Post 1.415 on Wednesday April 26 2023.

FCC GLIDING 2023…..Prievidza, SLOVAKIA
16 April 2023 – 27 April 2023

It’s pretty cold here with that ENE wind. Sun yes , but no SPRING!!!!
Same in Slovakia, though they have rain, even worse.
Their daily message ;”OK… Today’s task for all classes is cancelled. So there is no point in doing a briefing either. For sure, you can spend this time more pleasantly ????”
So the Wednesday was cancelled , still 1 day of flying , but there is hope for 8 more days!!!
Last day and prize giving on April 27.
No worries for Adam, he spends his time and thoughts filled with gliding so a bit of fiddling around with the instruments fills a day!

Adam “fiddling” with his instruments.
Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures

2 Days with no task BUT,…..Then the better weather finally arrives. Organizers and pilots will be so HAPPY.
FCC- competition- life starts again at

Day 5 on April 20, flying day 2…..AND a 1000 -points-day!!!!
Club; 3 hour AAT.….won by Hungaryan pilot Attila in his ASW 20; 291 km.
19 started and 18 finished.
15 m; 3 hour AAT….2 Romanian pilots ,Norbert and Ionut, on top with Sebastian as 3d. Adam was 7th.
All 31 started and only one was out.
combi; 3 hour AAT…..Czech pilot David [Mach] was the daily winner in his JS1. Romanian pilot Andreas [Kessler] was runner up in the “mighty” ASH 32 MI.
37 started and 7 were out.

Day 6 on April 21 , flying day 3…..another good day with even longer AAT’s. ”  we had all gliders in the air in one hour and 5 minutes. …”
Club; 3.30....Ferenc Tamás in the LS 3 with winglets was the best; 373 km in time 3.32; 105.58 km./h. 3 More pilots flew over 100 km./h.
15 m; 3.15… Norbert [Scarlat] in the Discus 2A was just ahead of Sebastian . Note; Sebastian’s DIANA 2 FES has a high handicap; 117.5 for 112.6 for the Discus.
combi 3.15….AND….there is David again; 433 km in time 3.15; speed 132.98 km./h. for 1000 points. Father/son combination Radek [JS 1 TJ] and Petr [AS33es] from Czech Rep were 3d and 5th.

Day 7, on April 22 flying day 4 and racing tasks to go for with nice weather;

Club; 339.15 km.…a racing task in his Mini Nimbus with 127.58 km./h. is GOOD!!!! Yes it looks like Stan [Stanislaw Wujczak] is still as good as he was when we were both at the same comps. WELL DONE….but only 863 points.
20 Started and only one was out.
15m; 417.39 km...Norbert was even faster in his Discus 2A; 134.10 km./h and in this class for 1000 points. 3d Successive win for Norbert!!!!
3 Discus types in the top with the French Julien and Max on 2 and 3.
All 31 started , 2 were out.
Adam on his flight; “
Lukasz & I were at TP3, 10km & 1000′ above Barca, in our little groove. Earlier Barca [ Barbora Moravcova flying an LS 8 and member of the Czech women team ] & the CZ Women’s team got to within 300′ of us at TP2. So I really felt for her, we just took a different street to TP3.Then the magic happened for her! While Lucasz & I ran a direct line with good CU, Barca decided that the sun on the opposite side of the valley & with wind blowing up it was the better choice. Her calm thinking rewarded her with a 5m/s climb, then straight line cruising until she was 2000′ above us in the 2nd last climb area – outstanding!” more on Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
combi; 447.02 km....good better best….for Radek in his AS 33es; he won the day with 151.59 km./h. for 980 points, with a late start at 13.14, the last to go on track, to be precise. Dad Petr was 19th. He started much earlier as Radek at 12.50.
39 started 2 were out , 2 by an airspace-infringement.

Sunday April 23; “Tomorrow looks like a cracker, bring it on” is what Adam said in his blog on Saturday.
Looking at the tasks they expect indeed a lot!!!!!
But also the message ;”Good morning. We expect the weather interval to end a little earlier today. Therefore, the first start is scheduled for 10:45“
club; 436.45 km…..Good old Stan [ Stanislaw Wujczak] and his Mini Nimbus seem unbeatable. Yes he won again!!!! Only 2 pilots just over 100 km./h and he was one of them. Ferenc the other one.
20 started and 14 were IN!!
Looking back in my books I found some 1993 WGC info; Stan was then a member of the Polish team in Borlange where I was TC from the Dutch team. Stan was then 43 years old, had 3200 hours and was an airline pilot. He flew the ASW 22B and won day 9 and 11 and was 5th overall after 11 days. His Polish mate Janusz Centka won that WGC in open class.
15m; 511.23 km…..2x a DUO DISCUS in the top; speed 111/112 km./h. 23 From 32 finished.
Ionut dropped from 4 overall after 5 tasks to 22 by entering forbidden airspace. You MOSTLY don’t do that on purpose, in a few cases it can happen, ……. but it hurts!!!!
Adam was out after 481 km but still positive; “Let’s talk about the positives first, I had a sensational flight in all reality, while I am disappointed that I’m in a field, I’m actually very happy how I flew today.”
More in Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
combi; 558.26 km…..Andre Weidlich won day 1 and won again now; 135 km./h in his Ventus 3 M.
30 from 39 finished.

NO FLYING ON MONDAY…..but they had news about a 1000-points-day. I am NOT good with points so here you are you have to figure it out by yourself.
“Investigation of 1 000 point possibility.
Dear competitors,
According of new regulation for alternating scoring- SEE ALTERNATIVE SCORING 2023, chapter – racing task – 8.4.1.,b
Competitors score:
specially formula: S = Sp x min(1, 200/(Spo-Spm)).
Than,
Check out FCC Gliding2023 Soaring Spot.
Look at Spm Value.
MUST to be minimum 800.
F, and Fcr must to be value 1 as well. Than 1000 points is possible for winner.”

They had a small task in club class on Tuesday , yesterday, but it was not flown, to save the very wet airfield. Both other classes were cancelled.

TODAY; the penultimate day;
club class; 271.68 km…..
15 m; 315.04 km..…
combi; 334.46 km...
More about the last 2 days on Saturday.
Also about KLIX, they just started in the rain.

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——-It’s always great to see how young people from the Australian Airforce Cadets doing a military gliding training in their holiday , start to love soaring and go solo. We had those young boys and girls in the far past [2004] as well at Sportavia. And we tried to be always SPECIAL for them, so they would never forget their week and their first solo with us. Mostly Eddie and Don trained them within a week.
As you can see they were grateful and send us this nice memory award. It’ s in my study now.
I will never forget them either!

Nowadays they still teach young ones how to glide
The picture below is from the Gliding Training School AAFC shows the proud young man and his instructor. https://www.airforcecadets.gov.au/what-we-do/training/aviation-experiences/gliding

And one day earlier Patrick and Claire went solo as well. A good day for the Bathurst cadets and their instructors.

Tom and Jane Gilbert from Temora, were till now the agents for DG and LS in Australia. After 20 years of delivering gliders ,also the DG 1000 for the air cadets, they stop and hand over to Scott Lennon, who will work from Temora too.

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Last weekend we had nice sunny mornings but wet afternoons here in the Netherlands. NO WORRIES for the pilots flying from Terlet they had fun till it was over.

Yesterday was such an awesome day again for the pilots with this time.1.485 km flown over land and WATER ….not just water but the Ligurian sea…..by Baptiste Innocent from Fayence. A long , long sit; 14 hours and 26 minutes!!!! He flew the 21 m span ASH 31 and it was an FAI TRIANGLE from 1.407 km as well. A great pilot and a great glider make the difference!!!! Amazing!

Some more great flights on April 25 ;
From Lasham in the UK; Andy Aveling and Garry Coppin flew 861 km. and Pete Harvey 754.9 km. THE FIRST 750 for the UK season and a triangle too!!!!! They “pushed” each other to their best performance for the day;
“10 days of rain, then polar air from south coast to Scotland. Cheshire gap was washed out by the sea air and very soft around Mind until Gloucester. Great day trying to stay in front of Garry and Andy in their Arcus.”
From Calcinate Dutch pilots Maurits and Joep flew 1.047 km.
From Aosta, Swiss pilot Yves Gerster flew 1.031 km .

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Eddie Madden was for years the CFI for Sportavia in Tocumwal. When it was sold on an auction Eddie started his own business on the South of the airfield with the old hangar from George Piszkors [R.I.P] and a new build hangar. With his wife Cheryll, a lovely lady [R.I.P] he built a new business ,”SPORTAVIATION” and the most wonderful camping area full of native plants and trees. It’s another end of an era of soaring and later more power-flying at Toc. BUT,…it’s for sale and hopeful new young people will take over and make it BIG again.

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And to finish this lovely spring picture from Germany by top photographer Tobias Barth who creates those beautiful calendars and” since 2015 my focus lies on the air-to-air photography of sailplanes .”