2240 milliard litres of water, that was the head- line on Monday in most of the Dutch papers AND on TV. Normally this amount falls in the WHOLE month of October; not this time. Last Sunday was a day to only look outside and see how the water created little lakes on the street and garden, for sure not to be on the road.
This , even in Holland,not too normal phenomena created problems as flooding of cellars, aquaplaning  and damaged tulip bulbs, who are not allowed to be wet longer then 24 hours. We might have expensive tulips next year …as well as potatoes.

Part of an historic quay in the heart of Utrecht collapsed.
Picture from ANP.

Kingaroy started with a practise day on Monday and the 50 competitors participating in the 52 Multi Class Nationals , in 4 classes,  had a 2.30 AAT in standard class,[ 14 pilots]  2.15 in 15 m. class [ 16 pilots] and 2 hour in 18 m.  and open class.[20 pilots]
FABULOUS to see that Dutch NUNA 7 racer Annemiek Koers , who is flying the St. Cirrus from Adam , participates in a soaring competition down under as well. Good on her! Sharing two “loves in her life” in one visit !!!
She was there anyhow, winning the Solar Challenge,  though it is a couple of days driving from Adelaide to Kingaroy.[from West to East]  But enough pilots from Gawler to take her with them, when necessary.
The practise day was flown by about 35 pilots and with 6 tugs they were all up in a flash.

On October 15 it was all about the REAL thing!
As Mandy mentioned { I got permission to share her news} ;
“All gridded, and weighed, ready to go with first launch at 10.45am.
300+ tasks for the short wings and 400+ for the big wings.”
” Forecast is 28C with light winds, with strong climbs to 10,000′. Should be going to 6000′ at launch time. Still blue. Tomorrow is forecast to be similar.”

Mandy sharing news via the GFA and her husband Pete flying in 15 m. class in Kingaroy

Who did what on day 1???
The 15 m. class is a very interesting class from the 15 participants 10 are potential winners! Lisa Trotter in her ASW 20 A was the best on day 1 winning with a speed of 128 km./h. the 336 km. task.
In 18 m. class more or less combined with open, [ same task etc]the winner was Tom Claffey and even not feeling TOO well,  he won the 1000 points. Both Tom and Lisa flew the WGC in Uvalde!!!

Tom Claffey and Lisa and Peter Trotter, both participating!!!

At 12.30  Tom started together with Arne and David [Jansen] both ALSO in Uvalde.  Arne finished as runner up, but David unfortunately lost nearly 800 points on this day for his 228 km.
I guess that’s 1 potential winner less, though you never know, as David is an excellent pilot.  Still about 6 from 16 potential winners in the race.
They looked ahead that evening at a maybe even better day as Mandy wrote before she went to bed;”Great excitement tonight with the prospect of Cu’s for tomorrow.”

Day 2 in Kingaroy:
“We have woken to a “Uvalde Sky” with flat bottomed Cus lined up in streets as far as the eye can see. Briefing is at 9.30am with first launch at 10.30am. 15m and Open have 500km tasks, Std at the back of the grid have 400km.”
Is n’t that a great beginning of a soaring-pilots-day!
But then you still have to fly the distances, as some pilots were worried about the high clouds!
In 15 m. Mac [from Japan] won the 1000 points [ speed for both 128.5 km./h] and shared them with Pete Temple. In the still preliminary scores from today it looks like EVERYBODY flew the task[ no scores yet for Shinzo]
In 18m./open it was David Jansen who straight away turned his less good day 1 in to a winning day 2. His speed; 139.9 km./h!!!!!!
In St. class all pilots finished!! Best speed for the winner 123.2 km./h.
More on Sunday! For the results you can look also at  www.soaringspot.com
And more about the comps at;
https://www.facebook.com/theGlidingFederationofAustralia

Talking about the World Solar Challenge;  in another class the Technical University of Eindhoven won the race!!!! They heard this on Sunday evening in Adelaide. This is all about a FAMILY CAR, called Stella. They stayed ahead of the Aussie and German team!!
On November 22 the ZES , the universities soaring club has a symposium in Eindhoven to finish the year of their 50thiest anniversary and one of the team members  will talk about this race!

http://www.tue.nl/universiteit/nieuws-en-pers/nieuws/13-10-2013-solar-team-eindhoven-wint-world-solar-challenge/

Overseas soaring in NZ [Omarama] had a big day on Sunday with Finnish pilot Jyri Laukkanen flying 836 km. in an LS 6 with winglets!!!Nice speed as well; 142 km./h.

The OLC started their new season on October 14 and by now all different winners in all different countries are known. Congratulations to all. Close by it was Alfred Paul Alfers who won for Holland , for Belgium Wim Akkermans who will be a proud daddy before the last OLC – day in 2014 and in Germany it was Mathias Schunk.

In 2014 the first to add their flights on the WORLDWIDE list, were the pilots  from Mount Beauty, where the CFI, Mark Bland had a tough day in Victoria to fly the ASK 21 MI over 169 km.. His mate Craig Collins, who flies in Kingaroy, had an easier day flying in 15 m class the 336 km..
Let’s wait what the new season will bring for all pilots!!!

Courtesy Ian Cohn
By clicking twice you can read it.

 Anyhow day 1 from the 2014 season OLC was topped by Ben Loxton who flies the Kingaroy Nationals. No secret that at the moment the airfield of Kingaroy, which is host for the Nationals for the 3d time,  shows the most kilometres flown; at this stage 5.516 with as runner up Mid Atlantic Soaring with 627 km.

Ben ; the first “topper” at the OLC 2014.

CU next Sunday

cheers Ritz

All guests have left and it is more quiet here again, so back to the normal twice-a-week- publishing of the soaring.eu blogs. Otherwise they are getting TOO long and too “old”/out of date and old news is NO NEWS.

It’s autumn here, grey and wet. Temperatures dropped from 22 to 11 and you can feel it. We even had on Friday the -coldest- ever -11th- of- October in history with 8.6 dgr.C.
Time to change from summer clothes and open shoes, to winter outfits and boots.
The Alps normally give a lot of joy certainly for the pilots , but a couple of days ago heavy unexpected snowfall  created chaos in those areas. The South of Germany was hit as well. Due to the fact the leaves were not yet from the branches of the trees [the weather was not yet really windy and cold over there] lots of those branches became to heavy and broke off, creating problems for trains and cars.

ALL fall – in Holland- pictures in this blog are from  ; Ineke Oorthuijs , wife from Sikko Vermeer, well known Dutch glider pilot flying WGC’s and EGC’s in the past and still a very active pilot. Great pictures and typical Dutch.

They only needed 5 days to win the World Solar Race over 3000 km.; the students from the Technical University of Delft!!!!

The happy Delft team winning for the 5th time and this time with a brand new model on 4 wheels. TOP!!! UNIQUE!!!
Courtesy Hans Peter van Velthoven via NUON sponsor.

 And the last day was not even a sunny one as they had to cope with rain and wind.
Their 5th win, so compliments to the university, the 16 involved students amongst them glider pilot Annemiek  as the only female driver in the team and all sponsors and others involved in this success!
By the way, the team leader was a young lady as well; Marlies Hak.
Team coach was “our” first ever astronaut Wubbo Ockels, who went in Adelaide on the shoulders of the young ones! Wubbo has a pretty bad form of cancer, so all very emotional and pretty special he could be there.
Runner up was the University of Japan who won the last 2 races!

The team from the University of Delft, with Annemiek 2d to the left and Marlies 4th to the left.
Courtesy; FB site Annemiek.

On the last days of the 2013 OLC season I noticed the arrival in Tocumwal, from Stephan Soll. Not only with son Aljoscha,  but also his younger brother Niklas is with him this time. Great to see that a young new generation starts to fly where their dad flew so many LONG and  happy flights for ages. Stephan was already in Toc. in the 80thies!!! He has an LS 4 stationed at the Toc airport  and came/comes back every year sometimes twice to enjoy down-under-soaring in Tocumwal.
In the beginning of October Austrian pilot Hans Peter Ueblacker tasted a bit of soaring in Toc as well.

The last week of this OLC season was and interesting one. 1.053 km for John Williams from the wave resort Kinross in Scotland [UK] in a 20 m. ANTARES!!! GOOD on him.
He saw the East and the West Coast , have a look at his flight on 10-10-2013.
In the same week  ONE day later, 2x a 1000 from South Africa!!!

The 18 m. ANTARES M version

The Jonker brothers had some good flights from nearly 800 km. from Potchef in their JS 1 and Wayne Schmidt a fantastic flight in his ASW 20 from 718 km.[513 FAI] Yes indeed the overseas season really started!
Even better the first 1000 km flights have been flown in SA on 11-10-2013.Here is the flight from Oscars  together with Pieter!!!!
Not just a flight but a set FAI  1000 km. TRIANGLE!!!!

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3402475

And here is part of the news shared by Jonker Sailplanes!

“ The first two 1000km flights for the season in South Africa were sucessfully completed today by Oscar Goudriaan and Pieter Nouwens.

Oscar and Peter declared a FAI triangle from Potchefstroom with turnpoints Delportshoop and Vorstershoop – a task of well over 1050km.  They launched just after 10h30 and set off at 1000m AGL fulfilling the FAI requirements.

The weather was not as good as expected, with only a few 4m/s thermals around the task.  The last turnpoint was only rounded at 16h00, with still almost 400km to go.
Jonker Sailplanes saluuts you – these flights were the 1st declared 1000km fligths in the JS1-C 21m!  Well done!

In the club class Ronald Taljaard and AP Kotze completed declared 500km [602 in total] in their Cirruses.  Well done boys.  Seems if they not only good at developing gliders at JS – they can use them also!”

Congratulations, great effort so early in the season.

WOMEN IN GLIDING AUSTRALIA…..just to let you know!
“Girls- just- want -to -have- fun- gliding- week 1-7th December at Bathurst Soaring Club. Free accommodation available in caravans and bunkhouse. Gliders, instructors and fun planned for the whole week. Come for a few days or the whole week.”

And more women in the news last week; Here is a link to Sarah Kelman’s story about “Gliders might improve pilots’ upset flying skills”. Sarah once was WWGC champion but I also  remember she had a pretty nasty incident in Rieti one day with her glider .
You can also read the article in SOARINGCAFE.

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainsafety/2013-10-07/gliders-might-improve-pilots-upset-flying-skills

I wrote you about flying in Brasil last week, it seems that Pepe who flew in the past many years with us in Tocumwal and later in Corowa loves Brasil as a place-to-go-to as well. I noticed nice flights from Luis Ed. Magalhaes  on day 4 of the  Brasil Nationals. Gugui Pernhagen , who runs Bahia Gliding, is one of the competitors and they had their last day on yesterday.
“Bahia Gliding is a Glider Resort in Luís Eduardo Magalhães City, west Side of Bahia State!
Bahia is in North east Brazil.
This place is Probably the Best Placê To Sailplanes in South América“.
I asked some more info and will receive that from Gugui, after the comps are finished.

Day 5 at LEM, was a good one with flights up to  over 400 km. Pepe flew the last 3 days with Marco Junqueira in the Nimbus 3D instead of the ASH 31.
Day 6 even had up to nearly 600 km. flights.

Women win  PRIZES; Malala did not win the Nobel Prize for peace as , [ the in Holland -The Hague  situated OPCW, an organisation fighting chemical weapons won the prize]  they said she was too young and they were afraid of her well being, but she won the prestigious European Sacharov prize. She also got an invitation to visit Obama.
In literature, Canadian short story novelist Alice  Munro  won the Nobel prize. In 2009 she won already the prestigious Man Booker International Prize .

Women in Formula 1; a more sad story as I read that the 33 year old formula 1 test driver from Spain, Maria de Villota, driving for team Marussia, is found dead in her hotel room.
Tragic was her race on the circuit of Duxford last year where she crashed heavily and was badly injured. For a while she was in coma and she lost one of her eyes.
Her book “Life is a present” was supposed to be presented tomorrow.
Poor parents [ dad was a racer as well!] and family and friends. It looks her death was a result of the accident last year.
Today her Formula 1 mates kept  a 1 minute silence tribute for her in Japan. A great race by the way!

Maria as shared on internet.

Generous women; In the USA a “nice” [understatement]  lady donated 100 million dollar to her former school!!!As a property developer she earns enough money to make the school REALLY happy!!! Good on her!

I was looking forward to a nice friendly fight in Kingaroy between Bruce Taylor and Arne Boye Möller , but,…it’s not going to happen. Bruce is not flying the 53 Australian Multi Class Nationals, but was so kind to bring his car and Brad Edwards ASG 29 to Kingaroy for Arne.
That’s what we did in the past as well. We swapped our glider and car for somebody in the Aussie team in Europe for one to fly in Australia. Too easy!
The comps start tomorrow on Monday October 14 with an official practise day and continue till October 25.
During free practise  they had a blue day according to Mandy, who regularly is the TC for Australia at WGC’s and a windy one.
“Today was another blue day with climbs to 6000’ AMSL or 4500’ AGL….
They set a 2.5 hour AAT which a few pilots flew.”
“Weather at briefing and the forecast 30kt winds have persuaded all but  a few hardy souls ,to have a rest day.”

You are up to date enjoy  and CU next Wednesday,
Cheers Ritz
on Sunday October 13 2013.

Love great pictures and here is one to start the blog with, shared by  Emmo Koetje  who flew with Jeppe over Leeuwarden in Friesland [the North of Holland] .
We were blessed in the beginning of October, with nice weather,  with temperatures up to 22 dgr. not bad for fall.But in a couple of days we have to do with 11 and wind and rain!

The overseas areas show already a good beginning of the season.
In New Zealand , from Springfield Max Stevens flew last Sunday nearly 600 km. [594 km.] in a Discus!!!
Orient in South Africa had flights up to 603 km. in a Ventus 2CM / 18m.One day earlier a distance of 713 [705 FAI] was flown there.
And I liked the comment from Chad Novak flying his ASW 20 from McCaffery airport in Queensland Australia:
“First time I have seen a 14,000ft cloudbase on the Darling Downs.  Great fun.  Extended my original task to go play.”
Only a few days and the OLC will change to 2014,when I am correct on October 11.

This are the winners from the OLC-PLUS 2013 season:
CLUB; the Dutch glider pilots from the Gelderse Zweefvlieg Club. Good on them!!
OLC CHAMPION; who else than Jim Payne.
BEST FLIGHT; Pierre Alain Desmeules [ 2.182,39 with 177 km./h.  Nahuel Huapi]
ALL FLIGHTS; Axel Nuss
BEST AIRFIELD; Bitterwasser

SPEED OLC;
CHAMPION; Jim Payne
BEST AIRFIELD ; Puimoisson
BEST CLUB; Again the Gelderse Zweegvliegclub!!!!!!!Something to be proud of!!!! Around 12.000 points more than the Gliding Club of Victoria who is a great runner up.
For all results points and flown kilometres and the pilots you can go to:
http://www.onlinecontest.org

It ‘s that time of the year again; THE SOLAR race in cars, the WORLD SOLAR CHALLENGE! As always they drive through the Australian desert on sun-energy, from Darwin to Adelaide. 38 Teams from all over the world are spending there time over there and follow the cars over 3000 km.!!!!
The first day was won by Team Holland from the famous technical university of Delft. It’s there 7th participation and they won already 4 of them.
They started on day 1, as number 13 [!!??] in their  NUNA 7, but overtook the other drivers in temperatures of 50 dgr. C. So pretty tough on the drivers, as these cars are not made for comfort but for speed by good aerodynamics.
This year the Delft University opted for a car with 4 wheels instead of 3, like last time.

The Nuna 7, sponsored amongst others by NUON,[I get my electricity from them]  as shared on FB.

The Delft student team building this car consists of 15 members and one of the drivers is a girl and a glider pilot as well; Annemiek Koers. As Delft-student she was  involved in the aerodynamics from this car. Keep that name in mind ,as she is a keen and good cross country/competition pilot as well.
She was even selected by the Dutch NAC, to fly in Issoudun at the WWGC , but opted for her study and project. For sure whenever she has time she will fly at the WORLDS!!!

Annemiek.
As shared on the Dutch Gliding site;
www.zweefportaal.nl
They also keep an eye on her on:
www.nuonsolarteam.nl

After 3 days the Dutch are still upfront , 80 km. ahead of the Japanese team, with the name TOKAI.
Will keep you informed!

The next invitation is from Gawler;
“The State comps will be held at Gawler from Thu 26Dec (practice day) through to Tue 31^st Dec. Great practice period for  the club class nationals, [held in Waikirie in the beginning of January] experience the great Flinders ranges during the main 1000km period out of Gawler.

Details and entry through our comp blog spot.

http://sastatecomps13.blogspot.com.au/

Any questions please contact Terry at terrycubley@bigpond.com

I have written a few times about LIVNO, but there are more upcoming interesting new glider fields as I heard; Bahia gliding  in Brasil is one.
On October 7 Branco Stojkovitch, who is a fellow Canadian pilot/mate from Art,  showed a video on You Tube and wrote with it;

“This is a video record of my second trip to Bahia Gliding in September of 2013.
Bahia Gliding is up-and-coming gliding resort located just outside of Luís Eduardo Magalhães in the Bahia province of Brazil. The coordinates of the Bahia Gliding runway are  12°10’7.02″S,  45°49’4.98″W. It is located on the “Alcatraz” farm.
The owner/operator and the driving force behind the Bahia Gliding resort is my very good friend Guilherme Purnhagen – Gugui. His plans for the next season are very ambitious: to make improvements to the runway, the hangar and other facilities at the airfield, to acquire a towplane and several additional gliders for rent and to overhaul the Tost winch.
The weather at Bahia between the months of May and October is good or great, with over 90% of soarable days, which in Bahia means XC flights of 300 km or more. Late august to Early October is the prime time, with the cloud bases reaching and surpassing 4000 meters ASL, (3,300 meters AGL).
More information about Bahia Gliding will soon be available at:
www.BahiaGliding.com.br
www.facebook.com/BahiaGliding
Thank you to Art, who pointed this out to me!

Branco flew the last WGC in Chaves [representing Serbia] and Guilherme did so as well ,representing Brazil.
Out of all of this , there was the invitation from Gugui asking  Branco to fly at his resort. Great flights were the result as an 809 km. flight in a St. Jantar on September 22. With several he topped the OLC list.
Look for all those super flights at;
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightbook.html?sp=2013&st=olcp&rt=olc&pi=16187

and a nice video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9nq0eZQcQ4

And Uli Schwenk, from Jaxida,  is so kind to remind us on the upcoming winter conditions and offers special prices for the covers of your glider, so if you need one this is the time to buy:
http://www.jaxida-cover.de/

You are up to date, enjoy the week and CU on Sunday “in the”  Soaringcafe and on Wednesday again here.
Cheers Ritz

POTCHEF

On Wednesday last week,  the 18 m.  pilots in Potchef had day 3; a 2 hour AAT . On the day before , the 523.5 km. flight ,  the Jonker brothers “were in a hurry” and raced over the circuit with 138.4 km.[Uys] and 136.6 km./h. [Attie] Not bad!
The 2 hour AAT was won by Oscar who had a bad first day only gaining 42 points whilst Uys had 771.
Day 4 was with a 1.30 AAT even more challenging, but not for Oscar who won again, but it did not deliver him lot’s of points only 489. He flew in time 1.26 a distance of 184.5 km. with a speed of 123 km./h.
After 5 days ,[ they had 259 km. on the last day ]  the Jonker brothers were proudly on top with a difference of more than 200 points for Attie and nearly 300 for Uys.
4 Days in club class and only 3 in 15 m., but it is still very early in spring over there.
By the way Oscar and Laurens were on spot 7 and 6.

Winner in 18 m. class; Uys Jonker.

 NARROMINE

Via Jo I got the next news about the 2 seater comps in Narromine;
“Narromine Gliding Club are hosting the 20 Metre  2 Seat Class National Gliding Championships from Thursday 28 November 2013 to Friday 6 December 2013 inclusive, with registration available from Wednesday 27 November.

This is the second time this event has been held at Narromine Gliding Club, it was a great success last time and promises even better weather this time around.

It is a Stand Alone National Championship and the winners are eligible for selection to compete at the World 20m 2 Seat Class Championships.

Duo Discus, DG1000 (and variants), Arcus and any other 20 metre 2 seat gliders are eligible for entry. There must be a crew of 2 and so this is a great opportunity to put an experienced pilot in the back seat of your club two seater and try your hand at competition flying.  It is a great and fun competition.

For information and competition entry simply click on the following link (or copy/paste it into your browser) to go direct to the Competition website.

http://www.narromineglidingclub.com.au/NarromineTwoSeat/
20mTwoSeat2013.html

For all those who want to practice in Australia certainly for the [European/USA ] young ones  flying the JWGC over there in 2015, this is a great opportunity. I hear you say; MONEY!  Maybe you can fly in the back with the owner of such a glider, he will be experienced and show you the area, just try and contact them !!!

Mind you ; it overlaps the tradional annual Narromine Regatta as the schedule is just very full, but Beryl “chose to clash with her own regatta rather than upset anyone else.”.
That’s Beryl!!

MINDEN

“The Fall has brought interesting weather that has been good for three cold fronts and three “thousanders” in eight days.”
These are the words from by now famous kilometre eater Jim Payne. He took the Perlan Project DG 1001M  for a flight with Mitch Polinsky over 1.113 km from Minden in Nevada on Tuesday the 24th.
It turned out to be a challenging day with blue conditions first , an  unexpected wall of clouds , into wave,  out of wave and a landing back at Minden after a bit more then 9 hours. The full story with pictures at; www.soaringcafe.com

COOMA

This week in Cooma , at the Bunyan Airfields [Victoria in Australia]  a  camp was attended by 37 skilled pilots in high altitude wave soaring.  As you know Australia is big, but from all parts pilots arrived for this by now 25th event. Some fly in and it takes sometimes days to get to Cooma. The Fergussons, Kerrie and Stuart invite already NOW everybody for next year’s camp.

“What a season, What a camp.
We flew Every Day; pilots reported Mountain
Wave Every Day.
One pilot flew his Gold Height Gain in the morning and his Diamond Height Gain the same day in the afternoon.
Rule No 1; you have to be there 😉 – start planning for next year.”

The Morning Glory up North, is still active as well, that’s a different way of wave flying but for those who love it optimal FUN.

Morning Glory as seen by Jo Pocklington last year.

UK NATIONAL LADDER

Some might not have heard about it, I did, but have to admit do not look too often. But now I am going to change that.
From Roy I got the next info and it is good to share it with you. It’s about the UK National ladder!
There soaring season is virtually over,  “but it has been a good year in the UK. I have flown over 270 hours this year including two weeks at Bitterwasser, two weeks at Minden in Nevada,  one week at Reinsdorf in Germany (great to witness the 1000km flight in a Cirrus by Michael Ebel, surely the flight of the season on OLC!) and the 18m Nationals in the UK.I thought I ought to brief you on our UK version of OLC, the UK National Ladder.”
So here we go!

UK National Ladder

Although quite a few Brits post flights on the OLC, of more prominence in the UK is the British Gliding Association’s National Ladder, here is the daily scores page:

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/Enquiry.asp

I thought I would like to acquaint readers with some information and thoughts on the UK National Ladder.

Like the OLC, big flights in lower performance gliders attract most points but there are some subtle differences:

While the OLC is effectively a post-flight analysis so you can continue the increase your score right to the end of the flight, the Ladder gives much more credit for declaring your flight turning points in advance of take-off and also credits speed points into your score.

In the UK, it is difficult to compete with continental Europe for big flights. To give you a perspective, only two 1000 km flights in thermals have been completed in the UK, one by Chris Rollings in an ASH 25 and one by Russell Cheetham in an ASW22, so both Open Class. No one has yet completed 1000km in thermals, in an 18m or lower class glider, in the UK.

With the emphasis on better scores for FAI triangles, here is the largest triangle ever flown in the UK, some 823km that also in the Open Class EB28.

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=35996&RC=Y

So you can a 1000km triangle such as those flown in Germany or Spain would be tricky in the UK.

Of course over 1000km has been achieved several times in wave by experts like John Williams in his Antares 20E, here is one of his memorable flights, 1015km flight in 2008:

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=14197&RC=Y

In fact John’s UK official distance record is 1108km but really over 1200km OLC.

There is a friendly rivalry between us ’flat earth’ southern pilots who try to fly big triangles in thermals and the Scots like John Williams. In the south we have the advantage that big triangles are possible, in the north, longer wave flights are the norm, limited only by daylight but mostly cross-wind so lower scoring with multiple turn-points.

UK Ladders run from January to December, in fact there are two ladders, the Open Ladder for all flights and the Weekend Ladder only for flights on weekends and public holidays. Having a full-time job, the Weekend Ladder is my main target. Your best 6 flights in the season are counted towards the trophies. This year I had a great rivalry with my friend, Patrick Naegeli, who also has an ASG29E. While Patrick seems to be comfortably winning the Open Ladder: http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/DispLadder.asp

We are very close for the Weekend Ladder. At the end of August, I was about 500 points behind Patrick. On 31 August, I could see on the TopMeteo and our local guru, David Masson, forecast that a big flight might be possible. I fitted the 15m wing-tips to my ASG29 for lowest possible handicap (index) and declared a 500km FAI triangle which I completed in  5 hr 50 min:

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=44933&RC=X

Imagine my surprise when I entered my flight on the web to find my score (my second best in 2013) enabled me to exactly Patrick’s 6 flight score

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/DispLadder.asp?Season=2013&ClubID={ALL}&Ladder=W&PageSize=20&ExComps=&ExTurbos=&ExExp=&Log=Y

Now the thermal soaring season, at least for 500km+ flights is over in the UK, we have the usual wait while we see if the Scots can overhaul us in the peak Autumn wave season until we learn if Patrick and I will have to share the trophy, awarded at the BGA Conference next March.

Regards

Roy Pentecost
Thanks Roy for sharing this with us!

LAKE KEEPIT NEWS

In Lake Keepit they started soaring-news as well. Good on them. Here are the links to read it.
”  The first  issue contains the normal lot of made-up news and stories with some nice contributions from:

And to finish a great picture by Al Mcd published in Zwevers;

“ My ASW22 at 22,000ft over Tahoe.”

See you next Wednesday
Cheers Ritz
on Wednesday October 2 2013.One day after Jo’s birthday , happy birthday Jo!
Jo shares a lot of Aussie news with me, thanks for that!

Ready for the WEDNESDAY-news straight from my “office” in Holland. Now straight… is a bit much said,  as I am late!!! Problems with my laptop again; the user profile service did not accept me on my own laptop. Could not do a thing! The PC doctor just left and it took him an hour to get me into the system, but he is afraid my hard disk is slowly giving up on me. So ,..when you do not hear ” a thing ” anymore you know the reason! Have to find a new laptop again I think! But I was so happy with this one!

The first competition of the 2013/2014 season is in progress, as we “are speaking”! In South Africa  in Potchefstroom,   37 pilots are trying during this regional competition to be the best in each of the 3 classes!
They started on Sunday [practised on Saturday, but the weather was not good enough!] ] and continue till next Saturday. What happened till now?
Most of the pilots fly  high-level-competitions, or are running glider field/ resorts so we could expect some great soaring…weather-permitting of course, as it is still early in the season!
Sunday…;unfortunately not good enough , a too small window ,but they tried hard!
Monday…;better… with tasks from 145 km in Club class, 219 in 15 m. and 269 in 18 m. class and winners and “loosers”, as some outlanded and straight away lost “expensive ” points.
Yesterday a task from over 500 km in 18 m. class so the weather has improved. Uys Jonker tops this class after 2 flying days.
For all the results  you can go to www.soaringspot.com

Talking about S.A…..JS has finished serial number 53 of the JS1-C .
“And another one is completed … JS1-C serial number 53.  Alexander Georgas, our first customer from Greece, is visiting JS soon to enjoy “SB” in the strong SA summer thermals!”

Good call-sign “SB”  in Holland always used by double world champion Baer Selen.
As shared on FB.

By now most of you know Sarah ,who flew the WGC in Chaves, the WWGC in Issoudun and was the CD of the nationals at her airfield at Chilhowee in Tennessee, a few weeks ago. The club over there is very active  and even I , far away got a nice invitation for this October Fest 2013;
“Register now for dinner tickets on Oct. 11 & 12. Friday night is awards night followed by a bonfire and movies at the clubhouse. Saturday night live music by a local bluegrass band, the “3rd Degree“.”
A pity it is SO far away. But one day I will visit Chilhowee.
Other friends ,Corinne {Australia}  and Dieter Dundee , several Dutch friends and most probably a few Munich gliding-friends as well, will visit the Oktober Fest in Munich for a REAL big beer, called a ” ein Mass” ; cost 9.85 E.
They expect 6 million people from all over the world. What a boost for the economy!!!
I read that since October 1950 till 2010 the prices of a beer at this event, have risen  with 1081 %. In the beginning, beers were not allowed at the OKTOBERFEST, you could only buy them outside the festival area. When they started the beer- marquises ,”anything went”.

Chilhowee not only ready for the Oktober Fest but also for joy-flights.
Picture courtesy; Russ Ferrell, great picture…. compliments.

Last Saturday was the premiere in Amsterdam from the Disney movie ” Planes“. In Holland some of the voices are from well-known pilots as astronaut Andre Kuipers and Frank Versteegh, who is a former Red Bull Air Racer and now still is a keen aerobatic pilot ,as well as a very good key-note-speaker and he wrote the book you- read -in- one -go, Niet voor piloten [Not for pilots] .The revenues from this book have been donated by Frank to the KIKA [Children cancer] and the Ronald Mac Donald House. The English version will be out soon. Will keep you informed about that!
www.aerobatics.nl .
Some pictures from the red carpet moments, as shared by Frank  and with his permission.
“Together with astronaut Andre Kuipers I had the honour to voicecast one of the the two jets helping out Dusty the Cropduster in the Disney movie Planes.”

Red carpet moments.

Frank and Andre with one of their fans in the awesome vintage/art deco looking Tuschinski theater.

The Tuschinski in Amsterdam built in 1921 and THE PLACE TO BE for a premiere.

When you love your hang gliding I don’t have to tell you to read the reports from USA blogger Davis Straub, who I met in Tocumwal. He is a real ” guru”  in this sport, not only as writer but he is an excellent  hang glider pilot himself and already for many,  many years.
At the moment he flies the 2013 Santa Cruz  Flats Race [Casa Grande in the USA] and was after 3 days on a 3d place from 39 participants in Flexible Wing section. Jonny Durand was on a 10th spot. But after 7 days they finished the comps on spot 21 and 6 [Jonny] .
Chris Zimmermann [USA] was overall on spot 1 for 4 days but on day 5 he blew it by being 20thiest.In the end Zac Majors won.[6114] and Chris was the runner up[5506]
Here you find Davis’ blogs.

http://ozreport.com/blog.php

Last Monday I visited Amsterdam and caught up with Susie and Ian Cohn and their son Nick and daughter in law, Marianne.Ian is a member from the Mount Beauty Gliding Club in Victoria Australia. He updated till now every month,the Mount Beauty digital magazine and just said farewell to his readers after 146 editions, as he finished his job. They visit their family here in Holland and as we have never met only written to each other, it was time to have lunch together.

With Ian, Nick, Susie and  Marianne in @SEVEN for a lovely lunch.

Before they visited the WASSERKUPPE.
They had a look in the Gliding Museum and looked at Olympia, KA 6,Phoebus and the Grunau Baby 2.
After they visited the Alexander Schleicher business in Poppenhausen and caught up with Uli Kremer. One of the high lights there was a look at the already completed fuselage of the new large 2-seater ASG 32.  Interesting to hear also that 80 % of their gliders now have an engine installed. Got some pictures as well:

When I asked permission I got a nice mail from Uli Kremer giving the latest details about the progress; they are now busy with the last part of the wing mould, so in a few weeks they can start with the building of the wings for the prototype, as most components for the wings, wing ribs, steering controls, ailerons, flaps and winglets are already available. The glider has integrated bug wipers , an optional retractable and steerable tailwheel and an integrated LED strobelight on the nose of the tail.
And…. they expect to fly the proto type for the very first time this upcoming winter. Will keep you informed!
[Thanks to Rene for the translation of some of the German words.]

courtesy Uli Kremer.

More news about the ASG 32 on www.soaringcafe.com written by Gerd Marzinzik.

Always interesting to meet new people and never a dull moment. Heard from Ian’s son Nick who flew gliders and power planes as well in the past, that he is involved as a volunteer Ambassador in Bloodhound SSC. One of the 600!!! I see you think….I did the same, so as it has to do with speed, and we all love speed,  I asked him to write me a bit about it. Certainly very interesting;
” The Bloodhound Project wants to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. They are doing that by building the fastest car in the world! The car is being built at the moment and should be finished early in 2015. The high speed runs will be done at Hakskeen Pan in the north of South Africa. Some of the amazing numbers are:
Length:  13.5 metres

Top speed:  1690km/h (1050mph – Mach 1.4)

Current record: 1228km/h (763mph – Mach 1.02) see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKFDcZuM40M

Powered by an EJ200 turbofan engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon and a rocket EJ200 Turbofan would suck the air out of your house in just 3 seconds.

Rocket burns solid rubber fuel and hydrogen peroxide as oxidizer.

750hp Formula 1 V8 engine pumps 800 litres in 20 seconds at a pressure of 75 bar. This would fill a normal bath in just 3 seconds!

20,000kg thrust, roughly 135,000 horse power, as much power as the QE2 ocean liner.

15,000kg drag at 1600km/h

90cm diameter solid aluminium wheels will rotate at up to 10,000rpm. That will produce 50,000g at the rim of the wheels.

20km distance in less than 2 minutes.

2g acceleration, 3g deceleration. That’s 0 to 1600 km/h in just 55 seconds and 100km/h per second deceleration – in your car 100 to 0 km/h in 1 second would be a crash!

You can see an interview I gave to ING’s internal video magazine on my you tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpq5Kz4fq_k

Nick Cohn one of the 600 volunteer ambassadors!
All of you should join in the engineering adventure at www.bloodhoundssc.com!

build progress

External view front

From fast cars to long-distance-flying-gliders.Last Sunday Kingaroy enjoyed a real good early-spring day already. The Trotter’s Lisa and Peter flew 584 km in ASW 20 and LS 8. One of the Kingaroy pilots mentioned;
“Cu-blue-cu. Great day with some good climbs and some streeting. Bubble thermals.”
6 Over 500 km. flights ,1 by Butch [ASG 29/18m.even over 600 km. The overseas season has REALLY started!
“Kingaroy Soaring Club is  in the heart of Australia’s cross country heaven. Located at the Kingaroy Airport we soar all year round over the very well known Kingaroy Valley and the Darling Downs.
Featuring an all weather strip and two runways Kingaroy Soaring proudly has some of the best facilities in Australia.
Kingaroy Soaring has over 60 members who enjoy a very modern fleet including the latest Schempp Hirth Duo Discus X”
The next 52 Multi Class Nationals will be flown from Kingaroy between October 14 and 25 2013. At this stage 54 pilots have already entered, the ones who flew on Sunday had really good practise already.
Very nice to see that Danish pilot Arne Boye Möller is going to make ” soaring-life difficult ” in Kingaroy, for his mate Bruce Taylor.

At the moment the East of Australia “suffers” from hot spring temperatures up to 34 in Toowoomba and even 41 in Mount Isa.
The Darling Downs might even break the all time maximum September temperature records.
We here have had our normal-for-this-time- fog but also a temperature of 22 dgr. and some of the leaves are colouring already, whilst some daffodils think they live “down under”.

Just a street in Amsterdam and SPRING-flowers in the park.

You are up to date so CU next week HOPEFULLY or on Sunday in the SoaringCAFE.
Cheers Ritz on Wednesday September 25 2013, the day Brutus really has his [50thiest] birthday, [ he is just back from South Africa!!] so does Peter Menhennit  in Tocumwal and Paul Wijsman in Holland.
Happy birthday.

To make the new over-seas soaring-season a good one , owners of those business have been in full action over their winter,  but in  Tocumwal where Eddie and Cheryl run Sportaviation ,”they don’t bet on one horse” over there, it was already  busy on good days through the winterperiod, with ultra light flying. Last week they were even more busy with  the training of 4 RAA students on the Fox and of course some went SOLO.
Soaring will start soon now.
http://sportaviationtocumwal.blogspot.nl/

Tocumwal a while ago as seen by Ronald Hermans.

Also in Tocumwal the SRGC [Southern Riverina Gliding Club] cleaned and swept the hangar for a new season and invited their members for a BBQ , an award- presenting- evening and a meeting about proposed constitutional changes. Good to see , that the new president Zack Lutovac,  shares his thoughts in a new monthly journal on internet the “Soaring Herald”.
Also their site will be renewed/updated over the next months and…. I agree a bit more action on it would be valued a lot.
The number 1 and 2 issues of the Soaring Herald are to be read at the still ” old” site
www.srgc.com.au

Ingo Renner [here with Tocumwal Dundee aka Dieter Albrecht] is the CFI from the SRGC.

Corowa is busy as we speak/read,  with preparing and then packing their containers in Holland [ September 20/23 and departure from Rotterdam at October 1 and arrival in Melbourne at November 11]]  and on their site they look ahead already on 2015 as well , when the new ASG 32 MI will arrive in Corowa.3 Containers will go down-under this year .
For all the latest you can read; http://www.australian-soaring-corowa.com/

Corowa

Narromine started the season with the election of a new president;
Here she is”:Went out to the Narromine Aero Club’s annual general meeting today and ended up as president. What a huge honour and a challenge to follow in the footsteps of all those wonderful past presidents who fostered and promoted aviation in Narromine for so many years. The club is the oldest regional aero club in Australia being established in 1929 and I am its first female president. I am so proud.”
Congratulations to Anne she will do a great job , knowing her, as she is a “peoples-person”.
www.narromineglidingclub.com.au and www.soarnarromine.com.au

Narromine

Benalla, host of the flapped WGC in January 2017  and in the years before for the pre-worlds practise, is ready for the new 2013/14 season.
They had some nice early-spring- weather already with over 2 hour local flights.
All news at;http://www.glidingclub.org.au/
In November G Dale will be in Benalla for 2 weeks of XC training as coach, maybe better said; SUPER-coach.
All news on http://www.glidingclub.org.au/2013/04/xc-coaching-weeks-nov/

Benalla

One of the Aussie soaring-bloggers and keen glider pilot and FO on a Fokker 100,  is Adam, who knows what he wants and…if they both succeed,  we will see in the end of the season,:
“Like father, like son. Dad & I working on final preparations for the upcoming Summer. Dad plans to fly 1250km this year for a continental record, & I’m shooting for a 15m national title, as well as a 1000km in the Cirrus [dry].”

Bitterwasser has packed the gliders in  7 containers not bad!!! Brandnew gliders  , “old ” gliders , so a lot of work to find out how to pack it in the best and safest way. But also here ,….experience is the word.
Look for the pictures at their site;
http://www.bitterwasser.com/
It’s getting easier to get from Germany to Namibia, as an A330-200 from Air Namibia starts end of this month to fly between Frankfurt and Windhoek .Even 2 of these brand new Airbusses will fly this route in the future.

“Gliding with a Difference” , that’s written on the site of
http://www.soaring-safaris.com/
Host’s Dick Bradley  and his daughter Jennifer ,  Reb Rebbeck and Claire Durston are ready to welcome their first guests already early in the season for the Summer Performance Camp at Bloemfontein starting on the 27th of October and continuing to February 15 2014.

Kiripotib will have an early season as well with “Flying with the champions” , in the beginning of November, a busy period as they were last when I mentioned it, nearly  booked out. You remember the names of the champions you can fly with and refresh your skills? Here they are again.
Janusz Centka….Wolfgang Janowitsch….Andy Davis…..Stefano Ghiorzo….Holger Karow….Uli Schwenk….Pete Harvey…Reinhard Schramme.
Gliders have been packed last week in 2 containers.

Containers from Gariep Gliding , in the middle of SA, will be packed around this time. They start their season in the beginning of November till the end of January when the gliders will be packed again. Have fun and fly safely is the motto!
http://www.gariep-segelflug.com

The season in Potchefstroom will start with the North West Regionals between September 22 and 28 with 37 entrees . The NATIONALS at WELKOM are a bit later between December 12 and 21.
The REGIONALS named the Spring Games, “will change the club class handicaps to align our upcoming and experienced pilots with the International Gliding Commission club class rules. A list of your glider’s handicaps will be available on The club’s website.”
Oscar Goudriaan will be one of the 37!
For all the news ; http://www.potchgliding.co.za/

A day out for our KNVvL  director since August 2009 ; Ronald Termaat tried parachute jumping!!!On the first picture he is surrounded by nice girls so no worries, he is ready for a tandem-jump……Also Tim Kuijpers “tried” this other sport.
On Ronalds  FB site you can see him,  still smiling,  in a video from the jump. GOOD ON HIM!!!!

 “Moments before my first para jump. I sure hope it is at least half as beautiful as it looks like now!”

both Tim and Ronald are ready to go for it.
Courtesy Frouwke Kuijpers.

A great idea from the KNVvL [Royal Dutch Association for Aviation] to get familiar  with  more sports on their annual -staff-day-out on September 12; they did already gliding and flew in balloons in the past. What’s next?

You might have noticed on the OLC some 500/600 km. flights in Australia from John “Butch” Buchanan [ASH31/21 m. ] and Pam and Gerrit Kurstjens.[Quintus and ASH 31 /21m.] They flew to Burketown from Jondaryan, and as I heard had fantastic weather, great lift over inhospitable  , unlandable areas, [They needed that flying over a huge area of just NOTHING!!!] final glides from 150 km and they FLEW THE MORNING GLORY!!!!!! More to come as Pam has kept a diary for her club and they will share it with me/you.
Looking forward to that!

Flying in Holland is not over yet and Sikko had a lovely flight last weekend going for his annual autumn-flight to the SW of Holland [Haamstede] and when you look at his flight of 413 km. , that is directly to the border of the Nord Sea.
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html;jsessionid=2FA3D4970C14F415D72952A85915C85B?dsId=3382352

He shared some pictures as well on FB so here you are ,….specially for the non-FB-reader. ”

Courtesy Sikko Vermeer.

And last but not least; “we ” as bicycle-country, finally got the record back on being the fastest person on a bicycle!!!! 133.78 km/h. 6 Days they tried hard , not on a normal bike you sit on, as we all do here in Holland, but a bike on which you “lay ” on and for that it seems, you need “specific” muscles. Anyhow the bike was designed by students of the University of Amsterdam and Delft and the bicyclist is well known for being fast!
Now he was fastest  and that after technical problems in the beginning and some less good weather, but on the last of the 6 days , he succeeded even with wind on “the nose” over there in the desert of Nevada. Well done for the Human Power Team.

Cheers Ritz CU next Wednesday.
On Wednesday September 18 2013 the day the South of Holland [Eindhoven] finally was free from the WW2. AND,…on September 21 is the FEMALE soaring day from the ZES.

And then I am talking about Aboyne [Scotland-UK Mountain comps 2013], where the “hoped-for-clearances ” , not arrived …..so more scrubbed days, but nice pictures and a great video, from wave and other interesting clouds, at ;
http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=ukmsc2013&s=int

In the 16 year history , they have had only once a 2 day camp, this year will be added, as the last day was cancelled for  cross country, after trying hard.
Winner from the distance competition is Ian Tait and from the height-climb Stuart Naylor; 31.726 ft.
John Williams one of the participants [ he finished the comps as number 3] flew yesterday,  South from Aboyne,  a 661 km flight [ 330 FAI triangle] in the ANTARES 20m. and topped the OLC list.
“Low level wave for a 300km triangle at 134kph“. Not bad!!!!

Also marginal flying in Chilhowee, but still 6 out of 9 days!!!
Rand one of the co-founders of SOARINGCAFE flew this competition and said:
“Sunday brought the only decent weather of the contest, and was the only day when everyone finished the task.  Our CD, Francois Pin, did a masterful job in task calling of extracting the best out of a difficult situation. We were lucky to
get 6 official days out of the 9 scheduled. ”
Rand will write an article about these standard class nationals for soaringcafe.

Anyhow they finished with an optimistic look on their week of soaring: Here is the text from their site and there is more to read , to see [slideshow] and all the results are there as well;

http://www.ssa.org/Contests?cid=2222&display=results
“We’ve arrived at the end of an interesting contest week at Chilhowee.

It was a full week of amazingly weak, difficult weather – which was actually the best week of soaring weather in eastern Tennesse for about the past two months.  We saw not one day of strong conditions, but ten days in a row were at least flyable, and we finished with 6 of 9 valid days in Standard Class, and 3 of 5 days in our Regional class.

If you accept the argument (easy to support on past history) that weak weather is the best test of soaring ability, then we have a worthy Standard Class champion in Bob Fletcher.  He was the most consistent pilot here, and as a result of this win qualifies for the US Team.  He’ll compete with teammate Phil Gaisford in WGC2014 at Rayskala Finland, next June.  And don’t overlook Rich Owen: he finished second in his first national contest, and but for a landout about a mile short of home on the second-to-last day probably would have won it.”
This way you know the USA standard class participants in Finland as well.
Thanks to Andreea to check with the SSA if I could use the text.

Holland had fabulous weather, not so much soaring-weather but nice warm with 2 days over 30 dgr. which is as we call it a “tropical temperature” and NOT normal in the beginning of autumn. On Friday afternoon at 4 we had a light thunderstorm but great rain for the dry gardens. The weekend had rain again and now we are more or less suffering from REAL autumn weather [ rain and wind up to 8 bft. in the W and coastal area and only 2 in the east and that in such a small country!!!] !!!!

2 Excellent  pilots in a XLT Duo Discus , Giorgio Galetto and Vittorio Pinni, flew last Friday from Rubbiano 772 km. Nice autumn weather in Italy. Slowly , however, the number of pilots entering flights on the OLC goes down,……. it’s that time of the year again.

Some great pictures from the Libelle by Marcin May in Leszno during the JWGC and shared by Jeroen Jennen, with the comment ;
“This picture describes the whole competition! Thanks wingman”

Getting older I “love” the Libelle more and more!

Talking about the JWGC; “Our” brand-new Junior World Champion, Peter Millenaar,  already announced news about his business in his interview in soaringcafe.
Here is the latest ;
“We are proud to announce that from now MillenAir is the official dealer for LX navigation in the BENELUX! We will also provide service, repairs and all warranty issues.
Please let me introduce to you the high-end LX Zeus 5.5 IGC navigation system! For full specifications check out the website: http://petermillenaar.nl/shop/index.php?route=product%2Fproduct&path=84&product_id=105
Good on him, good luck and congratulations, Peter.

the LX Zeus 7.0

Received some short news from Mount Beauty [Australia] ;
“It’s been quite wet and the airfield has been very boggy and flying over winter
has been a bit subdued, although we have had four wave flights each time getting
up to around 10,000 ft in front of Mt Bogong using our ASK-21mi.  This has been
the first time in a number of years that we have been able to wave soar in
northerly winds.  We have also had a couple of first solos – Josh New and 16yo
James Rowe. 
There are a few pictures on my Facebook page, the MBGC Facebook page and http://www.exalander.com/mbgc/mbgcnewspage.htm
Summer will be there soon.

As well as in Kiripotib ; 2 containers will go full of top gliders as I mentioned already on SOARINGCAFE. Ludwig writes;
“we had to bring four gliders, our two arcus, the ASH 25 from Christian Hynek and our brand new Antares 23E to the harbor of Koblenz, where Bernd Dolba had organized the packing of the gliders for Kiripotib. Luckily two of our gliders where at the Lange factory in Zweibrücken, so until now we had only 3700 km to drive, to have three of them there. The two containers for Kiripotib will leave on Monday the 16th of September  from Germany and will arrive there on the 25^th of October.

End of October I will be in Kiripotib as well, to help Bernd, Christian and Janusz to unload the containers, we will need the first five gliders on the 1^st of November for our Event “Flying with the Champions.  We are very lucky with the booking, we have 4 trainees in the first block and 6 trainees in the second block, so we are nearly booked out. ”

AND,….also news about the ANTARES 23E.
“ Only the Antares 23E is still at Lange, some final adjustments have to be done
until Axel Lange will do the maiden flight on Tuesday. [Yesterday!]
This Antares is the first 23E with the big rudder as the serials will be. Last year in Uvalde the wings of our gliders where still mounted to the small fuselage of the 20 Meter glider. On Wednesday, Wolfgang and I will drive again to Lange and I will make my first flight on the 23E , if everything is ok, as I think, it will also be packed on Thursday.”

Ludwig in his new “toy”, with a “roomy” cockpit.
Courtesy; Ludwig and for more news you can read the Lange Site;
www.lange-aviation.com

Good soaring weather already in Australia specially in the East , where Geoff Pratt flew today a nice 520 km cross country [ 357 FAI triangle] flight from Mareeba in a PIK 20!!!!! Nice height as well; up to 2868 AGL .

That’s it for now CU next Wednesday and on Sunday I will be back on soaringcafe, this time no parties , so …in time.

Cheers Ritz

With 31 dgr. tomorrow and 28 today life is good in Holland with a great summer and even after-summer-period. Still ……some pilots are busy already with their next project; continuing their soaring where the new summer starts.

As soaring-life continues in the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014, for the lucky ones DOWN UNDER or in South Africa, Namibia and for great [wave] flying in New Zealand or France/Italy!
From South Africa the next news,  straight away on the beginning of the season and shared by Oscar the next news from AKAVLIEG Potchgliding:
” The 2013/2014 gliding season in here!!!
At the SSSA AGM held this past weekend, a call was made to gliding clubs to promote cross country flying, as studies have shown that developing cross country flying leads to more enjoyment of gliding and the retention of members.
We will therefore be starting a club competition this coming Saturday, which will run until the end of March 2014. Scoring will be OLC based, and the rules will be developed as we go along. The rules will however favour less experienced pilots flying lower performance gliders. The winner will receive a prize at the end of the contest.”

And only three weeks to go to the Potch Spring games!!!!!

It was interesting to see , that after all the comps in the middle of August , it was nearly quiet in Europe….that is with soaring-comps .
Now it is waiting for the toppers; would you be in the team/squad or not for the upcoming CAT.1 FAI  events?!
Or ,..when you are not interested at all in comps, it’s waiting till next season to fly again.

But there still are a few comps as the UK MOUNTAIN Soaring Championships at  Aboyne [Scotland] between September 1 and 7. They flew a 315 km. task on Monday and the first 1000 points were for Ian Tait in a Grob Twin Acro. John Williams was runner up!
It’s not only flying distance here but also height. They open the wave-box as well and best on this day with the best height-gain was  Stuart Naylor with 16.929 ft.
Day 2 had a 2.30 AAT and was won by “home”-pilot Roy Wilson with 280 km in the ASH 31 MI/21 m. in 2.33.
The wave box was used to the best top-height by John Dunnington  gaining 10.833 ft.

CHILHOWEE

I had planned to go to the Chilhowee Standard Class Nationals this week, but some important parties I had to attend, stopped that, but for sure I will “do ” next year one USA competition.
Chilhowee started last Saturday and will continue till the 8th of September. Competition Director is Sarah Kelly Arnold, who flew so well during the WWGC in Issoudun in France this summer and before in the WGC from Chaves.
They were a bit unlucky with the weather but “better” air  arrived soon, though later than hoped for.
They flew on August 31 and then again on September 3 with an AAT of 159.25 miles and a late start around 3PM, but A START!  http://www.ssa.org/ContestResults.asp?contestId=2222&ContestDetailId=7988&ContestName=Standard+Class+Nationals

Evening flying; can’t call it night soaring as sunset is sunset but some members from the club from Soesterberg, amongst them Sikko, flew on August 28 some nice evening-flights; 60 in total.
5 Were made in the Slingsby-T-30 Prefect , one by Sikko; distance 68.6 km. and speed 33.9 km. THAT IS soaring!!!! He even reached 1400 m!!!

Sikko ,here at Keiheuvel, picture made with wrong setting. Sorry!

First National Air Games Grand Prix day here in Holland at Teuge , last Saturday was a success, even with live-tracking!!!Pilots as former and current EGC and JWGC champions, Ronald Termaat , Rene de Dreu ,Tim Kuijpers  and Peter Millenaar participated.
Winner was Ronald Termaat and the spirit from Kees Musters flew with him, as he ” used” the MS for this event. Even an old Citroën , as Kees had, was part of this event .

MS and Citroen shared by Ronald and a nice demo from Sape Miedema, shared on FB.

Ronalds comment on this first-time-event;
“Back into memory lane. MS , ex Kees Musters. The plane Kees let me fly on when I was only 17. Flying it today at the Dutch Air Games again. Retrieve car is a Citroën CX, just like Kees had.”
He will write more about this event for Sundays blog in SOARINGCAFE.

LIVNO!

Some of my Belgium friends visited LIVNO this year and I heard,  as you know,  that some pilots think that this is the “place -to-be-“for the future. Here are some pictures ; “a story told by what you can see ” by Bert jr Schmelzer. Just clicking on the pictures gives you the story;

https://picasaweb.google.com/101367179377196465151/0103082013LivnoBosniaHerzegovina#

ZWOLLE

It was Brutus 50thiest birthday party [real birthday is later in September!] but we all had a great time. For all SPORTAVIA fans here some pictures from the event and from Zwolle, what a great place that is;

Happy 50thiest still young looking-birthday- boy!
Courtesy Indya.

All friends who have been at Tocumwal plus Natasja.

The most beautiful food , good drinks and company.
Dundee [ lives 6 months in Tocumwal ]and Corinne [lives permanently in Toc.] gave an international tint.

 Bilderberg hotel Wieland in Zwolle; Love that hotel and the hot apple pie!!!!!!
Been there 3 times this year.

GLIDING INTERNATIONAL  edition September/October 2013 arrived all the way from NZ in Alphen in Holland and again John and Chris and their team managed to create a great reading magazine with all kinds of news.
As John Mentioned; another special issue and it is.
Of course great pictures again by Maria, their official photographer.
Stories about ;
——Dynamic Soaring,
—– about the 13.5 m class,…the marketing-battle begins,
—–Jean Marie Clement writes about his 11th expedition to Patagonia,
—–JETHAWK, a high performance 15 m. glider
—–European AIRSPACE and TRANSPONDERS…. why a near-miss in Germany with a 737 and a glider, with lot’s of comments
—–wing-shape of the future and fuel cells, Stemme relaunch Brand,  Austrian Gliding History and MUCH more, 63 pages !!!

And to finish a nice 3 minutes video shared by many so I can only add it for those who have not seen it yet, by born2fly.lt.
Thanks to “Juliette Charlie”  for sharing it with me.
https://www.facebook.com/Born2flylt?notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite

by clicking on the stone in the hands of the child you can see the video. Enjoy!

See you next week on Wednesday and on Sunday evening late or maybe Monday morning [Dutch time] at SOARINGCAFE.
Cheers Ritz
On Wednesday September 4 2013, the day my granddaughter Indya celebrates her 10th birthday!!!!! Hiep Hiep Hoera for Indya! Off to Amsterdam now!

Not long ……and the 2013 season is over. The metrological autumn will start this Sunday here and spring down under!
Looking at Holland this summer was not TOO bad. According to “weather-on-line”, spring was cold, June still not as it should be , BUT summer was good with an average of 17.5 dgr. C , about 0.5 more than normal and will go in the books belonging to the warmest summers since 1903.
We had 630 hours of sun [ 36 average less,  is normal] and it was pretty dry [ 160 mm. of rain and normal is 209 mm.]

At the moment the weather here is still perfect. Yesterday several flights were flown over 600 km here in Holland ; one in the DUO with dad Ferdi and son Casper Kuijpers in it. They found the weather MARVELLOUS in their comment.
Rieti still has over 700 km. flights and from the EAST of Australia kilometer-eater Alan Barnes flew already 577 km in the 18 m. LS 8.

The last competitions have been held and quite late in the season there were still a few. Some end-of-the-season-parties are announced already , this one from Rayskala and posted by Katja.

Great very- early-spring conditions already down-under in Kingaroy and sometimes you see a glimpse of autumn here in Holland.

Early spring as seen and shared by Adam from Kingaroy.

Foggy early morning conditions  as seen by Jeroen in Holland [Malden] .

And early toadstool as seen and shared by Max in Holland.

Better go quickly to some of those comps.

LÜSSE.

I guess you can call a day with an average speed of 130 km. /h. during  a National Competition , in the Discus 2 ax, a pretty GOOD one. Patrick Puskeiler flew that speed over 322 km. on the last day in Lüsse!
The day before was not bad either ; a 3 hour AAT with best distance [336,9] and speed [109,43km./h] for Markus Schieber. As said before the day-winners were every day different.

In club class  Wolli had a great 3 hour AAT being 2d on day  6 , flying 283,6 km in the HPH 304 C in 301 and on day 7 , the last day, the LS 1f was the best over 279 km.

With 7 out of 10 days ,the new German Champion in Standard class was Jan Omsels [ 5658] who had that great flight on day 5 gaining nearly 200 points on the rest, that WAS another “weird ” last day!!!!
Runner up was Mario Kiessling “SUPER MARIO ” [5636 ] both in Discus and on spot 3 a Dutch young and talented pilot Alfred Paul Alfers in LS 8![5452]

Champions and winners in standard class and club class.
As shared by the official site!

In Club class it was Thomas Melde [ 5111] before Kai Glatter [ 5084] both in St. Libelle and on spot 3 Helmut Kölle [ 4978] also in a St. Libelle.
As Swaantje mentioned; ” We had some interesting weather. Only 1 pilot out of 8 defended his place in the National Team. The other 7 are complete newcomers!”
Interesting, very interesting!!!Swaantje finished on spot 38.

A St Libelle as seen last week at Keiheuvel airport!

BICESTER; UK  18 m. Nationals

They had 4 days ,…..then only cancelled/scrubbed/canned days!
So the UK National champion in 18 m.class is Russell Cheetham in JS 1.
A pity that the pilots could not show more of their soaring, as the first 6 pilots are within 200 points, the first 11 within 300. But ,…that’s soaring!!!!
As Graham mentioned on FB; “So the Nationals are all done for 2013, now the voting begins for the World’s next year.
Who will it be..?”

UK  18 m. National Champion Russell Cheetham.
He was runner up a bit earlier in open class as well.
Picture shared on the Jonkers FB site.

And to finish some stats from Jonker Sailplanes;
” Interesting statistics: JS1 won every National Competition in Europe in which it entered this year. The French 18m, The Polish open class, the Dutch Open Class, The UK 18m and the UK Open Class (top three places). Next on the list are the Nationals in the southern hemisphere.”

 NYMPSFIELD; The UK JUNIOR NATIONALS

Team members Matt Davis, [St Cirrus] Sam Roddie [ ASW 24/15m. ] and Luke Dale [St Cirrus] were locking out the podium at the UK Junior National Championships after four flying days.
Matt was nearly 200 points ahead on Sam, who still felt the “hot breath in the neck ” from Luke,  as the difference was only 36 points. The rest was too far away to be on the podium.
Friday was cancelled , so in the end they had 4 days of soaring and 4 days of “forced rest!

La Roche sur Yon; The FRENCH JUNIOR Nationals .

With 36 competitors and 6 days of soaring the French top juniors from the JWGC showed they are indeed the best. On the last but one day,   the world champion Valentin Grit, was only 4 points ahead of the runner up during the JWGC, Benjamin Vades.
Do you remember the difference in points from the final scores during the JWGC between Valentin and Benjamin ????? No here you are; 22!!!!
Valentin  won the last day by starting earlier than Benjamin at 14.26 . Over the 2.30 AAT he had a speed of 62 km. over 161.8 km. in the HORNET in time 2.36.
Benjamin left at 15.01, flew more kilometres [226 ] but the speed from his Cirrus was 60 km./h. over 226 km. but he used 3 hours and 45 minutes!
Only 7 from 35 finished! Some flew over 4 hours.
Longest task of these Nationals was 261 km.
Parallel with these comps the standard and 15 m. Nationals have been flown with 28 participants. They had  6  days and also here well known names in the top; Frederic Hoyeau [Discus 2a] and Denis Geurin [ Ventus 2] .Also Richard Montigny did well in the Discus 1, gaining just 51 points less than Denis.

 Lisie Katy; The Polish Junior Nationals.

Also in Poland a JWGC pilot tops the list; Mateusz Siodloczek, who was on spot 5 in the final scores then, just before the 2 Dutch pilots in standard  class, is now on top again , with other competitors, but also with a very small difference in points as another Mateusz is on his heels; just 60 points difference!
On the last day “the other Mateusz”  won , but it was not enough to win the title; 14 points difference!
Judyta and Jakub ,both also flying the JWGC followed on spot 5 and 4 in the final scores.
After 5 out of 9 days in this class and only 4 in club class , it was a competition with small tasks. But the last day turned out the best; 204.7 km. in club and 308 in standard class and except for 2 , ALL finished in standard class![ to be totally correct; on day 1 they also had a bigger task;  316Km.]
In club class  Wojchiek Majewski won the comps and title in the JUNIOR! On the last day he was 3d and except for 2 all pilots finished on this last day.

CZESTOCHOWA.

Difficult NATIONAL competition in Poland. Here is what Jonkers Sailplanes had to say about day 4:

–“The 4th day of the Nationals in Poland was a strange day. A very short period of thermal activity allowed 9 pilots to fly the tasks. For most of the others it was not even possible to get away from the airfield. Lukasz, flying the JS1, was one of the unlucky pilots and he lost his 1st place overall. Today he revenged himself by winning the day and moving up into second place overall again. Well done!–“

Young Aussie pilot, Ben Loxton, who crewed in Leszno for Matthew Scutter keeps as I mentioned a blog about his flying in Europe also from this competition . So for all “in’s and out’s “, you can go to ;

https://www.facebook.com/bensflyingadventures/posts/149292351945759

Great weekend at Keiheuvel Airport, even with some rain, it was just pleasure! No doubt about it. Thanks to all over there, for making us SO welcome!

LÜSSE

Back to the normal blog-style again and time to look at the Lüsse Nationals where German standard and club pilots are still busy with the comps.
We did unfortunately not miss a lot, as the weather was not co-operating over the last days, but yesterday they flew again, after 3 non-flying days.
Last day was Friday with a 246 km racing task for standard won by Achim Reuter just before Mario.
In club a 216 racing task won with a standard Libelle with 80 km./h. By the way 12 Libelles fly in this class, 4 in the top after 4 days! Remains a great beauty that Libelle!

Yesterday 401 km. to fly for the standard class pilots and NOBODY FINISHED!Every day another winner, this time Jan Omsels who flew 210 km! That was very good as in the end, the runner up only had 160 km. Jan , who climbed from 7 to 1 overall , leads now with 44 points on Super Mario, who was on spot 20 today. The overall scores in this class are vey tied!!!! Look at this:
Jan Omsels   Discus b 3963 points
Mario Kiessling  Discus 2 a 3917
Alfred Paul Alfers  LS 8 a 3910
For all scores at both classes;
http://www.strepla.de/scs/Public/scoreOverall.aspx?cID=220&className=STD&dateScoring=20130820

The club class pilots had 323 km and also here nobody finished at Lüsse, only those who returned to the field. Most flew between 100 and 130 km. and the first TP was the “new” airfield! 388 Points for the winner.

OUTLANDINGS, a lot in one “New” airfield as shared by Swaantje.

 BICESTER [UK]

 The UK 18 m. Nationals are flown in Bicester at the moment with 40 pilots. After 2 days Russell Cheetham is on top overall in the JS 1 , than 4 ASG 29 gliders and than Andy Davis in JS1. A lot more hopefully will happen till end of this week when the weather is good enough!
Yesterday they all went up in the air for 389 km and nearly all of them FINISHED!
Ed Johnston won the 1000 km. before Russell and Andy and Steve Jones.
My friends as Michael, Roy and Patrick were all in the middle bracket.

All UK pilots UP in the air.
Courtesy Alix Pentecost via FB.

Czestochowa[Poland]

In Poland they fly the open class nationals with 36 participants amongst them Zbigniew Nieradka but also young Ben Loxton from Australia. He keeps a blog and when you are interested you can read all “in’s and out’s” from this competition at; https://www.facebook.com/bensflyingadventures?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

—“Just a note to let you know that I am currently flying in the Polish Open class nationals at Czestochowa, Poland as preparation for the WGC 2014 next year in Leszno! – Im putting posts up regularly and will try to put some posts here as well! – Ben Loxton—“

After 4 days of flying no surprise,…Zbigniew [Ventus 2cxa] is on spot 1 overall and good old Janusz Centka [ASG 29] on spot 2. Further on other Polish toppers as Lucasz Wojcik and Karol Staryszsak.
Ben [ Ventus c] is on 15 from 33 ,…for sure NOT BAD!!!!

30 Juniors are flying in the UK [Nympsfield] and in Poland an other 39 in 2 classes from  Lisie Katy , to see who is their NATIONAL best in 2013. Their results are at www.soaringspot.com

Off to Amsterdam now. Over the next weeks I get some overseas guests and due to lack of time and to let my back and neck heal better from not sitting so much behind the laptop , I will publish soaring.eu temporarily ONLY on WEDNESDAY. On Sunday you can read my soaringcafe column as usual. www.soaringcafe.com This Sunday,  an exclusive interview with the new JUNIOR WORLD CHAMPION in standard class Peter Millenaar AND  his parents look back their way. Interesting to read!
2 Instead of 3 must be no problem for you and will be good for me.

cheers Ritz on Wednesday August 21 2013.