Finally autumn arrived last Thursday,  that is,…as autumn belongs to be, though still not too cold , too windy or to wet. Straight away that day, heavy traffic -jam and due to the rain 450 km. with careful drivers , but also annoyed ones. The 2d heavy jam for this year!!
In midsummer,to be honest,  we had weather-wise worse days, with no” jam.”Another hick-up last Monday with 500 km.!!! Holland is [too] busy!!!

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R.I.P.

A well known glider pilot and chief instructor from Issoudun , Pascal Lefebre crashed last week in his RV 8 together with a passenger ,not far from the airport after start. They went for a short flight to do a radio check. Mr Vincent Ah Mook-Sihn, the passenger was  a glider pilot, radio technician and helicopter pilot and only 42 years old.
Very sad. It hurt many French , both students and “mates”, as Pascal was in the “business”  already for over 20 years; a real club icon .
He was only 58 years old. As one pilot mentioned; ” Issoudun will be never be the same again“. Pascal was Issoudun.
I wish both families and their friends,  all the best!!!!

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The SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONALS!!!
or
The 2016 Jonker Sailplanes South African Nationals.

October 1 -8.

Just under 50 participants in 3 classes and the practice day was on October 1 with a 214 km. task for club [ 17 competitors] and 365 for 18 m. and open [20] .
Not a lot flew the task, Nathalie Luebben [Germany]  did in the ASG 32 MI and won with a speed of 130.38 km./h. followed by Arne Boye Moeller from Denmark in the JS 1 with 132.30 km./h.
No practice task for 15 m. But 11 pilots will fly in this class.
With the State Comps in Queensland these are the first comps of the overseas season.

Task 1 on Oct.2;
A day with many penalties in each class:”As Matthew said :””Start/finish heights had more than a few confused apparently! (m AGL, relative to the airfield rather than the start point, on a specified QNH)”

213 km for club pilots. 13 Pilots flew the task and AP Kotze [ Cirrus] was the best for the day with a speed of 85 km./h. After the official scores he moved to 2 due to a penalty on finish altitude and Jacco Burger in the LS 1f ,was the happy-day-1- chappie.

298 km. For the 15 m. pilots and Dolf Pretorius in the LS 8 won the day before Wayne Schmidt in the ASW 27; speed 108 km./h for 109 km./h. All 10 pilots who started  finished.

In 18m./open  363 km. was set. Matthew Scutter , “our” Aussie Junior World Champion  traveled all the way from down under to SA to fly the JS 1 during this competition.So did , but then from the UK , the other JWGC  champion Tom Arscott.
It’s good to see how friendship starts on WGC’s, this time on the JWGC in Narromine where young Tom Arscott [UK] and Young Matthew [Australia] both were on the podium on spot ONE !
Now they are “mates” fly more or less together each in an JS 1,  to learn even more from each other. We will hear more from both of them in the future. Both had 893 points on day 1.
Preliminary winners of day 1 the Goudriaan brothers with Oscar a tad faster than Laurens. Arne left 1 min. later but finished a bit later as well.
In the end the preliminary scores changed dramatically ,due to low- finish– altitude- penalty-points and the daily winner turned out to be Marcus Nouwens, Laurens stayed on 2, even with his penalty.
Oscar unfortunately dropped to 10.
Then according to soaringspot,the [today]still preliminary scores[protests??] from Task 1;
1.Uys Jonker 1000 points, 2. Laurens with 952 and 3. Arne with 951.
Several penalty points disappeared but Oscar kept his but was not 10 but 6.

Arne on take off on day 1 in one of the 14 participating JS 1’s in this competition.
Picture courtesy Arne.

Task 2 on Oct 3;
Club got 213 km, again  different TP’s though. 14 From 16 flew and finished the task.A difference of more than an hour between the start times.First starters at 12.47.
Late starter [13.57.58] Jonathan Cross in LS 1f won the day. A difference of more than an hour between the start times as you can see. Runner up  Jean du Plessis in the LS 1 d;95.50 km./h. A total of 4 warnings and 5 penalty points, mainly start- speed this time.

In 15 m. set task of 250 km.All 11 pilots flew and finished.; Best speed 126 km./h by Mark Holliday.

In 18 m./open. a 303 km.was set and flown and finished by 17 out of 19 flying- pilots . Team Natalie Leubben/Klaus Kalmbach practiced well on Oct 1,  when they  won the day, now they were 2d on competition day 2 day in the ASH 32 MI; 129 km./h. [ handicap 116] Uys got the  winning 742 points in the JS 1[ handicap 111]  and Arne was 3d in the JS 1 [handicap 119] with a speed of 132 km./h.
Only ONE penalty point that day and not the best day for the young ones, Matthew , just “survived”and Tom out-landed. [15 and 18]

An impression by Arne. Thanks for sharing!!!!

Arne;” The starting game aka The waiting game. Who will start first in the forecasted weaker conditions? Who dares start last?”

    

The briefing,….the fun,with Arne, Hadriaan ,Laurens and Sven……and an old goldmine in the middle of nowhere.
Or as Arne says it more poetic:
“An abandoned old diamond mine stares with an unblinking green eye to the blindingly azure vault above from the mottled brown crust of central South Africa”

Task 3 on Oct 4;
Club ; 344 km….was flown by nearly all only 3 out-landings. 1000 points for Wilhelm Moosehuus in the Cirrus. After 3 tasks Jean Du Plessis [Ls 1d handicap 98] leads 2247 points,  ahead of Tommie Grobler with 2214 and Wilhelm is on spot 3 with 2129 points. Everything is possible.

15 m.class ; 398 km…ALL pilots flew the 398 km. Best was Dolf Pretorius; 126 km./h in the LS 8. The first 1000 points in this class  for him.After 3 tasks he is in the lead with  200 points on Mark Holliday with 2205 and Wayne Schmidt is on spot 3 [2142].

18m/open ; 429 km… except for 2,  all pilots flew the distance. Pieter Nouwens was the best with a speed of 146.93 km./h.; 2 hours and 55 min.
Less good day for Arne ; spot 16. After 3 flying-days Uys leads [2652] with about 100 points on Pieter.[2565] on spot 3 …good old John Coutts from NZ.[2449]But,…it’s not over yet.

More next week.

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Not long and the BIG FINAL from the 7th SGPseries  IS ON !!!!

November 5-12 in 18 m. class gliders.

By the way when you are interested ; “3 places left in the Australian SGP at Horsham with spectacular weather, flat and open farmland to race across. get your winter sun fix in December. ” more at http://www.sgp.aero/australia2016

8th series of SGP races:
Australia ; Horsham Dec 14- 20 [2016]
South Africa; Magaliesburg April 17-22 [2017]
Spain; Jaca May 7-14
Poland; Wroclaw Szymanow May 27-June 3
Italy ; Varese June 10-17
France ; Buno June 25-July 1
USA ; Hobbs July 8-15
Slovakia; Partizanske August 5-12
Slovenia ; Celje August 19-26
Chile WORLD FINAL ; Vitacura beginning of January 2018.

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The Queensland State Comps in Jondaryan.

They started with practice on October 1 as well and fly from the Mc Caffery Airfield. Sports class had a 2.30 AAT and only 7 pilots flew the task and some aborted, but 3 finished . Mark Tingey from Tauranga in NZ won this day in the JS 1 , followed by Brian Du Rieu in the LS 10 and David Griffin in the Duo Discus. Brett Hunter also from NZ [Tauranga] is in Jondaryan  as well to practice  for the WGC in Benalla. Both Brett and Mark fly there in open class. NZ has 6 pilots ready for the Benalla WGC.

Task 1; The first REAL day had a 2.30 AAT for sports-class and only 5 from 15 finished. Best distance and time was for Scot Percival in his ASH 25. Last year he flew the Nationals in Benalla together with Ingo.[Renner] That might have helped ,as he gained 864 points for 262 km. in time 2.39.
Tom Claffey was runner up  and Andrew Georgeson and team Griffith / Schmidt in the NIMBUS 4DM finished as well. Peter Griffith ” Griffo”  for his mates is a long time friend.Sadly enough , due to poor eyesight, he does n’t fly by himself anymore, but still loves his gliding.LS 6 pilot Ivan Evans was the 5th finisher.
The difference between a finish and an out-landing was just over 200 points. Kerrie knows, as after 193 km., she was number 6 on the daily list. She still did well!!!
3 From 7 starting pilots finished in club class. During the 2.30 AAT Richard [ASW 20], Jo[ASW 19]  and Mark ASW 20b]  flew 212, 199 and 185 km.
Speed  was “low” between 83 and 71 km./h.
The difference between coming in [719]  and landing out [356] was here even bigger and this time one of our former instructors Alain Potier was the unlucky one on spot 4.

As Kerrie said;” If you’re going to outland anyway, may as well be on a sealed runway!” She landed at a heliport , just not long enough to be towed out.
As you know it is pretty wet in Australia at the moment, even in the East, but specially in the South.Heavy flooding on the lower roads in Wangaratta not far from Benalla. One of the Corowa caravan parks is flooded as well.
BUT,…spring is arriving.
Courtesy Kerrie Claffey.

Day 2; no task ,…it was raining “cat’s and dog’s”.

Task 2; 194 km. for club class only,..no task for sports class.
2 Pilots finished , 5 out-landed one of them only just missing out on 8 km.
Jo Davis [ASW 19] and Mark Dalton [ASW 20b] were the finishers. Good on them !!
As Mark said on the OLC;” Day 2 QLD state comp at DDSC. Racing task (hoorah!) of 194 kms. Quite difficult again. Climbs of 2-4 kts topping out at about 5,000 ft. Ground soggy from yesterdays rain. Blue. “

They flew again today; Sports class had for task 2,  a 3 hour AAT and club for task 3 a bit less; 2.30.

More next week.

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The 36th Australian Nationals for Sports and club class.

The Waikirie Gliding Club shared the next news. Maybe interesting for WGC pilots on their way to Benalla:
“WE HAVE TWO ENTRIES IN SPORT15M CLASS – if you have a 15M glider this is a prime opportunity to fly competitively with a small group of 15M gliders. Another 5 or 6 (or 20) entries would be great.

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Libelle.

I know a lot of friends who LOVE the LIBELLE, but unfortunately this invitation is , because of distance, more or less, only for my Aussie mates. Sorry!
“LIBELLE GATHERING REMINDER 
Libelle owners – come and celebrate this awesome classic glider at Bendigo Gliding Club in December 2016.

See the link below for details:
http://www.bendigogliding.org.au/Main/Libellegathering

Anyone who hasn’t already notified us that they wish to attend should do so, then we can plan for numbers and keep you in the loop by email.

Contact: secretary@bendigogliding.org.au

Hope to see you at Bendigo Gliding Club’s Raywood airfield for this unique event !”
When you are in the neighborhood,….?!

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Mount Beauty News.

The ski-season is about over in Australia and one of those ski places is Mount Beauty, but it’s also a great place to fly from . Have been there in the past when Sportavia had camps there. Long ago.
In December there will be a Women Week, here is the latest on that:
“The 2016 Women in Gliding gathering will be hosted by Mt Beauty Gliding Club at the Mt Beauty Airport from 3 rd to 11th December 2016. It is expected that 25 or more women glider pilots from all over Australia, with their gliders and crews, will attend to sample the excellent early summer soaring conditions, the great Mt Beauty Gliding Club hospitality and beautiful mountain scenery in the Kiewa Valley. ”
Andrew Evans is the president from the club as well as the editor from the Alpine Flyer.
I had to laugh when I got the mail:
—“My apologies for being 2 days late with this edition (first time late in 56 editions).
My excuse – I went camping in the torrential downpour last weekend to test my new grey nomad caravan rig. The good news is – it didn’t leak.”

Just read that Tocumwal was without power after extreme weather yesterday.

Some interesting OLC flights.

September is over,… October started …with some nice flights from the USA and Brazil.
Bahia had some great days with good results on Oct 2. Branco Stojkovic flew in the Nimbus 3 T /25.5  m. nearly 1000 km. ;951 km.Yesterday he flew 906 km [868 km FAI triangle]
Keith Essex added a new 1000 km. flight to his list. Flying from Minden in Nevada on a pretty good wave day , he called it ;” Slow, slightly unstable southerly wave.” ; 1.142 km with a speed of 151.82 km./h.

Branco shared some pictures on FB. Here you are.

       

Courtesey Branco Stojkovic flying at Bahia Gliding.

On October 3, Holland had, pretty late in the season,  great autumn weather and pilots enjoyed flights from Malden [226 km.]  and Terlet [272 km. in a DG 500/22 m]
Further on great skies in Holland yesterday as shared by Martijn Alders . Excellent soaring- day for those who had the day off. Bas Seijffert was so lucky , went to Terlet and flew 419 km. in the ASW 28. A fabulous autumn day, with great visibility and nice cloud streets and that in OCTOBER!!!

  

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CU next week.
This month 3 visits to hospital, hope I will feel MUCH better after!!!
Cheers Ritz