. and 388.16 km. in 18 m and 414 km. for open. Nice soaring weather in Austria!!!
15 m.;only 2 finishers a “hard day in the office”, but great job from the finishers. They flew 4 and 4.30 hours.
18 m.;5 from 17 finished and,….Wolfgang won. Werner Amann was “in” as well [3] and Andy unfortunately was “out”.
St.; only 2 finishers and the LS 1f won!!!
open: 5 from 8 finished Guido [Achleiter] won the day in just under 4 hours. Sebastian just finished as the last one from the 5.

July 8 ; last day at the Austrian NATIONALS in 4 classes.
15 m; 2 hour AAT…Eduard Supersberger [Ventus2B]  is the clear winner in this class. With 4.076 points he was nearly 300 points better than the runner up.
18 m.; 388.16 km…AND YES my mate Wolfgang won another day and is the VERY clear winner from the 18 m. Nationals in Austria in his Ventus 3. A pretty difficult day as only 5 from 17 finished. Most stayed under 200 km.
3.824 points for Wolfgang and the runner up Werner Amann had 3.525.
st. class; 2 hour AAT…the last day’s David Richter-Trummer leaded the pact already in his LS 1f. He did nothing wrong on the last day,  finished on spot 5 on the last day and is the new champion.Good on him.
open; 2.30 AAT…tough day for some, very tough. The Duo Discus T won the day[253 km. in time  2.32] and number 1 overall, Sebastian Eder,  lost a bit more than 300 points with 274 km in the EB but in  TOO much time; 2.53. A shorter distance might have been better but who am I….The number 2 Guido had a better day as runner up [779 points for 258 km. in time 2.27]  ] and moved in his ASG 32 MI,  to the winning spot NUMBER 1,[4.175]  with Sebastian as runner up.[3.993]

The Ventus 3 seems to be a REAL GOOD glider. In Sweden also Boerje Erikkson won ”  the Swedish Nationals in 18 m class with his new Ventus 3. In June he also won the Open class Nationals with this outstanding glider.”
Of course they are both good pilots too.
Schempp-Hirth also delivered last week DUO DISCUS number 700 . WOW!!!!!!!

———–

AMSTEL GLIDE in Holland.

Was flown last weekend and due to the weather one day was soarable but created enough happy faces, though not a lot of participants this year….maybe due to this weather.
The Amsterdam Soaring Club every year invites pilots to fly from their home-field Soesterberg for a weekend together and the pilots deal with a SGP regatta start and points.
They flew in 2 classes;
club had 146.32  km. and unfortunately the only out-lander from the 4 pilots was junior world champion Robin and he was annoyed with himself. I do understand, s…t happens.
combi with 10 pilots had 8 finishers over 194.73 km.

Club and combi winners as seen and shared by FRANS GUISE.
COMBI
1. Sjors van Loon in ASG 29 E/18 m.; speed 73.12 km./h.
2.Wouter van Willenswaard in Ventus 2CT /18 m.; 68.88 km./h.
3. team Epema in Duo Discus XLT; 64.05
CLUB
1. Maurits Hebels in LS 4 ;speed 77.11 km./h.
2. Jan v d Ven in DG 300WL; 63.40 km./h.
3. Theo Janssen in ASK 23; 45.49 km./h.

Finish by Sjors as seen by Frans.

CU next week with the latest on the 13.5 m WGC and Stendal.
Cheers Ritz

The end of June had a lot of rain ! Parts of Berlin flooded, as in a few days, MORE water ” dropped from the skies”than in a month.Too much for the systems.
June here was 2 dgr. C.  warmer than normal, dry in the beginning and wet in the end with up to 70 mm of rain on one day.
We just missed out on the average hottest  June ever with 0.1 dgr. Regional we had a real heatwave in Holland with a top temperature of 35 dgr.C., a daily record.
Comps with lot’s of days in the beginning and nearly no days in the end. BUT,..July is promising again, for sure NOT day 1.
Today is pretty good again only some local showers.
On the last day of June a 1000 from France [Fayence] by Baptiste Innocent [ASH 25] and on the first from July one by Keith Essex in Ely.[JS1]
Down under it is pretty cold for Australian standard; up to -7 /-10 in the South [Victoria] and still – 0.3 at Merimbula on the beach, which is cold for the coast.

JWC [John’s weather Channel]
As shared by Mary Anne

————-

SGP in BUNO in FRANCE.

as shared by Philippe de Pechy, winner of race 3!!!

A very TOUGH day for some!!! 110 km. was set and race 3 , after 2 cancelled day’s, was on.Some of the “toppers” missed out and did not finish, names as Christophe Abadie [66.6 km.], Didier Hauss [92.3 km.]and Daan Spruyt [53.7 km.]
Who won race 3?? Philippe de Pechy [9 points] !!!AND,…Aude …good on her….Grangeray [7] was runner up and Kai Linderberg [6] number 3!!Only 8 finished.
Christophe still leads with 20 points and Aude now has 17, Didier 14 and Philippe now 12.
Only 2 races to go!!!!

Some impressions from BUNO shared by AAVE.
still no smile on Benjamin’s face and,….he walks around with an umbrella,…no not to avoid the sun…..

Race 4;Not on,…such a pity!!!VERY POOR WEATHER!!!!So was the next and last day. So no race 5.
So after 3 out of 7 days the winners are;
1. Christophe Abadie 2. Aude Grangeray, 3. Didier Hauss.

As shared by the organizers.

Next race from Slovakia [July 29-August 5] !!19 Participants at this stage ….. 8 from Germany.

———–

Zwickau; German Nationals in standard and 20 m .class …..the last days.
June 20/July 1 2017

Waiting in the rain for better weather.
As shared on their site.

“Deutsche Segelflug -elite hofft auf besseres Wetter.” So the Top German pilots hope for better weather. It was not yet there on Thursday so …scubbed. 4 Days in a row ,…scrubbed,…such a pity, but what can you do…..?
Friday tasks were set ,….task 6 from 11. And,……also in Germany a tough wind!! The B-task had to be flown with 191 km. in club and as well a B task for the “dosis” from  205 km..
Indeed they flew on their last day!! Marginal weather but still Robin Sittman flew in his Discus 2A around with 88 km./h.Robert only finished on spot 22 and dropped from 1 to 3 missing out on ONE point to be the runner up overall.
9 outlanded, so 29 finished.
Kilian Biechele was in the end the standard class winner[LS 8 NEO] with 4639 points.

In 20 m. former TOP coach Uli Gmelin won with his wife Chrissie [former WWGC champion] the last day and they were the only team reaching 100 km./h.in the ARCUS T. This brought them from spot 4 to spot 2 overall.
16 From 26 finished and the overall number 2 [Theisinger/Habschied] out-landed and dropped from 2 to 8!!Quite a day!!
Winners;team Ladenburger/Krohmer with 4210 points.

The German Nationals continued for 15 and 18 m./open  class in

———–

STENDAL
German Nationals in 15 m.,18 m., and OPEN class!!
July 04-14

It looks like 105 pilots have entered this National competition in 3 classes.A huge amount of TOPPERS in each classes certainly OPEN!! Always GREAT FUN to follow the different German Nationals.
Monday was a real good training day with good tasks.
15m; got a 354 km. racing task for the 34 pilots and young Alexander Spaeth in the Ventus 2 A won the day ahead of Kai Lindenberg [ASW 27B] just back from the Grand Prix in France. Busy busy!!
18 m;Matthias Sturm was the best from 42 pilots in this class [ ASG 29] over 378 km. Mario Kiessling in the Ventus 3T was runner up and “our” Dutch topper Sikko was 5th.[ASG 29es]
Open; 484.5 km. for the open class and Felipe Levin in the EB 29 DR was the best with a speed of 125 km./h. , 10 km. /h. faster than good old Bruno Gantenbrink in the Nimetax and Michael Sommer was 3d in his EB 29R.
Quite some names,.. as I said before…. young and “old[er] toppers.”
29 in this class and “only” 14 of them finished. But practice,…so who cares!

Weather for day 1 as shared by Arnaud.

day 1;Yesterday…
15 m; 400 km.
So many well-known names and a for me total stranger won the day .Good on Soeren Noelke who got the first 1000 points. Only 6 out-landings and a good flight from Katrin Senne; spot 6!!
18 m; 320 km.
NO out-landings and Mario {Kiessling }won just ahead of “our”  Sikko. Nice speed…129 km./h. only 793 points for Mario.
open; 416 km.
Micheal Sommer still knows how to win, so he did so on day 1…. 1000 points for him.Speed 122 km./h.
8 EB variations in the top 10!!!!
In the daily  top 10 only “toppers” as Felipe Levin, Markus Frank, Olivier Binder,Pierre de Broqueville, Alexander Mueller,  Uwe Foerster, Werner Meuser, Bruno Gantenbrink and Klaus Kalmbach.
26 started and 2 did not finish
Nice day 1.

Day 2; today. More news next week.
15 m.;
18 m.;
open;

———–

Czech Open Nationals…..PRE WORLDS in 18 m. class and nationals  in Czech Rep.
June 25-July 7 2017.

The first 4 days were difficult.
It turned out that day 2 was flyable, so task 1 was set in all 3 classes[club, combi 15 m. and combi open] ; 2.30 AAT’s for all of them.
302 Km was flown in the open class in time 2.33 by one of the Lukasz’ses from Poland, this time Lukasz Wojcik in .[JS 1 CJ EVO 18 m]
306 even in 15 m in time 2.33 by young Czech pilot Radek Krejcirik.[Ventus 2A]
217 in the St Cirrus in time 2.43 by Czech pilot Jiri Fousek.
Day 4 showed task 2 , but only for 15 m.[ 2 hour AAT] The weather was very poor and just when the day was cancelled the day improved and the 15 m. pilots went for it. Still scattered CB’s in the whole area according to Adam [Woolley] who shared the picture below. Adam is flying 9 events this year and 5 in Europe.
“Spain for fun, HWW17, here, POLAND [ pre-worlds 15 m] , finally the UK EGC!” AND,…as he told me , he is on the verge of his 1000th competition- flying-hour.

Miloslav Cink and Pavel Louzecky both in an LS 8, started and finished more or less together and flew 211 km. in time 2.08 and gained 657 and 654 points. Radek was 3d with 580.
Keep an eye for the future on Radek and Miloslav, I know them as juniors and from other comps,…they are GOOD!!!
As there was no flying for Wolfgang, Steven,  Butch and Adam we could chat on FB.
I knew it was Wolfgang’s birthday last Wednesday, so I asked Adam to give him a big hug from me. As you can see ,…NO WORRIES!!!!

Wolfgang rather looks surprised!!
Picture shared by Adam.

“Every morning is different. Yesterday’s fog replaced heavy rain connected with low pressure over Germany.As we don’t want to miss any chance to fly we watch satellite pictures and weather development. There is a chance for short task for at least one class in the afternoon.” From the official site by Tomas Rendla.
Briefing was at 11, but unfortunately NO flying on Thursday.
“ Due to very slow progress of weather improvement we decided to cancel the day for all classes. Chance for flying in the afternoon is very very low.”

Friday June 30;” It’s blowing a gale, but sky looks ok“.

as shared by Adam.

210, 259 and 289 km.were set for the pilots in the 3 classes.
13 From 21 in club flew the task. Best speed 79 km./h in a St Cirrus.
Combined 15 m. was cancelled.
Combined open; Lucasz Wojcik [JS1 EVO /18m.] won with 116 km./h.He started straight away at 13.35 and won the day. The last pilot started at 14.18 and [virtual-? flew back? ]out-landed after 14.05 km.
Adam was 4th for the day and extra happy as indeed “Today I clicked over 1000hrs competition time, of which 400hrs of them are in Europe – beginning in 2005 at the Junior World Gliding Champs in U.K.!Some useless stats, I’ve flown 63,869 declared Kilometers over 256 starts in 14 different glider types, of which 300+ hours are in a Cirrus; My two fastest tasks have both been at 158kph; best placings, two nationals wins;Having a great time!”

On July 1 tasks were set, day 3 from 7 till now; 2.30 AAT’s in club and combined 15 m. and 2 hours for open, later changed in 2.30.
Only 2 classes flew as club was cancelled.
4 LS 8 gliders in the top in 15 m with Karel Novak as best with 196 km. in time 2.27. Only 6 [ from 16] finishers and “poor” Radek was out. Such a pity , he dropped overall from 1 overall to 7 and he is such a good pilot. Weather,…it’s all in the game.
Another good young pilot Miloslav leads the pact now and was 3d for the day.
So 2.30 hours in open class , with also half of the pilots ‘OUT’. Among them Aussie -Adam. Not Butch he was 5th for the day. My Dutch friend Steven was out as well and Wolfgang did not start anymore, as he had to go home to fly the Austrian Nationals.
244 k. for the winner in time 2.42; ROMAN MRACEK ,…..I missed him in the top…..till now.

So one week over, hopefully good weather in week 2.
July 2 had already nice set tasks. CLUB; 257 km. MIXED 15 m.;272 km and MIXED OPEN; 263 km.

Still some doubt with the organizers as they mentioned ;
“This morning it doesn’t look as a perfect day for gliding. The sky is cloudy with 7/8 of clouds. On the positive side the wind speed decreased significantly compared to previous days. There should be less clouds in the afternoon and we believe at least some task will be possible.”
Start / take off was mandatory from the concrete runway!!!Still very windy!
VERY difficult day with lot’s of out-landings and only in open class 2 FINISHERS…..1000 and 999 well deserved points.!!! The 2 Polish pilots , Lucasz [JS 1 EVO/18 m.]  and Zidslaw, [ASG 29E/18m.] managed to fly the task travelling together with a speed of 74 km./h.
So definitely a VALID day in this class.
ALL pilots in the other 2 classes DID NOT FINISH!!!!BUT,…both had a valid day!!!!
In club 7 pilots flew over 100 km.!!!
In 15 m. 2 pilots nearly reached the field but missed out on 12 km. Still a 1000 points -day.

2 Hour AAT’s to start the new week with on Monday.
The morning-news:”After morning rain, low clouds and not really optimistic forecast the weather now is almost unbelievable. There are ⅜ of beautiful cumulus clouds over the airfield and all the competitors are already in the air and some competing already.”

To avoid so many out-landings AGAIN and “ because of forecasted increasing quantity of clouds and possible showers,”they decided to keep the 2 hour AAT’s.
It turned out a “fab-day”!!!!! Great speed and all pilots home!!!This was the weather the organizers hoped for from the beginning.
Club; 225 km. in the St Cirrus with 112 km./h.
15 m; 269 and 274 k. by Radek Kucirek [Ventus 2Bx/15m.] and Radek Krejcirik in the Ventus 2A/15 m.]Speed;130 km./h.
open;289 km. with a speed of 144.60 km./h.!!
AND,…… a valid competition now in ALL classes!

Tuesday;
Club a 3 hour AAT, the other 2 classes 3.30 AAt’s. Enough time to show each pilots quality!
But it turned out totally different.
Official news;”Front between warm air from south and cold air from north caused spread out on Cumulus clouds to Stratocumulus grey layer which stopped all thermal activity. So after one and half our of friendly talks on grid the day was canceled for all classes.”
DAY WAS SCRUBBED.

Today’s tasks; AAT’s from 3 hours, 3.15 and 3.30.

————–

FINNISH NATIONALS open and club class
June 25-July 2 2017.

as shared by the organizers from Purjelennon SM 2017

14 gliders in a mixed open class and 8 in club class at the well known airport of Rayskala “battle”  for the highest spot.
Day 1 showed 2 hour AAT’s and in both classes 3 out-landings.Best distance 226 in 2.04 in the Lehto/Sorri-ARCUS M.
Then,…as everywhere in Europe not the best weather so 2 day’s scrubbed.
Task 2 had 3 hour AAT’s so better expectations for the weather. And indeed in Open 380 km. was flown in the Hirvola/Leinikki-ARCUS with a nice speed of 127 km./h. .
In Club also a 1000 points-day and all those points went to Sakari Pyorre in his LS 7 flying 301 km. with a speed of 100 km./h.
Task 3 on Thursday showed 497.87 km. so nearly 500 km. to fly for the pilots in open class, one of those great days in Rayskala, I have seen many of them.
All 14 pilots in this class finished and best [1000 points]  was Kristian Roine with a speed of 130 km./h. in his 18 m. LS 8T.
Visa Matti in the ARCUS followed with 132 km./h. in the ARCUS.
In club,404,53 km. was set and also here a 1000 points-day and 1 out-landers. Anti Koskiniemi was the best in his St Cirrus.

After 3 days the overall scores in club look like this; 2.580 points for Sakari and 2.320 for Anti.
After 3 days in open;2.438 points for Antti Lehto and Juha Sorri in the ARCUS M and 2.408 for Kristian in the LS 8.

On July 1 task 4; 2.30 AAT’s for both classes.
312 k. was flown by team Hirvola/Leinikki in time 2.30 at the dot!!!! After an early start they won the day and moved from 6 to 5 overall in the final scores.
Antti and Juha lost 100 points for the day but still had just enough to win the comps with 2 points!!!!
3147 for them and 3145 for Kristian!!!!!

Antti and Juha and Paula ,Antti’s daughter ,who won a gold medal with “100 year Finland” earlier as well, with synchronized skating with Team Dynamique.

In club, Antti , this time Koskiniemi,  in the St Cirrus won again and moved up to 2 overall. [3221]Winner was Sakari in his LS 7 nearly 200 points ahead.[3431]
4 Days out of 7 .

———–

By the way the USA club class nationals in Hobbs were won by Mike Westbrook in the Discus 2BW[5095 points]
Runner up Mike Opitz same glider,…. a few less points ;4965.
Michael Marshall in the 15 m. ASW 20C was 3d with 4902 points. He won the last day!!

———-

13.5 m WGC in Hungary.

I follow some of my “mates” flying this WGC in Hungary.There are 18 participants and the ones I know;
Tony Condon and Francois Pin from the USA flying the Silent 2 Electro 13.5m.
Stefano Ghiorzo [last champion!!] and Thomas Gostner from Italy in the  Diana 2 VersVS.
Sebastian Kawa from Poland in the GP 14 Velo.
Uli Schwenk from Germany flying the mini Lak.
Contest period; July 3-July 15 with a reserve day on the 16th.

Combined with this competition the 18 m. will be flown.

Team USA with Tony and Francois and crew.
Team USA!
“Finally, after a bit of ferrying between Italy and Hungary, and some lost luggage, car repairs and trailer fixing, we are all here with all our stuff: 2 pilots, 2 crew, 2 cars, 2 trailers, 2 gliders, and all luggage. Gliders went through scrutineering yesterday, and we spent yesterday and today finetuning things with test flights, as the weather was not conducive to tasks. Just a bit more paperwork and registering, etc., and we’ll be all set.” by Francois.

On Saturday July 1:”Good morning from Szatymaz. Front just passed with some rain overnight. Field is wet. No task for the final practice day. Probably some local flying possible late afternoon. Tomorrow is opening ceremonies at 5 PM, flying will be allowed as long as we are home for the ceremonies.”

Sebastian’s glider GP 14 in the rain…
As shared by Sebastian who had critic as well on the FAI;
“FAI please remove wing loading limits in 13.5 competitions. It causes step back in designs and will kill the class.
Well. Good thing about WL is that we will have more girls ( they eat less ) in the 13.5m class and more young slim pilots. That will be fun ! Heavier and usually older pilots will be eliminated due to FAI policy and I don’t think it is something to be proud of. ”
It created some discussions.

Last practice day AND opening at 5, on Sunday with nice weather and a nice dinner and the company of many good friends.

As shared by Sebastian                  AND                                       by  US Soaring Teams.

The 14 pilots in this 2d WGC for 13.5 m. started with a set task of 255 km. on July 3;
day 1;4 pilots managed to reach the first TP ….88km. against the 35/40 km./h. -wind…….and if they did it  meant that they could finish the full 255 km. as well , as the problems were in the beginning.
Sebastian,[GP VELO]  Uli and his young German mate Florian and Sebastian Reira from Argentina , all in a the mini-LAK [one with FES] were the heroes for the day for only 500 points max though!!!
He got a warning for spate delivery of the file,…..but Lithuanian pilot Vladas Motuza[ mini lak]  fought this flight to come home as well. He did with a speed of 59.77 km./h. arriving at 19.12, when most of the others had had a beer or 2 already.Good on him!!!!

With Sebastian [1] , Uli [2] and Florian.
As shared by the German team.

Day 2; 351 km. It might get boring,…Sebastian won again. The “other” Sebastian from Argentina was runner up, so a real “Sebastian-day! Uli was 3d and Stefano and Thomas followed. Pretty good day for Tony and Francois on this Independence Day ;7 and 8.

Day 2 as shared by US Soaring Teams.

Today they expect the first launch at 11.45. No tasks yet.
THOUGH…….US Soaring is quick;
“Today’s task in Szatymaz is a 331km Racing Task. This will be our first time exploring the area to the East.” There you are!!

————

MORE next week…..Cheers Ritz
to finish this fabulous picture from NZ  from Geoff Soper Photography.

It was not a bad season till now, in fact just a great season, but the weather is “off” at the moment and will be off here till next week.
Last Monday, so 2 days ago,  was an extremely good day in this area.
On this day, June 26,  Tijl Schmelzer [ Ventus 2CT /18m.] flew a great 1000 km. from Keiheuvel in Belgium over a very small area AND,…mainly over our small FLAT  country The Netherlands!!!!! TOP JOB!!!!
“Incredible day of an already incredible season. Unfortunately the weather area was tiny, but the airmass inside was fantastic. This flight would not have been possible to plan without Topmeteo. Astonishing how accurate it was today (as it was also most of the season).” OLC comment from Tijl.
The whole flight was under 1670 m. AGL and it took just over 11 hours ;1.023.7 km. speed 92.6 km./h.Good on you Tijl!!!!

Tijl at another occasion.

During my absence Tijl flew a 1000 as well this time with his mate Ken in the Nimbus 4DT;
Here is Ken’s story about that day with a free flight over 1.028 km.
“Well, I didn’t have to think long when Tijl called me on Tuesday June 13 at noon and asked, what about another 1000K together tomorrow? I called my dad and asked if the Nimbus was available for an early takeoff the next day. Around 11 o’clock at night, everything was ready and we all prepared to sleep at the airfield.

Night rest was short but good. We prepared on time, no rush. Wil, our towpilot also showed up on time and prepared the Husky. Last meteo updates still showed the possibility for a 1000km flight.

Goal was to break the Belgian Record for out an return with a turnpoint in Czech Republic near Karlovy Vary. Tijl checked all the loggers one more time and off we went. The Nimbus was fully loaded but takeoff was no problem for the Husky. Runway 09 also gave us that little extra obstacle clearance.

Wil towed us towards the Belgian border near Maastricht. Clearance to climb to 5500ft was already obtained from Kleine Brogel before the start and confirmed once airborne. When we released, a quick check of the turbo was done and we accelerated towards the startline into Maastricht airspace.

8:47, we zoomed the speed back to 120kmh and set course straight to Weisweiler. Headwinds were much stronger than expected, 17kmh instead of the forecasted 3 to 4kmh. Our glide ratio was only 40 where we wanted at least 50. Arrival altitude at Weisweiler was only 450m. Still, clouds were already visible and we discussed the outlanding possibilities in case the power plant did not work and the turbo would fail.

1,9m/s average was the first climb. Unfortunately we didn’t get higher than 1100m and our first try to reach Bergheim was abandoned. Headwinds were still too strong. On the second climb we got up to 1200m and with some indication of lift on our route we decided to continue.

Bergheim delivered as promised and we could quickly continue to Dormagen. The cumulus clouds developed nicely over the Sauerland but the cloudbase did not go as high as expected. Nevertheless we were almost on speed and progressed as planned.

Tijl and I changed controls every 45 minutes to an hour. The heavy Nimbus behaved perfectly. She climbs incredibly well although being filled to max takeoff weight. She really is a joy to fly.

Towards the Wasserkuppe the cloud cover changed from scattered, to broken and eventually overcast. We decided to fly a bit slower and keep high. Once past the high terrain it opened up and we increased our speed in between thermals again. Where were had to avoid some airspace in the beginning, we could now set course straight to our turningpoint.

But what happened then really caught us by surprise. In just 10 minutes time the sky turned from textbook soaring weather to blue. Did I fell asleep for a few minutes and missed something or did the clouds disappear just by a blink of the eye Tijl asked out loud. A warm airmass came in from the south and was not forecasted, at least not this far north.

We continued on course but with the first climbs in the new airmass it became obvious the goal of flying the out and return would be very difficult if not impossible. 30km north we could see the cumulus clouds over some higher terrain. 120km before Karlovy Vary, we decided to abandon the task and go for 1000km free distance.

Climb rates under the clouds were good compared to the blue thermals. But planning the new course to make the 1000km was challenging. Airspace, large blue areas proved to be a difficult at times. But we managed to plot the best course, especially when Tijl eventually had 4G coverage and could upload the last satellite picture.

Back over the Sauerland and to the power plants to complete the 1000 became the game plan. Unfortunately optimum distance of the LX9000 did not take departure from the start line of turbo test into account but calculated from Kiewit airfield. So we started to calculate ourselves.

Arriving back in Dormagen was uneventful and we could immediately continue to Bergheim. Tijl flew the turbulent thermals over the power plants and I performed the stretches in between the plants avoiding the area over Jülich every time. Bergheim proved to be the best with climbs of 7,0m/s and 6,4m/s the second time. Weisweiler seems to be much weaker, still no complaints with an average climb of 3,4m/s.

On our last arrival over Weisweiler we could not get a real positive climb, only an average 0. We waited for a few minutes but when it became clear the plants would not produce more we decided it was time to go home. We were convinced we already passed the 1000K mark and glided towards Maastricht again.

The turbo was started at 500m. Clearance to cross Maastricht was obtained. Kleine Brogel was already closed and we speeded up towards Kiewit. We had to postpone our arrival a bit for a late incoming ultralight but once he was on the ground we could make our low pass over runway 27 followed by a landing on 09.

Once again 1000. Number 6 from Belgium for Tijl (when writing this he is at 7!…June 26!!!) and he did not know how many total, 12 or 13 he thought. For me a bit easier to count with 4 in total and 2nd one from Belgium, also with Tijl. Passing the 1000K mark still remains magical, especially flown out of Belgium.

Tijl’s comment at the end was the perfect resume of the flight, that was a heavy one! 😉
Tijl’s comment;“Magnificent but not easy day for Ken and me. We had to cancel the original task since the good forecasted area turned blue. We then made the best of it.”

So, thank you Tijl for another wonderful flight together. Although the flight lasted again 12:53 (exactly same time as the one in 2012), I didn’t feel that long. Thanks dad for your help and the glider. Hilde for your help, what would we do without you. Wil for the tow and everybody who showed up and gave us a hand.

The evening ended with some delicious hamburgers, comfort food for pilots and crew after a long day!”

Good story Ken!!!

Selfie over the start line. ……..  Clouds over the WASSERKUPPE……….Tijl focused

Joining Wilfried Grosskinsky over Weisweiler…….Masks on over the power plants. …..   Almost sunset.
Pictures and text shared by Ken Evens.

Back home! 1025km OLC, 1028km Charron. Tired but happy 😊

Back to June 26.…..Dutch pilots ,who did not have to work enjoyed distances till over 77o km. even over 700 in the Pegase.
The USA had straight forward weather as well. Wave-Soaring-Mecca’s as Ely and Minden showed several over 1000 km-flights with Keith Essex topping the list that Monday flying 1.189 km in the JS 1.[145 km./h.] from Ely.
His OLC comment;”A manic flight. Few of the energy lines went to where I was going. Heartbreaking flying across cloudstreets instead of with them. Lots of time spent getting low. The last 150k were in the blue. Ridge soaring isn’t something you do in Ely but had to do a little bit to make it make to Ely“.
Mitch [Polinsky] is such a [wave]-kilometer eater as well; “Declared 752 km triangle. Completed at 157.04 kph. Challenging weather to the north and a big blue hole coming home from my last turnpoint. Fantastic lift along the ridge north of Mt. Jefferson. A fun flight with lots of variety of weather.” Mitch flew the EB 29  from Ely.

Most comps had till now , a good amount of flyable days, but you will see it is getting less.
There are still a lot of comps in progress at the moment so let’s quickly have a look.

———–

Club and 18 m. NATIONALS in the UK.
June 17-25 2017

I left you after 3 good days “The soaring gods have blessed us with another cracking day for the comp”  and 2 cancelled days, so day 6 was on the menu for Thursday. BUT….”We’ve just announced that the day is scrubbed.”
After thunderstorms and heavy rain they could n’t do anything else. We expected those thunderstorms here as well last Thursday.They hit Holland but not us .
On Friday ,…no flying,…scrubbed.
On Saturday,….FLYING again !!!!
” The Strato-Cu sheet has broken up a bit in the last hour and the temperatures are increasing slightly quicker than expected.”
After 4 non flying days a short task number 4 , was set and with respect, the “oldies” are doing a great job in club class.
Brian [Spreckley] won in the St. Libelle and got the full 152 points for the day, for a speed of 66 km./h. over 122 km. Only 9 pilots finished the last finisher in a DG 200 with 53 km./h. TOUGH day!!!
No changes in the overall scores; Timothy still leads with 26 points ahead of Ian Macarthur and Brian is just 14 points behind!!!

18 m. started their day 4 before club , with 173 km.  and the 18 m. ASH 31 MI was the best with Tim Jenkinson flying it;97 km./h .for 575 points.13 From 25 finished, so a bit of a battlefield as Andy and Chris [Luton] and  Chris [Starkey] were “out.”
Changes here as Steve Jones [Ventus 3] moved to 1 overall, then 4 JS 1’s with Pete [Harvey] , Richard [Browne….3 points behind Pete], Russell [Cheetham] and Andy. Tim moved from 12 to 7.

There was NO day 7 so the overall scores after 4 out of 9 days stayed;
club; 1. CHAMPION Timothy with 2800 points. 2. Ian 2774 and 3. Brian with 2762 points.
18 m.; 1. CHAMPION Steve with 2943 points, 2. Pete 2863 and 3. Richard 2860 points.

I really hope the weather shows it’s best face at Lasham for the EGC !!!!!!

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Club class Nationals 2017 in Hobbs USA.

Hobbs is a good “name” for us Dutchies as Kees Musters became world champion in Hobbs New Mexico.
Now the club class is on with 23 pilots.
They started with 2 practice days and on June 20 contest day 1 was on the program with an assigned task from 224 miles, won by Mike Westbrook in the Discus 2BW who put the first 1000 points in his pocket.
Day 2; with 210 miles was for the son from CD Ken in Uvalde 2012, Danny Sorenson.
Day 3; 193 miles. Mike Opitz was 3d but climbed from 3 to 1 and leads the overall pact now. Good on him!

No contest day on June 23 and 24!!!!

Day 4; They did fly on June 25. New daily winner Michael Marshall in an ASW 20 and he straight moved to the top overall.A 2 hour TAT was set and Michael flew 137 miles in 1.57. Danny had a less day being 13th and dropping overall to 6. 2 Mikes at this stage on 2 and 3…Mike Westbrook [daily 7th] and Mike Opitz.[daily 9th]
Day 5;a 3.30 TAT was set [distances between 179 miles and 317] and again changes in the scores. Mike [Opitz] won the day with 202 miles in time 3.49 and moved to 1 again. Mike [Westbrook, 5th for the day is at spot 2 and Bill Snead in an LS 8 is 3d now overall. Danny moved up from 6 to 4. Michael Marshall is 5th now.
All these scores are “fresh” so preliminary.

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GERMAN 20 m. and Standard class NATIONALS 
Zwickau June 20 -30 2017.

On Thursday they started with day 3 with blue skies in the morning a forecast for thunderstorms in the afternoon, so A and B tasks were set …and they flew.
I just heard on the radio that Hamburg has been hit by violent weather after the heat, even a tornado.

Day 1 , 2 and 3 in Standard class;
Day 1 with 360 km was pretty straight forward for the 38 pilots as only 3 out-landed. Daily winner…. young Sebastian Naegel in a Discus 2T.
Day 2 got a B task so less straight forward weather and Robert Schroeder was the daily BEST in the LS 8 neo.
Day 1 had 3 Discus’ in the top day 2 ,3 Ls 8’s.
Day 3;Robert liked his win,  so he did it again!The 270 km A task was set and flown by ALL 38 pilots

Day 1 , 2 and 3 in 20 m. class;
Day 1 was good for the “dosis” as well;380 km. for the 28 pilots and their 28 team mates .Lot’s of ARCUS types in this class but also still the Duo Discus,  not to forget the new ASG 32 MI. Martin Theisinger won the day in the ARCUS T; 1000 points.
Day 2 with a 209 km.  B task and another ARCUS T. Markus Geisen was runner up and Serena and Claus Triebel in there fancy ASG 32 MI did not fly.
Day 3 with 287 km. was an ASG 32 -day both in the top.
On Sunday there was not much hope, but the “meteo” did not give up and kept hoping no gridding yet. So a new briefing at 11, and YES the weather was flyable and at 12 they had to be ready at the grid.Hurry up hurry up,……as a 2.30 AAT was set…..

And they flew last Sunday; day 4 had 237 km. as the best distance combined with the time[2.33.] in standard and 26 from 36 finished.
The “dosis” saw Markus and his mate as best with 285 km. in time 2.29.
22 From 26 finished.
Monday was cancelled, so was Tuesday.
No gridding at this stage in Zwickau, if they have “our”  weather …RAIN…., there will be no flying there today, but there might be a “window”, you never know!!!

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SGP in France.
8th Series in Buno June 25-July 1-2017.

As shared by AAVE.[Association Aeronautique du Val d’Essonne]

With 2 practice days and a total of 17 pilots [2 from Belgium and 2 from Germany]  this race started last Sunday for another 7 exciting races.
Race 1; Christophe Abadie [ASG 29] walked away with the first 10 points. He flew the 179 km. in 1.58 [90.9 km./h] . His mate Frederic Hoyeau was runner up [8]  and from Belgium Daan Spruyt did well in the ASW 27 .[7]Four pilots did not finish.

as shared by AAVE.

Race 2; With 110 km. a short race. Christophe was still in the right groove and won again, [10] followed by Didier [Hauss….8]
13 Pilots finished.
A photo- impression from day 2 as shared by the AAVE.

Before,…during,….and after.

Race 3; The midday-message from the organizers was ” 1st launch not before 14:00 … sky is not really promising on the race area but all sailplanes are on the grid.”
In the end they had to cancel the day.
This morning no better news:” good morning everybody. As expected weather forecast is really rainy for today. Race of Wednesday is canceled. See you tomorrow.”

The face of disappointment!!!!!

Benoit-Jacques Pontanus chief pilot in Buno and so to see tuggy,…

and well known TC  and coach from the French juniors and now in the organisation Benjamin Neglais.

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WGC 13.5 m. in Hungary.
Szatymaz, Hungary – Jun 29 – Jul 16, 2017

Preparations are in full swing and USA pilots Francois Pin and Tony Condo traveled all the way from the USA to Europe and then by car to Hungary. Francois will serve as Team Captain and competitor for team USA.In the previous event he was 3d.

Tony ready for a new adventure.

Never a boring moment whilst travelling. Unexpected Tony arrived in Spain instead of Italy. He had never been there, so “done that and ticked off’.
“Unplanned layover. Missed my connection due to first airplane throwing a brake fault warning light the couldn’t clear. Took a couple hours to find another plane load it up and fill it with gas. So instead of direct flight to Milan I got to swing through here.”[Madrid]
More next week when the comps are in progress.

Now in progress;
Finnish Nationals 2017 at Rayskala with 22 pilots in open and club class from June 25-July 2 .
Czech open Nationals 2017 at Pribam , the PRE WORLDS for 18 m., with 64 pilots in 3 classes from June 25-July 5 .With pilots as Butch and Adam from Australia and Steven from Holland and Wolfgang from Austria [Happy birthday Wolfgang];
“Writing to you all from Czech Republic atm, I’m here at the 18m pre-worlds. Naturally having a good time, for my gliding updates should you be interested can be found at Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures ”
More next week.

Both scores to be found at www.soaringspot.com

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Cheers Ritz

It is June 21 ,..summer has started and we have today the longest day here and shortest night, time to start up the blog again….on my way to 1000!!!!!
It’s really summer here as the temperatures reach over 32 dgr. C and tomorrow they hit the 35.
A bit later then expected as the server in the USA was down and they “serve”  my blog. Good old Bill quickly fixed it so I really can start now.
The move to the South was  tough,…..  but many hands make a job light and before I knew I felt happy and really settled. Then it was waiting for internet, TV  and a landline. It’s not all working perfect yet as I need more gadgets to see TV upstairs and to not see all the time ” no connection to internet”.
The last technician was here yesterday as well and he organized my internet upstairs. A few extra euro’s but now it works well and I get not frustrated.

So back on track after a pretty tough removal and my one-week-out-with -the- high-school girls last week.
Refreshed now so let’s go.

The weather here was weird. May started colder  than ever [[the apple harvest was lost]and finished hotter than ever before [2 tropical days with up to 34 dgr. C]. June was mainly HOT here.
All in all it was a good month for gliding and as there were several comps so that was perfect!!!
No time for real research and a daily eye on the news, but in retrospect I can share my views with you, when you should be still interested.

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HAHNWEIDE 2017.

Hahnweide , edition 51, was on with lot’s of interesting top pilots from all parts of Europe even from the world with participants from Australia, Matthew and Adam and South Africa Laurens Goudriaan who really enjoyed himself and will be back.
Great weather with 6/7 out of 9 days made it to the best ever competition in their history as they mentioned.
They flew in 5 classes and in all of them the first day was cancelled.
St Class had 28 pilots among them Matthew Scutter the JWGC -champion from Narromine and Adam Woolley, but also toppers from the UK as Howard Jones and Mike Gatfield. Not to forget the best pilots from Germany as the Schroeders Simon and Robert, Jan Omsels, Enrique Levin, Sebastian Naegel and from Holland Sjaak Selen who always flies well at  “the weide”.
With 6 out of 9 days Simon [5482] and Robert Schroeder [5395] were the best. Matthew won 3 days, but had also days he was “aux vaches” and finished overall on spot 15 .
In 15 m. class 2 German pilots, Steffen [ASW 27] and David [ Ventus 2A] managed to get exactly 1000 points each on a 449 km. -day. They repeated that on another day with 373 km.and when they were not equal in points they missed out on 2 . Clearly flying together with a good result;both on spot 1 with 5759 points after the 6 days in their class. Phil Jones [UK] followed with 5447.
In 18 m. it was a former Dutch National champion in 2009 AND Junior World Champion in 2013,Peter Millenaar [ASG 29E/18m] who turned out after 7 days of flying to be the best!!![6247]
Steve Jones was runner up and the JWGC champion from Husbos Christophe Nacke was 3d.
In the 20 m. class ” the dosi’s” ,some great names as well. What about Killian Walbrou and Holger Karow. It was VERY close between the ARCUS M from Andy Lutz and the ARCUS T from Killian; 6013 and 6006. They had 7 days and there were 27 competitors.
Open class is always nice to follow. Felipe Levin junior world champion in Rayskala flew an EB 29DR and with that glider he won! [5876] Very clearly as the runner up, Uli Schwenk had ” only” 5487 points.18 Participants and 6 days for them.

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BELGIUM NATIONALS 2017.

The Open Belgium Gliding Nationals were flown from St Hubert and they had 7/8 out of 9 days.
In club class it was mainly between good old Patrick Stouffs in the Silent 2 [friendly put at his disposal by Stefano] and young pilot Pieter Lievens in the St Cirrus. There was no last day ….cancelled….but the final flying day was top for Patrick and more or less a disaster for Pieter who outlanded after 31  from the set 168 km.
No worries though Pieter was more than 600 points ahead and kept a difference of around 200 points in the overall scores and was Belgian CHAMPION.[3182 for 2967 points]
In the combined 15m./20m. and st.class , Manu Litt lost nearly 600 points on day 1 but,….won 2 days as well. Here it was mainly between Daan Spruyt and Dennis Huybreckx; Daan won [6353] and Dennis was runner up [6098] with Manu on spot 3 and Tijl [Schmelzer] on spot 4.They flew 8 days in this class.
In the 18m./open class it was between Yves Jeanmotte [ASG 32 MI] and Bert Schmelzer sr.[Ventus 2CX/18 m.] Yves won 5 from the 8 days and with that he was the new champion.[5455 points]  Bert sr was a good runner up [5442] …….the number 3 had 4710 points.

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DUTCH NATIONALS 2017.

The Dutch Nationals nowadays called the KLM FLIGHT ACADEMY NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS were blessed with some good 400 km. -days, but also with struggling days to “just make it home or not”. 3 Days in a row had to be cancelled but they still had 7 days out of 11 and after those 3 scrubbed days, the “real” thing started.
On the last day of May, the weather really improved and Ronald Termaat [open class] won the 1000 points for a 532.39 km. task. 6 From the 8 participants finished.
In club class a 4.30 AAT and 391 km. was flown by Jelmer Vis in a St Cirrus.
In the combi class some pilots even flew 457 km.
On June 1 with 2 days to go again long tasks.4.30 AAT’s for 18 m and open and 412 for the “combies” and 350 for club!!!
The last day was as always exciting and good tasks , maybe a bit underestimated , were set.
234 in 18 m. class and looking at the distance, the speed and for that result the “low”  points, tasks could have been longer, but,….it was the last day and the weather was going to change. It did not …yet. Jelmer Wassenaar in his LS 10 a won the day with the best speed of the day; 130 km. p/h.
Jelmer was already 3 overall, so he stayed on that spot. Good old Sikko Vermeer won with 99 points over Hadriaan van Nes and is the new Dutch Champion.

Open class, had on the last but one day also a 4.30 AAT and Jeroen [Verkuijl] won with 430 km. On the last day the best speed was just under 120 km./h. No worries for Ronald Termaat he is the Dutch National champion for the so maniest time!!!5657 points just 51 points more than Jeroen.

In the combi class Joost and Erik turned out the best in their ARCUS T. They had 361 points more than Robbie [Seton] in his LS 8 who flew an excellent competition as well.

Joost and Erik, as shared by Joyce.

In club the former junior beat the new juniors. Frank Hiemstra in the St Cirrus was nearly 200 points ahead of Sjors van Loon [same glider belonging to the junior team]Frank had a total of 4954 points.

Congratulations to all!!!!! Hope to be there next year again.

As shared by ZWEEFPORTAAL.

And to finish, 2 spectacular finishes from this championship by Arjan Vrieze. WOW!!!!! Thanks for using them.

In front of the Thermiekbel where lot’s had a great time as always.

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THE WWGC IN ZBRASLAVICE.

A WWGC.
As shared by Pole France Planeur.

The WWGC in Zbraslavice, Czech Republic, was also blessed with good to very good weather. Out of the 14 days they flew 12.
The last day was the ALL- deciding -day in the 3 classes. 3 Hour AAT’s ; task C [showers were closer than expected], in all 3 classes were set to define the champions!!
Australian young lady Ailsa , 23 years old so still a junior, was on top of the racing board for most of the days in club class but in the end the German girls , Sabrina and Sarah, bonded together and against Sabrina who was already the 2013 world champion it is a tough fight!!!And don’t forget the “other” Sarah from the USA who was 3d once.
Ailsa’s outlanding on day 11 cost her dearly,” despite being just 4km short of the finish line. 500 points lost compared to the winner and has shuffled her down to 4th place overall.”
She is still young her time will come. She did a GREAT JOB now and maybe in her home country she will win .[at Lake Keepit 2019.]
In all 3  classes by the way  the German girls were superb after a pretty bad/difficult start  . Also the French and the Czech girls did extremely well.
Congratulations to all ladies!!!!!

Ailsa from Australia ready for Lake Keepit.

Looking back at the last day in club class;
The French ,Amelie and Aude, started and finished together at 13.02 and were the best on this last day with Elena [ about the same start time] from Italy on a daily spot 3.
Amelie flew 331 km in time 3.04, Aude about the same.
Sabrina lost 36 points, Sarah 71. But no worries. Sabrina [St Libelle] stayed on spot 1 overall [8662] , Sarah Arnold [St Cirrus] who I met in Uvalde in 2012 and 2 years ago in Benalla, stayed on spot 2. Sarah Drefenstedt had a great run over the last 3 days. She moved from 6 to 3 and stayed there.
Elena was 4th [LS 1-f] , Ailsa 5th and our Annemiek [LS 4] was 6th.For all scores www.soaringspot.com

Claire Scutter ,…yes sister from Matthew,….from Australia flew in club class, her very first WWGC; Here is part of her last comment ;
“After 12 days of competition flying the contest has now come to an end. The last day was the best day of flying that we had for the whole competition. Cloudbase was up at 7000ft and quite often we experienced climbs up to 10knts. What a fantastic end to the competition flying!”
And;“The final night party was absolutely fantastic, everybody was invited and food, drink and entertainment was supplied by the organisation.The organisation at this competition went above and beyond in every aspect. I am so very impressed with how well this competition has been run and I think that they have absolutely nailed it! 10/10! From gridding, to task setting to party events (and even the weather!), everything has just been fantastic.”

Amelie daily winner  and Aude in her HORNET, as daily runner up.
As shared by Pole France Planeur.

Sabrina and Sarah Arnold.

Sabrina between 2 Sarah’s,….no not 50 years old but top glider pilots from the USA and Germany.
As shared by Sarah Arnold.She wrote me . ” I had the time of my life!”
And with the picture;”I’m happy and proud to stand with these amazing pilots and represent the USA. Thanks to all for the help and support along the way.”

Club Class as shared by the organizers.
1. Sabrina Vogt, Germany
2. Sarah Arnold, USA
3. Sarah Drefenstedt, Germany

Last day in standard class;
A good last day for Dutch pilot Doortje Grunder who won the day in her LS 8 with 349.80 km. in 3.07. She moved from 10 to 9 overall.She won before, task 7 as well.
French Aude Grangeray won 3 days in her Discus 2A and won the overall scores; 8881 points. She was already world-champion in 2015 so she extended  her title GOOD ON HER!!!
Cornelia Schach [LS 8]  from Germany moved slowly over the last days from 4 to 2 [8736] and Jana , one of the 3 very strong flying Czech girls was number 3. Dana and Hana flew mostly together with her to top 1- 5 spots during the comps.

Aude ; a continuous success!!!
As shared by the FFVV.

Standard Class as shared by the organizers.
1. Aude Grangeray, France
2. Cornelia Schaich, Germany
3. Jana Veprekova, Czech Republic

Last day in 18 m. class;
Also here “strong-flying ”  Czech and French girls and not to forget former WWGC champion [2007] Katrin Senne[ASG 29-E] . She was most of the time “on top overall” as well on the last day so champion again.
On the last day the toppers started about the same time and Melanie Gadoulet won the last day in her JS 1C-EVO;378 km. in 3.05.
Alena from Czech Rep flew the same glider and was 2 overall. A pity she out-landed on task 2.
Then the 3 French girls Anne [ last WWGC champion in Herning] , Marilyne and Melanie on 3-4 and 5…strong team.

18m Class as shared by the organizers.
1. Katrin Senne, Germany
2. Alena Netusilova, Czech Republic
3. Anne Ducarouge, France

So 4 German ladies in the top 3[2 x gold , 1x silver and 1x bronze], 2 French [ 1x gold and 1 x bronze] and 2 from Czech Rep [ 1x bronze and 1x silver] and one from the USA.[1x silver]

The team CUP was for France with Germany as runner up and Czech Rep as number 3.

Picture shared by Benjamin [Neglais] TC of France proudly in the middle.

An other interesting WWGC and the next one will be in Lake Keepit in Australia!!!! Will try to be there!!!

AND,…….the FAI- flag goes to,….Australia.

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The FAI SAILPLANE GRAND PRIX was in between in Spain, Poland and Italy.

Spain; May 7-14 at Santa Cilia with 11 participants and UK pilot Jon Gatfield as winner [30 points], runner up Italian pilot Thomas Gostner [28 ] and on spot 3 Swiss pilot Fridolin Hauser. 5 Races from 7 were flown.
Poland; May 27-June 23 with 17 participants in Wroclaw and no doubt,…Sebastian as winner with 45 points.Runner up was Lucasz Wojcik [23] and on 3 Gintas Zube from Lithuania.[19]   5 Races from 8 and 4 were won by Sebastian.
Italy; started on June 10 with their GP in Varese and 15 participants quite a few from Germany and ,…from the UK …Jon again.
On Thursday with 2 days to go it was Mario Kiessling [Ventus 3] from Germany in the lead with 26 points after 3 from 4 days flying. Interesting, certainly with only 2 days to go,the same amount of points for Tilo and Giorgio….[.both in a Ventus 3] with 21 and both keen to be better than the other. Alberto [Sironi] is still in the race as well with 19 points.
Race 5 was “bad” for most, only not for Ugo Pavesi in his ASG 29. He was the only one who finished.But,…not a lot of points for the winner. Mario still on spot 1 overall.
“Ugo Pavesi, was able to complete the task because he was the only one who was able to interprete the day.
He flew, in fact, as a perfect windy day trying to stay always very high”.
The last race 6 was won by Giorgio, so 11 points for him. A weird day as they expected not to fly. It was raining early in the morning,.but,…it changed to a pretty good day. Giorgo stayed high and was not full of water and reached the highest speed of the week; 120.2 km./h..
For Mario it was not a good day, he finished ,….yes but slow 1 hour and 19 minutes later than Giorgio, so he must have been in real trouble,….but made it home. What was his trouble? He missed TP 1.
He dropped to spot 3 and Tilo was the good runner up!!

Numbers 1-2-and 3 and all pilots and Margot [l.] and Aldo[r].

The last news from the GP -site:

“Wonderful day today !
The conditions were great in spite of that there were some surprises along the task. It was a good mixture of wind and thermals, quite rough but some pilots could also fly the wave.
Jurgen Wenzel, the fastest pilot, at 125km/h, touched an aerospace just before the starting line.
Mario Kissling missed the first turning point so he had to go back to do it.
The winner of the day was Giorgio Galetto, followed by Ugo Pavesi and Tilo Holigaus.

JS-3 news

The new owner of the Tocumwal Sportavia hangar , Lumpy Paterson flew to Potchefstroom in South Africa:
Here is the story shared by Jonkers.
“What do you call someone who flies halfway around the world to try out a modern streamline cockpit? A passionate glider pilot. Lumpy Paterson just did that!

Attie did design the JS3 cockpit for a 1.94m, 120kg pilot, but in reality we were all a bit nervous when our better-build customers were placing JS3 orders.

Lumpy did us a big favor playing model for a couple of days, evaluating our computer aided ergonomically design cockpit.

LAST blog for the time being. In the middle of the move to the Southern part of Holland.
Worn out but we are going strong.
Back somewhere in June.
Laptop….out now.
CU and fly SAFE.

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SGP in South Africa from Magalies.

After my last blog , only 3 days to go for this SGP, so we continue first with the final results from race 4 on Wednesday with 385 km. All races were under good  and experienced “supervision”  of Dick Bradley.
Even with 10 penalty sec. for a too fast regatta-start  at 13.40, Laurens , who was still in winning- racing- mood and clearly on the GO , won the day and got the 8 points. Oscar followed and Marcus as well so the top 3 slowly is known, BUT you never know for sure till the last minute of the last race. In the end 6 gliders finished in about the same time  between 104.9 and 104. 4 !!!!!!Sven turned out to be number 3 after being lowest in the gaggle but having luck with a great thermal on this blue day with a “slighly overset task”.
A top video about this spectacular finish on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JslIOcn7P90
After 4 races Laurens has 30 points , Oscar 25 and Marcus 22.
Laurens mentioned as “secret” to his 3d win, that the EVO wing tips , with whom he flies, make him fly a little bit faster on final than the others ,so it is staying with the leading group and then……a race to the finish.

With Oscar Laurens and Sven.As shared by the organizers.

Race 5.On Thursday….. another day…another task 251 km. …another start time at 13.45 AND  another/different winner.
Splendid weather and as they said, it didn’t pay off to fly with the gaggle that day.
Swedish pilot Ronny Eriksson, had a bit of a slow week till now ,but got the 9 points to bring him up to 16 in total. He did VERY well as he was 12 km. faster than Laurens, so to know how what happened I had to see the ‘short’ story, as I was not home:
Ronny mentioned;” I choose to fly North of the gaggle under the clouds by myself found lift up to 30.000 ft. and a good energy line to the first TP.”  
Coming back was tricky but he was far ahead and could make it.

a new “kid” on the block with from l to r. Laurens Ronny and Oscar.
As shared by the organizers.

Race 6; with 264 km. and it looks like John [Coutts] re-found his winning mood . He won the day and passed Marcus [29] in the overall scores now with ONE point .Oscar was runner up and Laurens was 3d.
SO new total points with one flying day to go; Laurens 42, Oscar 37 and John 30.

Laurens in his fancy JS 1 as shared by Laurens.
Courtesy Bennie Henning Photography.

Race 7. Final day of this South African Sailplane Grand Prix.
257 km. was set for the pilots. I am sure there were still some tactic negotiations before the flight which was set for 13.45.
John, a former world champion,  was still in winning mood and was on a daily spot 1 again, receiving 10 points. That brings him to spot 3 overall with 40 points. Good on him.
Runner up was Oscar with 44 points he was just a tad slower than John . Laurens was quite a bit slower [132.4 km. for 142 km./h. from John] but he had enough reserve and is the South African SGP CHAMPION with 48 points. Congratulations!!!!
Young Marcus, only 21 years old did a great job in being 4th with 34 points.
“Skill is required to leave the gaggle after start and be the best and the leader to find the next climb.” is what he said. He was not intimidated by all those WGC pilots all older than him, but with their skills experience and decisions, he learned a lot.

Young Marcus …nice fellow….we are going to hear more from him in the future!!!
As shared on the FB site from the SGP.

The overall winners in real GRAND PRIX style.

The relief after the “stress”. Oldies are young from heart!!!

By the way the next GP in 15 m.  is in Spain in 2 weeks with . I will be VERY busy then but you can read all about it on the site;
http://www.sgp.aero/spain2017.aspx?contestID=29055

And when it is ALL over in SA and a lot of pilots are there anyhow ,they continue with a Conference;

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Nitra the Pribina Cup.

Day 5 , ” on track” as seen by ELFO.

After a cancelled day they continued again on Thursday with the message STRONG gusting wind and no grid before briefing.After briefing there was another 2d briefing,…as said before WHEN you can fly , you fly in Nitra.
But ….you could not fly and then,..they don’t fly, even in Nitra, BUT then there was a real 1000- points -day on Friday
Race 4 in club class with 276 km. The weather really improved last  Saturday and Italian pilot Stefano [Ghiorzo] felt that as well and used it to win the day in his Silent2. Finally 1000 points and they were catapulting him in the overall scores from 17 to 5 !!
3 German pilots followed in St Libelle and Ls 1 f. Great job!!! Gerrit, Stefan and Julia flew together and Gerrit and Stefan top the overall scores.
Race 5 in 15 m. class with 364 km. A real German day !!!! The 5 first spots were for German pilots, who flew more or less together. And also here 1000 points for daily winner Simon Schroeder who not long ago flew the SGP. He “jumped up” from 4 to 1 overall!!!!!
As the Belgian boy’s had a less day [ spot 12-13-18-20]on which SO many points could be earned, the toppers lost just under 200 points .
Race 5 for the multi-seaters with  362 km. WOW 9 German teams in the top 11. Only Austrian pilot Wolfgang and Belgium pilot Wim “disturbed” the German list on spot 2 and 8 !!!! 9 Arcus gliders and ,…very nice …2 Duo Discus’.
Race 4 for open class  387 km.with NO no German winner here as Roman [Mracek] won but they were still on spot 2 and 4. Several outlandings one only 20 k out.With the 1000 points Roman moved from 4 to 1 overall.

Busy busy as shared by ELFO.

The organizers wrap up on Friday April 21;
“After competing we enjoyed the goulash and beer in the hangar. Pilots are sharing their experiences from the whole competition but dont forget there is still one competition day ahead of us.”
BUT,….the weather did NOT co-operate so the fight was over and the new Pribina Cup owners known.

The morning news on the last day, Saturday, was clear;”Good morning! Due to the cold front which is influencing the weather in our area there will be no tasks today and no briefing. We expect light rain and also some winds in the afternoon.
The prize giving ceremony will be held at 12 am in hangar.”

Club class;
1 . Gerrit Feige from Germany flying a St Libelle [handicap 98]  2.888 points.
2. Stefan Langer also from Germany, also in a St Libelle with 2.880 points .
3. Gunnar Axelsson from Sweden in the St Cirrus [handicap 100] with 2.809 points.
For the rest from the scores you can go to www.soaringspot.com

Winner Gerrit in his St. Libelle as seen by ELFO.

15 m. class;
1. Simon Schroeder from Germany in the LS 8 [handicap 111.7] with 3.112 points.
2. Dennis Huybreckx from Belgium also in LS 8 with 3.039 points.
3. Jeroen Jennen from Belgium in LS 8 with 3.024 points.

Runner up Dennis in his LS 8/15m. shared by ELFO

2-seater class;
1. team Janowitsch/Koch from Austria in an ARCUS  [ handicap 105] with 3.269 points.
2. team Scheffler/Triebel from Germany in an Arcus with 3.168 points.
3. team Kretzschmar/Gillessen from Germany in Arcus with 3.030 points.

The ARCUS with team Scheffler/Triebel as seen during the last landing by ELFO.

Open class ;
1. Roman Mracek from Czech Rep. in ASG 29/18 m. [handicap 120.9]  with 3.003 points.
2. Bert Schmelzer jr. from Belgium in ASG 29 /18 m with 2.940 points.
3. Robin Sittmann from Germany in Discus 2c/18m with 2.922 points.

Runner up in full action in the great ASG 29/18m. as seen by ELFO.

Club and open had 4 flyable valid days and 15 m and the 2-seaters 5. What turned out to be the last flying-day,  with 1000 points was a good one for those who ended high that day.
As always a nice to follow competition also from home.

To finish this subject some nice pictures from ELFO. THANKS AGAIN!!!!

Some pictures with the beautiful surrounding! By ELFO.

Interesting pictures from landings as seen by ELFO.

The Austrian DUO DISCUS ,[ by the way with “our”  callsign ] saying bye bye CU next year.
Courtesy ELFO.

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Such great soaring weather here and over the Alps!

On April 19 another excellent day in our lower countries. Tijl Schmelzer flew a 1000 from Keiheuvel in Belgium  SUPER flight!!! Somebody called him the “king of preparations”, he IS!!! maybe even the emperor!!!!!EVERYTHING is always correct during his flight.

Tijl …here at the BENELUX comps,  such a nice picture!!!!

Not bad either from another field in Belgium Geraardsbergen 744 km. by Daan Spruyt in an ASW 27. Also from there Pieter Lievens flew 801 km. in the St Cirrus in a new Belgian RECORD and Niel Deijgers from Hasselt in the St Libelle 630 km.
That Wednesday Mark flew from Soesterberg in Holland nearly 1000 km;963 with ONE more thermal he would have made it in his ASG 29E/18m.!!!
World wide from Lienz a 1. 334 km.in an Antares and Giorgio flew 1.252 in his Ventus 3 from Trento.
So many 1000 km. flights, even 6 over 1.200 km; it nearly looks like Bitterwasser only not hot but VERY COLD.
One day later it was even better and 2 flights from Lienz in an ARCUS M.  over 1.400 km. [1.490 and 1.452]

Though it is damm cold, the soaring gods have co-operated the last time to “create” absolutely fabulous soaring weather. Spring always is good and strong but this year stronger than ever.
The ALPS are heaven on earth and if you fly from Italy, Austria ,Switzerland or Germany and France it just is good.

On the 25th so yesterday, LASHAM had a superb arctic airmass and several pilots enjoyed a great flight; Roy [Pentecost]  declared a 700 km. and flew it in his 18 m. ASG 29 E !!! With the 743 km. he topped the OLC list. The ARCUS T with Andy [Aveling] and Garry [Coppin] flew 758 km.
We had rain, hail, thunder and 10 dgr. C. here in Holland.

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CU later.

cheers R

With temperatures here in The Netherlands LOWER than with last Christmas [11.7 dgr. C] , it was not the best Easter weekend we could wish; 10.8 dgr.C. In between rain however, there were lovely spells of sunshine and great clouds.
Still nearly ONE million visitors choose our country as their Easter- holiday -destination.
I had a lovely Easter time with my daughter and grand children , we even did some packing ;more full boxes for my removal.
Easter-Monday was still cold here, 10.3 dgr. C , with wet snow and hail showers, but also lovely, heavenly Easter clouds!!!!!
So,…some nice flights!! One of the Dutch pilots , Alexander Venema, called the circumstances “awesome and explosive“!!
When I looked at the OLC in the evening this cold air was super for our pilots.Lot’s of top flights by many Dutch pilots, a total of 89 happy chappies!!World wide 509.
Mark Leeuwenburgh flew from Soesterberg in his ASG 29E/18m.  a distance of 712 km.!!Alfred Paul Alfers 714 in the same glider! Runner up at the JWGC in Narromine Robin Smit flew in the St Cirrus 508 km. And more flights between 500 and 700 km. Great cool but very clear day, I read.
Also our Belgian mates had a good day with over 550 km. flights from the Keiheuvel. Pieter Daems flew 553 km. in the Discus 2 and one leg was 183 km.
A lot of Keiheuvel top-pilots fly in Nitra, but still good flights from those who stayed home.

Alexander between showers and clouds.
As shared by him.

AND
SHOWERS as seen and shared by Patrick .

Also France, Germany ,Belgium and Italy had nice long flights.
AND,…the Perlan Project guy’s, Dennis and Morgan,  flew on this Easter Monday in their ARCUS J 1.594 km.from Inyokern.

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The Pribina Cup at Nitra.

As shared by Jeppe.

As every year , with the Easter holiday, lot’s of  pilots travel to Slovakia to find out if they can win in each of the 4 classes from  the Pribina Cup; 25 pilots fly in the 2 seater class, 39 in 15 m. ,32 in open and 55 in club class.
A total of 151 participants , a huge responsibility for the organizers,but they are used to it and Vladimir and his team ready for this annual event.
In the end 134 pilots showed up, 45 in club, 33 in 15m. 25 in the 2 seater class and 31 good amount, in open.

I am LOOKING FORWARD TO THE PICTURES FROM ELFO!!!! All pictures at their site under photos.
https://www.pribinacup.sk

Briefing day 1 by ELFO.

Day 1 on 14-04 with task 1;
They flew in all 4 classes but the day was not a valid day in 2 of them.
Club had a 143 km. task and 6 pilots managed to fly the task. A pity that it turned out an invalid day!!! 78 Points for winner Per Carlin from Sweden and the other 6 did well under the circumstances with a speed between 50 and 63 km./h. That’s “fighting” for points. Good on them.
15 m: they got 172 km to fly and 2 of them finished but a lot flew over 100 km. Even 20 of them flew between 140 km. and 171,69 km. so nearly HOME!!!! So sad!!!But at least they had a valid day and winner Bjorn Gintzel from Germany got 441 points. The other finisher, Withold Czarnik from Poland got 431 points. 2 Pilots did not fly so 30 outlandings!!!
2 seater pilots had to go for 174 km. and 4 of them managed to finish. Teams from Germany[ Schulz/Naegel] , Austria [with Wolfgang ], Finland [ with Visa-Mattie] and Italy[with Aldo]
7 Choose not to fly that day and 14 did not finish.
open class got 188 km and with one finisher, Danish pilot Henning Nielsen this turned out to be a not valid day. 11 Pilots did not  start. Nevertheless a great achievement from Henning who flew with a speed of 53 km./h. around in his Ventus 2C/18m.
7 ARCUS gliders in the top 7.

The organizer’s wrap up from day 1:
“ The first day of the competition is over and it was not an easy one. Registration went smoothly and 135 pilots decided to compete in PribinaCup 2017. After the opening briefing where Vladimir hearty welcomed all the pilots and family members and went through the important organisation things, the tasks were set. Short racing tasks for all classes. The weather situation was quite complicated due to the humid air mass that was influencing our area. Low cloud bases, weak thermals and thick cloud cover coming from the west disabling the thermal activity caused that many pilots had to land. Some, with the competition thrill, decided to take a second launch. Unfortunately, there were just few pilots that were able to complete the task. /My respect to them :)/ Despite the beginning of the competition was not the best one, we hope for the better end.”

Picture courtesy ELFO.

Day 2 on 15-04; was easy,….just cancelled!Only the organizer’s wrap up;
“Although we woke up into a cloudy morning we started to getting ready for another flying day. There were not one but two briefings today. On the second one at 11:30 it has been announced that tasks are cancelled for all classes because of bad weather situation. Unfortunately the cloud layer above us was so thick that it was not possible to compete. Some pilots decided to do some not-competition flights but most of them decided to spend their free time outside of the airfiled. The weather forecast is still looking very complicated for next few days.”

Picture courtesy ELFO.

Day 3 on 16-04; task 2 was set for all class AND there were scores for ALL classes. So a happy Easter for most.
Club; got 212 km. and only 6 pilots did not finish on this first valid day for them.Best speed by Czech pilot Jan Pavlik in the St Cirrus with 96.53 km./h.So well deserved first 654 points for him.
Swedish pilot Gunnar Axelsson had 634 as runner up in a St. Cirrus as well.
15 m; 244.29 km was set for them. 4 Of my Belgium  mates fly in this class and they did well flying together and finishing as number 2 [Jeroen Jennen] -3 [Dennis Huybreckx] -and 4 [Jef Kell] behind daily winner Czech pilot David Mach in his LS 8.The 4th Belgium pilot [Tim Huybreckx] unfortunately must have missed the “Belgium connection” and landed  after 36 km.
Lot’s of LS 8 and Discus- types in this class.
2 seater class; 252 km. so better weather expectations with such a set task. That turned out correct as there were only 4 outlandings one of them by the German winners from Day 1  and one by team Italy with Aldo 4th on day 1 and then one of the 4 finishers.
Winners; from Germany [Thilo Scheffler/Serena Trieber] with 102 km./h……787 points.
Wofgang and his mate had  13 points less and more Belgium mates Wim [Akkermans] and his mate only had ONE point less than Wolfgang so spot 3 for the day.
Open class; 301 km. for them and another Belgium mate Bert [Schmelzer jr.] with a 3d spot and 968 points behind Austrian pilot Heimo [Demmerer 970]and Swiss pilot Rainer Crohnjaeger in his ASH 31 /21 m .[994] 6 Outlandings.

The organizers wrap up from day 3;
“Finally this was the racing! The day started not very optimistic. We woke up into quite cloudy morning with the sky covered with thick layer of frontal clouds. Wind was so strong and cold that everyone here had to dress up in the warmest clothes including caps and gloves. We started launching at 12pm into a nice, full of cumulus developed sky. Later during the starts some rainshowers appeared near the airfield and some pilots got really into troubles to reach some height. Few of them had to take their second launch. Although there were many of local rainshowers practically the whole afternoon thermals during the day were strong enough and cloudbase reached above 2000m qnh. Now we can say it was a successful competition day!”

Not yet summer
Courtesy ELFO.

Day 4 on 17-04;
Task 3 for all classes ; 2 hour AAT’s .Just after 1 o’clock the message was ;
“The weather still looks very promising. There are a lot of beautiful cumulus clouds above us and no outlanding have been reported yet. Therefore we expect many gliders on final glide just in 30 minutes.”
Club; The Czech pilots did well this day on spot 2-3-4 in ASW 15 and St Cirrus ,but the winner was Polish pilot Wojciech Wojtaczka in his Jantar 2.Only 3 outlandings!!
15 m:a great day for the Belgium pilots. Cousins Jeroen and Dennis were daily winner and runner up and behind them some very good German pilots ,Alexander [Spaeth] , Simon [Schroeder]and Karsten [Leucker] Only 2 out landings so a great day for all.
2-seaters; ah, 3 ARCUS gliders now….. one with the owner of Schempp-Hirth Tilo Holighaus] on spot 3. Wolfgang and Christoph [Koch]  won and Thilo [Scheffler] and Serena  were runner up.
open; Czech pilot Roman [Mracek ASG 29/18m.] had his day and his first ‘win’. In 2 hours he flew 252.50  km. in time 2.05 !!! So 121 km./h. Former WGC champion Bert jr. was runner up and after 2 days on spot 1.
31 Went UP, 30 finished!!

The organizers wrap up from day 4.
“Today we woke up into the sunny morning with clear blue sky. The meteorological forecast however did not seemed that much optimistic while the through of low pressure area with cloudiness and rain was coming from Czech Republic. We expected a short flyable window that would allow us to fly short tasks. Therefore the first launched was comfirmed to 11:00 so we use the time till the rain is here. AATs for all classes for 2 hours. Starts went on smoothly, took just 1 hour and all gliders were in the air. The weather at that moment looked great, there were many cumulus clouds and gliders were circuling above our heads without any major problems. When we heard first 10 k on the radio and saw first gliders on final the weather still seemed very good for flying. This day was a big surprise for all of us and most of the pilots were able to complete the task. The cloud bases reached up to 1700m above ground with lifts 3-4m/s. The speed reached were more than 120 km/h. I believe pilots enjoyed their flights and had a great race today. We hope for more surpises like this one. ”

courtesy ELFO.

Day 5 on 18-04;Grid-orders were handed out but…the morning news from the organizers was;
“Today we are positioned in the middle of low pressure area. Frontal systems are circling around us. At the moment its cold outside and the sky covered with clouds. However the cloudiness should slowly dissolve by raising temperature. We hope for getting a flyable window in this eye of low pressure that allow us to fly today.”
So waiting is a good virtue and from the past I know that WHEN soaring is possible they fly there even when only a few pilots finish.

AND,….yes they flew all of them a 2 hour AAT and a valid day for all classes. Even the organizers were surprised by the weather.
Club;Swedish pilot Gunnar Axelsson , in his St Cirrus, was the best with 212 km. in 2.20 so a speed of 90.64 km./h. Czech Pilot Michal Lesinger  in ASW 19, was runner up with 201.32 km. in time 2:12:15 [91.33 km/h.]Then 2 German pilots.
15 m.;A super-day for our Czech friends Radek, Jan and David on spot 1-2-and 3.Our Belgian friends/cousins were on spot 5 and 6
2-seaters; Thilo and Serena are doing well ,very well they won another day and their ARCUS brought them over 232.64 km. in time 2.00,5 so AT THE DOT!!! That is “some kind of art”  as well.
The first 5 places were for Germany then Wolfgang for Austria and then at 7 a Finnish team and at 8 Tilo for Germany again.
open: Except for 2 all 31 open class pilots finished. Best distance was 251.53 km. in time 2:03:23, so a nice speed of 122.32 km/h. in the JS 1/21 m. for one of the Polish pilots Lucasz Wojcik. Bostjan Pristavec in the EB 28 Edition was runner up [235.99 km. in 1:58:19]

The organizer’s wrap up from day 5;
“During the night cold front passed our area and there was plenty of clouds covering the sky in the morning. It was cold outside also with some rainshowers. We were positioned in the middle of low pressure area and frontal systems were circling around us. Despite that there was a chance that clouds would dissolve as the temperature will raise. During the briefing, AATs with task time 2 hours were set but not many people believed today will be a competition day. First launch was planned for 12:30. We were all waiting what the weather will do. Shortly before first planned start the sun appeared and Cu clouds developed. However strong northwestern wind was blowing and the situation still looked very complicated. Launching procedure was a bit hectic and it needed to be paused because many club gliders were circling low above the airfield and we wanted to avoid dangerous situations. We waited about 15 minutes till the thermal activity improved. Soon after starts sky cleared out a little bit and thermals were active. Race started. According to pilots the flight was not easy, the altitude band was from 400 to 1000m QNH while the cloud bases were max. 1300 QNH. Local rainshower complicated the whole situation as well. The wind was strong, thermals were turbulent but most of the pilots were able to complete the task. Respect to all of you and thank you for a great cooperation! You were amazing!”

courtesy ELFO.

TODAY is cancelled.
“Due to an occluding frontal system influencing the weather in our area there are no tasks today and no briefing as well. We expect some rain during the day and strong wind blowing from north-west direction.”
So gliders at the ground not in the air.

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The FAI SAILPLANE GRAND PRIX IN SOUTH AFRICA !

Trophy and Medals to fly for!
As shared by the organizers.

With 8 participants they started from Magalies the airport from Orient for this 3d 2017 competition from series 8 !!
As said before Orient is situated approximately 50 km west-northwest of central Johannesburg and 65 km southwest of central Pretoria.
ALL JS 1’s here, but several different types.
On the practice day on Easter-Saturday, John Coutts [N.Z. ] was the best in his JS 1 -EVO over the 189 km., so somebody to really take care off.
On Easter Sunday the real race started ;
Race 1. 276 km. was set and John was still in the mood and with a speed of 120 km./h. he raced over the track and received the 8 max points for the day, followed by Oscar [Goudriaan JS 1] with 6, Marcus [Nouwens JS1-EVO TJ] with 5 and Laurens [Goudriaan JS1] with 4 points.

Oscar, John and Marcus as shared by the organizers.

Race 2.
224 km. was set and the regatta start at 13.36!!
This time Laurens was the fastest [ 123.6 km./h.] but only JUST as ‘ little” brother Oscar was a tad slower 123.2 km./h. as well as Marcus with 123.1 km./h.
Must have been a great moment to see those 3 finish,…fast and “furious”!!! And the rest was not much later; John had 122.9 km./h. and Uli [Schwenk JS 1 EVO TJ] ….Sven [Olivier] 122.2 km. and Ronny Erikkson from Sweden 118.9km./h.
One gaggle/bunch of white good-looking JS 1 “birds”.
After 2 races brothers Laurens and Oscar  and John, share the best points; 13 !!!

With Oscar, Laurens and Marcus from l. to r.

Race 3.
With 283.17 km. another day for Laurens who is in the winning mood…125 km./h.. 9 Points for him 7 for Marcus and 6 for Oscar. Good day for Sven , Ronny and Rob [Tiffin] , less good day for John and Uli….1 point for a speed of 106.2 km./h.

This time from l. to r. Marcus, Laurens and Oscar.

Race 4. Has a distance of 256 km. more later.

After 3 races; 1. Laurens with 22 points. 2. Oscar with 19 and 3. Marcus with 18.

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This cold, clean and clear air is SO good for soaring. Yesterday was another TOP day. Several flights from over 1000 km.
Lienz Nikolsdorf in Austria; 1.206,9 km. in an ARCUS M and with lift never ever experienced before by young pilots Tobias and Marcel from Germany.Max and Olivier flew over the Alps there as well ;1.165 km. First 1000, so extra special.
Locarno in Switzerland; young Davide flew in his St Cirrus 985 km. “crazy circumstances”.
Puimoisson in France; 2 more young German pilots with former coach Uli Gmelin all over 1000 km.
Sondrio in Italy; 1.070 in the Ventus C and the Oerlinghausen club flies there always in spring in the past with Ingo Renner.
Lasham in the UK;  had some top flights…918 in the ARCUS T by Andy and Garry, Roy flew 823 in his ASG 29 and what about David Masson in the LS 6 WL with 744 km.
Great day out in the mountains!!
Have a look at the OLC on ;http://www.onlinecontest.org

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One more week of writing then I really have to pack and move, so most probably no news till half of June.
Sorry CU you then, or in between with ad hoc news, when I have internet AND time!!!
Off to Amsterdam now, by the way we had up to 8 dgr. MINUS last night. Not good for the cherry – and other fruit trees.
Cheers Ritz