——The Pribina Cup:

Courtesy ELFO.

is in fact the first MAJOR competition for the beginning of the new European soaring season.
A busy season with 2 major Cat 1 comps;
Ostrow, Wielkopolski,  is host for the 35th-WGC-club, standard and 15 m. pilots between 7–21 July 2018.
Pribam, in the Czech Rep, hosts the “big Ones” between 27 July – 11 August 2018. Also the 35th WGC. [open,18m. and 20 m. multi seat]

What happened after last Wednesday in Nitra?
Unfortunately not too much. Reason; the weather.
Only 2 day’s so winners with not too many points;
club;twice a 2d place for Michal Lesinger [Czech Rep] so pretty consistent flying in his ASW 19 and the NUMBER 1;1.380 points. Runner up with one win and an 11th place ,Uwe Wahlig from Germany 1.363. Followed by  other German pilots with 1.351 and 1.325 points.
16 from 33 finished on day 1 .
15 m ;Jan Knischewski from Germany one 1 day with 1000 points and was 4th on the 2d day. Result; a 2d place in his LS 8 . [1.681] Just a tad better , so number 1, Polish pilot Tomasz Hornik in the Diana with 1.715. He won day 2 and was 3d on day 1.
7 From 25 finished on day 1 and Jan was the only one in the whole comps with 1000 points!!!
20 m. duo-seat; Team Wolfgang [Janowitsch] and young Thomas Leitgeb  were the only finishers  [from 12 teams] on day 1 and they were 3d on the 2.30 AAT. so with 1.648 points ….. the winners.
Open ; Great job from the Polish pilots being 1 and 2 overall after 2 days;
4 from 18 finished on day 1 Lucasz and Piotr belonged to them. On day 2 they were winner and runner up; Lucasz 1.598 and Piotr 1.591 points.

   

Open and 15 m. Cup winners.

    

Club and 20 m. Cup winners
All pictures shared by the organizers.

 

Next year Easter will be later so hopefully better weather.

   

Always very grateful for ALL those hardworking “helpers”.
Courtesy ELFO.

Courtesy ELFO.

 

—–Italy;
continued with their first competition of the year 2018 in Torino. They added one more day to the 2 they had already so it was a valid race for the trophy,  with 3 out of 10 days.
Winner; Alberto Sironi in the QUINTUS. Just 15 points ahead of Vittorio Squarciafico in the 15 m LS 8.
A total of 11 pilots in one handicapped class.

 

——-PRIEVIDZA;
In Slovenia they started FCC Gliding 2018 just ONE week later and the weather is much better. 3 Classes Cub, 15 m and combi-class.
45 Pilots in club and UK pilot Tim Milner [ St Cirrus]won day 1 a 2.30 AAT. Tim worked for us as tuggie in the past , so did as you know Adam and he flies in Prividza as well in club with a St Cirrus. Adam was 11th .
27 Finished. Some pilots moved straight away from Nitra to Prievidza to enter this comps. Uwe Wahlig is one of them. He flies an LS 3 with winglets /15 m.
33 Pilots in 15 m. and Vladas Motuza from Poncuniai,  was the best in this class in a Discus 2A. 19 Finished on this first day.
24 Pilots in the combi class including Sebastian Kawa and then you know it will be difficult to win. He straight set the standard with winning day 1. 4 Outlanded in this class on day 1.

Day 2 yesterday was won by Uwe in club class. His “practice” in Nitra shows effect. Tim was 9th only loosing 46 points and Adam was 10th for the day.In this class flies a South African pilot as well; Sven Olivier in a St Cirrus , he was 5th for the day.
In 15 m. day 2 [2.30 AAT] was a prey for a Polish pilot with a great but difficult name flying an LS 8; Przemysław Bartczak. Quite a few “girls”  in this class as Dana, Jana and Joanna.
Combi-class,…questions…. ?????….NO ….Sebastian won in the JS1-CTJ 18 EVO.

More next week.

 

——GFA;
The Gliding Federation of Australia shared some record news and as I wrote a bit  about some of these records here is the official news;
This following Australian records for the 2017-18 season have been verified. Congratulations to the following:
Kerrie Claffey, Allan Barnes, Harry Medlicott, and Ian Van Schalkwyk. Mac Ichikawa also set two Japanese records in Australia.

 

——–And to finish this great picture from Maria Szemplinska, [yes Jerzy’s wife] also one of my favorite photographers. A last picture about the FAI SGP in Orlando.

FAI Sailplane Grand Prix USA 2018 – Orlando, FL Great photo of Seminole-Lake Gliderport and FAI Sailplane Grand Prix USA 2018 – Orlando, FL with the beautiful Florida palm trees and the beautiful 18m sailplanes!

And …because they are so beautiful, …. trees and gliders …one more , from another top photographer Bozena Michalowski who visited Orlando.

Shared by the organizers.

Looking at those great palm trees,….we had last Sunday the hottest day ever with 22.3 at the meteo- station and up to 24 in my region.
Publish one day earlier.

Cu Next week.
Cheers Ritz