As said before I visited the old WW2 hangar up North.

The outside.

     

Clearly private,….the hangar ….the  NEW gate from the airport to  the hangar.

The inside.

    

Looking to the right and to the left.

Unique equipment.

    

A grader, very old,…..a wheel from a LIBERATOR and Blanik parts.

Unique planes.

    

The Albatros and Dove found a new owner, a bit of a pity but the in my eyes , ” nail on a coffin” is gone. But I heard they are going to bring both planes back to “normal”.

The one-wing-clipped Albatros.

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December 18; With a nice dinner at the famous Tocumwal golf Club , with 36 holes, we celebrated yesterday the birthday of July, the wife of “tuggy” Bill Harvey. Bill is a lovely 77 year old/young  and he towed already with Bill Riley, Don and Jeff and with us. At this moment he is tuggy and instructor at the SRGC.

  

Nearly Christmas and as every year, it feels very weird, with no snow or icy temperatures but instead the extremely hot conditions here!!!!

Heard Holland has still 14 dgr. , the warmest ever day in December in history and Adelaide had the hottest temperatures since somewhere 1870!!!
We have NOW a record breaking heatwave in the South of Australia. Even Melbourne will have 40 dgr. this weekend[now 39]  and it always feels nice fresh and cool over there.
Everybody is on edge. Paramedics are ready to help out so are fire brigades everywhere. Of course it is a TOTAL FIRE BAN day.
The worst is , that the wind on Sunday when we are supposed to have 43 here will be 50 km. p/h gusting to even more.
So I hope everybody is MORE than careful.Fires normally start under suspicious circumstances.
I have seen the fire here in 1991 and I hope to be NEVER part of such a tragedy again.

On the other hand, Sydney is cleaning up the mess after the unexpected SUPERSTORM . More than 300 houses were still without power and they expect that today this will be restored.”Back to normal”  is what they say in the troubled areas.

Other HOT news here in Australia is the super SURFER Mick Fanning, a professional surfer with the nick name ” White Lightning”. He had to surf for a quarter- final -place in Hawaii, when he had just heard that his older brother had passed away in his sleep that night. He won that round as a tribute to his brother, but unfortunately he lost the semi-final and with that the possibility for a 4th WORLD TITLE. A very inspiring athlete!!!!
A very weird year for him as in July from this year he was attacked by a shark in South Africa during a race in the Open World Surf League.

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Some other news on the soaring-front.

RIVADAVIA.

As shared by SOLE GRASSO via Damian.

The 62 Nationals in Argentina flown from Rivadavia in Argentina, had 55 competitors in 2 classes [Standard and 15 m. / open ] and just finished on December 11.
They had reasonable weather as 9 out of 11 days were flown in St Class and 8 out of 11 in 15 m. class. Mostly short tasks between 1.30 and 3 and 4 hour AAT’s but,…. day 1 had a set 507 km. in St class , flown unfortunately by only 2 pilots. 23 From 25 out landed, about 21 of them between 50 and 2 km.OUT.
The final winner in this class , Gonzalo Riera, got the 1000 points.In his LS 4 he won 2 more days and ended with an amount of  5.713 points. Good on him!
Lucas Goldenzweig was 4th.

In 15 m. Class / open, brother Damian Goldenzweig did well!!
On day 1 they got a 408 km. task flown by 26 out of 30 pilots.The Repickies flew the distance fast in 3.33 but with the handicap for their ASH 25 they were on spot 9 for the day.On day 2 the day was cancelled for them.Damian , Ventus 2CM/18 m. only won one day but flew very consistent.A total of 6622 points made him the new CHAMPION.

Damian the new CHAMPION.
As shared on FB.

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WELKOM.

  

The South African Nationals from WELKOM, stated on the 12th and are still going strong. They fly in 3 classes ,open, 15 m. and club class.They started with NO task, but then it went BETTER.
In open class flying day 1 was for the Jonker brothers with a speed of 150 km./h. over 459 km.
In this class several overseas pilots as Ronald Termaat Arne Boye Moeller, Holger Karow and Marco Vermeer.
Day 2, with a distance of 496.50 km. was a prey for the Goudriaan brothers this time 134 km.h .
Day 3 , with 339 km. was again for the Jonker brothers NICE speed of 166 km./h.
Day 4, with 543 km. the Jonker brothers repeated their daily best performances with an even better speed; 173 km./h.
Day 5, yesterday, …..as if nobody else is there, ….was again for the Goudriaans; a 4 hour AAT with 690 km. for Oscar and ,…..172 km./h!!!

The Goudriaans .
As shared by Arne.

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OLC news;Yesterday the first 24 OLC places were for Namibia and South Africa and on spot 25 and 27, WAIKIRIE with 2 ARCUS M’s flown by members of the Japan Soaring Club  ; 918 and 875 km.[500 FIA triangle]
Also Narromine had great weather again with up to 819 km. in the ASH 31/21 m.
Tocumwal had several flights with students and over 500 km. flight by overseas guests.
The day before Mac flew from here,on my birthday a flight of 984 km.all the way up N. but missing out on a few kilometers to finish here at the field.For that reason an M- designed -ASG 29 is super!!!!

Cheers Ritz