Post 1.438 on Wednesday August 9 2023

We can’t change the weather we have to deal with it, but as bad as in parts of Europe , last week in SUMMER, is extraordinary. Holiday makers had to flee from parts of Austria, Northern Italy, Slovenia [very bad] and Croatia. Several people even died due to landslides and heavy flooding. NOT GOOD!!!!!Terrible!

Here in the Netherlands we had the wettest [55 mm] and coldest August 6 with 15.8 dgr C.
Mind you STILL SUMMER HERE!!!!
ONE bright spot for us here. “Our” Mathieu van der Poel won the WORLD-championship for elite-cyclists, even after a hard fall in the last round, due to the slippery road in Glasgow . He made us all warm.

Let’s continue with the comps in Poland, Denmark and Italy, where they have at least nice soaring-weather.

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21st FAI European GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Leszno Strzyzewi, Poland,
26 July 2023 – 11 August 2023

The expectation was for a few wet days .The organizers mentioned ;
“It’s a rainy Sunday at Lotnisko Leszno. Pilots don’t compete today. We have an International Day and we play board games. That’s all we can do “
The Belgian team about this evening:
“Yesterday, all the competing teams participated in a very fun international evening. From Dutch cheese and peas soup, French wine, English Pims, Slovakian cola, amazing Italian pasta, fresh japanese sushi and a lot of other national treats, we enjoyed a real culinary experience. The Belgian waffles were once again a success and were completely sold out at 10pm. Some people have danced the night away, but all of the Belgian pilots were good and went to bed early. “
Time also to make/share nice pictures. I was very pleased with these ones, as I was Erik’s TC then in Borlange; also a very wet “happening”.

But then the new week started and,….yes a task.

Monday August 7 task 5 from 11 till now, small but you never know….. What I know is that the field and the areas around it are very wet.
“They are expecting a small Wx window with a strong Westerly; no task yet but let’s see what they come up with!” British Gliding Team 
Wind at height 50 km./h. Cloud base 1000 m in that window, later more clouds , a lower base and rain.
Expected first start at 12.30.

18m; 1.30 AAT….cancelled at briefing. But the 2 pilots Steven and Peter helped TC Baer with his job, mainly looking at the meteo. Not that he needed that but a good group- spirit is IMPORTANT.

Open; 1.30 AAT….direction East……The UK mentioned ;”After the 18M task was cancelled, we weren’t sure that any task group would leave the airfield today as the forecast was predicting showers and strong westerly winds. AATs of 1:30 hrs duration for 20M and Open Class were set and launching commenced at 1230 hrs.”
They FLEW!!!!! BUT, only 4 from 15 finished in open. Francois won his 2d consecutive day! 170 km. in time 2.07 speed 80 km./h. You ONLY do this during a comp! GOOD on him! He won the bottle and might have needed the contents, after this flight.
Andy was runner up for 270 points, Markus 3d for 266 points and a UK mate from Andy, Tim was 4th with 249 points.
“We lost coverage fairly early on and so were pleasantly surprised when 80 appeared to be running along a storm front into wind at about 100+ knots up against (remaining outside obvs!) the Poznan TMA. I had only just radioed that we had an Open Class finisher and Andy responded by saying that he was On Glide for home followed 20 minutes later by Tim in TJ. Second and fourth for the day; not a bad day in the office methinks.” British Gliding Team, more about the day on this link.
2-seaters; 1.30 AAT….direction East….NO FINISHERS but Italian team Riciardo and Davide won the day with 152.72 km for 140 points. Every point is valuable!!!! So 21 “out-landings”/ “engine starts”.

Tuesday August 8. The organizers really try hard to let their guests fly. But in the West they expected already quickly showers , WHEN they fly 18 m will go as they have 1 day less now.
What happened?
18 m; Task 5 ….2 hour AAT….CANCELLED
Open; Task 6…. 1.45 AAT.…CANCELLED
2-seaters; Task 6…1.30 AAT….CANCELLED
But,….not everybody agreed on that. More in the next post.

After 5 days the Dutch team leads the Team CUP scores, BUT “it ain’t over yet”.

August 9; TODAY….No tasks yet BUT,…there is a TC meeting, an open grid and briefing at 11. HOPE!!!!

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6th FAI JUNIOR EUROPEAN GLIDING CHAMPIONSHIP
Svæveflyvecenter Arnborg, Denmark
29 July 2023 – 12 August 2023

The young ones thought they were lucky as they ” maybe ” could fly on Sunday. 2 Hour AAT’s [task 5] were set, they tried hard, Lucas Kriz from Czech Rep ,who won the day before flew 25 km……BUT, you expect it already…CANCELLED.
Still only 3 valid days till now, sad but the better weather is coming, they said!!!!
I thought....yesterday morning there were weather-warnings for Scandinavia…code red for storms and heavy/extreme rain in Norway and Sweden . But Denmark would have their share as well. This low called ” Hans” reached Poland as well.[ and the Baltic States]
No tasks on Monday and Tuesday. Not one for today yet.

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CIM. [Coppa Internazionale del Mediterranio]
Rieti, Italy
1 August 2023 – 11 August 2023

Rieti is more in the middle of Italy and they escape on the bad weather more to the N and E.
They flew and though they had NO TASK on Friday and Saturday, they flew again on
Sunday March 6 task 4; 2.45 AAT….won by Aussie guest Matthew who straight away wrote in his Matthew Scutter’s Gliding blog
“Every dog has its day – and today was my day, first place by 7kph!
The outlook was pretty straightforward, a mega ridge/convergence bash up and down the east of the task area, but I clocked very early on that we were going so fast that we’d have to extend into the final AAT sectors where there wasn’t going to be any ridge or convergence.
When the tail end of the task came, most pilots were pretty gung ho and pushed hard into the poorer final sectors but I just wanted to bank the clean and fast flight and turned home under time, expecting the conditions to rapidly deteriorate – and when they did, I was already on final glide.”
Always the best to hear from the horses mouth.
Matthew flew 421.57 km with 149.64 km./h!!!! For 927 points.
23 more pilots started in open class and only 1 was out. And that was pretty sad as he was the number 1 overall for the 2 days before.
Monday August 7; Task 5…2.35 AAT....Here is Matthew again as this way you “feel” better ,like I do what’s happening in Rieti.;
“And some dogs get two days…
We had forecast showers and another AAT up and down the valley to the east, that didn’t really fit with any ridgelines as they weren’t expected to work well anyway.
Somehow I read the day completely differently to every other pilot and went up and down a convergence that was 50 degrees out of alignment with the circles, while everyone else somehow identified the ridges were actually still working ok and rode those on up and down with much less deviation.
Despite the big misalignment the convergence was so fast I was still slightly quicker.
He won with 387.94 km. and a speed of 148.51 km./h.
Giorgio [Galetto] was a good runner up with 144 km./h over 382 km.
From 24 starters 2 were “out”.
Tuesday August 8; 537.84 km….BIG DAY!!!
Matthew:
“Monster task today – 540km from a 2pm start gate, into broken thermals mostly formed by the convergence, as opposed to the much more desirable opposite way around. The saving grace was the high cloudbase, above 10,000ft in places, which just made the task possible.
I started a bit late because there was clearly going to be a bunching up at the end – and that’s exactly how it played out, the last 100km was getting very tricky and we all ran into the back of each other.
Very marginal final glide necessary to squeeze through the last pass gave the long wings a bit of an edge to get away from us.”
He was runner up with a speed of 125.96 km./h behind my old friend Alvaro in his ASH 31 MI/21m.[128.69 km./h.
24 Started and 5 were “out”.

Mixed class;
Sunday August 6; Task 4….3 hour AAT….a 1000 points -day for Swiss team  Leutenegger & Rüegg in their ARCUS T. 425.52 km speed 137.29 km/h.
All 22 started and 4 were out and also in this class the unexpected happened; Team Pirker/Pirker proudly on 3 overall belonged to the “out-landers”, after a rather late start.
Monday August 7; Task 5….2.25 AAT…..398.05 km with a speed of 146.93 km./h was the best combi for Darius from Lithuania in a DIANA 2.The ARCUS M from Lasham was runner up.
All 22 went on track and finished!!
Tuesday August 8; Task 6….384.43 km Team Leutenegger & Rüegg in their ARCUS T won with a speed of 132.74 km./h
22 Started and 1 was out.
6 out of 8 days that sounds BETTER. Still a few days to go.

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—–In between the 54th Klippeneck Championship is over [ 29 July 2023 – 5 August 2023] and they were as unlucky with the weather as many other comps.
In 15 m they had 2 valid tasks out of 8 days. In CLUB only 1. In 18m ,3 as well as in open and 20 m.
For scores; www.soaringspot.com

—–France has good weather.…so it is not all bad here in Europe. Michael Sommer [EB 29 R] flew on Monday August 7, 1.406,85 km from Puimoisson and also on that day 3 more 1000 km flights, 1 more from Puimoisson in Ventus 3M from Fayence in ARCUS M and Vinon by Gilles Navas in ASG 29. Gilles flew on Saturday also a big one; 1.290 km.
One day earlier also a 1.400 km flight by Baptiste Innocent in another big bird; ASH 31/21m.

—–The weather bureau COPERNICUS mentioned about July 2023, that it was WORLDWIDE the HOTTEST EVER.The average temperature was 16.96, which was 0.33 dgr higher than the last record in July 2019.

You are up to date, more news and the FINAL days on Saturday or Sunday.
Cheers Ritz