Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday April 14 2010 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
Last weekend we really had nice gliding weather! From our National Soaring Center Terlet, Jeroen Kole flew 539 km. in his discus bt . He flew a polygon to the far South, into Germany,.. nice flight with great spring conditions! Specially Saturday “showed” great looking and hard working clouds. 48 Other Dutch pilots flew around as well , with distances between 64 km and 539 and 534 km. in a Nimbus 4 D.
Our Belgium friends had a great Saturday as well, with flights between 138 and 423 km. Good to see our former “Sportavia-righthand for the season “, Bert van Eycken still flying his Libelle; 356 km. They “used”parts of Holland up North and then South , deeper into Belgium. And….this is all “soaring by thermals “!!!
In Europe, also Austria and Italy had fantastic spring weather with flights from 881 km by Giorgio Galetto.
Last Friday the BIG day was for Lienz Nikolsdorf in Austria with 2 x 1000 km. flights [wave] in ASW 22 BLE, one from….you guessed already ???… German pilot Alexander Mueller, who flew those 15 magnicifent flights in Kiripotib in Namibia.
Also Prievidza , where in a few weeks the WGC will be flown had good weather with flights up to 670 km. in an LS 7. Would n’t it be great if they would have this weather for their WGC??!!! Good luck, Jozef !
By the way over 1000 pilots entered their flight on the OLC on April 10!!!
Poland is still in deep shock. When you imagine to loose so many dignitaries in your own country , you must feel sad , if you like your head -of-state or not. They have one full week of mourning. The first lady arrived “home “yesterday and again a big crowd turned up to watch how she was driven to the presidential palace.
President Putin from Russia is the leader of the investigation team and both , experts from Poland as from Russia where the Tupolev is built, will look at the flight data recorders, which seem in good condition. In any case they informed the world already that no technical failure had happened!! So why did the for sure highly experienced pilot try 4 times and did not divert to another field as other pilots did? As said , even if he was forced, by the president or a general, …he still was the “boss” aboard! But…we can only wait for the correct conclusion from the investigators. And…..what would you have done …… when you would have been in that situation ….????
Canada , I heard, started their flying season last weekend and as so many they are TOTALLY ready to fly, after their not too cold winter, as we could see during the Olympics. Some places even had the warmest winter in years.
It is nice to see Willem Langelaan on the list of compititors for the WGC in Hungary for open class. He flies for Canada is born Dutch , flew as I remember well as a glider pilot for the EAC and lives for ” ages ” in Canada.
Great to see that father and son Schmelzer Tijl and Bert sr. from Belgium , will fly in this open class as well.
In Cairns the rain season seems to be over. Now they might be “dry” till January or so. Since January 1 they had 1.637 mm of rain and on 73 of the 100 days it was WET !!!
Unfortunately the paint under the Chinese ship had some kind of poison in it and by pulling it away the reef seems badly damaged and has to be cleaned. It copuld have been worse when thje ship would have been broken. Luckily THAT did not happen.
Talking about Australia; A new baby has been born. Happy dad Simon Close our former tuggie and now proud air line pilot, happy mum Jess and the rest of their families. Oliver Jeffrey was born on April 11 .Congratulations!!!!
Though the wind was cold, I spend some time at the beach yesterday. It feels so good to see moter gliders flying not too high, with the coast line. Different planes and even a helicopter enjoyed the sunny but fresh conditions , so with every different noise of an engine my head went up!
I noticed that our Danish friends are back in the sky as well and in Spain in Ocana the first guests have arrived for some nice soaring over there.It’s all happening!
Not more to say , cheers Ritz