Alphen aan den Rijn    Wednesday August 11 2010     ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

My guests left this morning  on a trip to Spain. House is clean , so time for some writing again. A bit later today, but…it is as it is. Had to write several friends who were still in my inbox. Great to hear that all I know have arrived home safely from Szeged. Saw some pictures from the prize-giving on the Dutch site but could not find any on the official site. Received in my comments-department great pictures from Szeged, which I am really thankful for and will write the sender today as well.

Bailleau is still going strong. I know it is a very nice competition, with lots of social happenings but also with serious tasks and good pilots. I don’t know why they call the class VITESSE which means speed and GRANDS VOLS which means as much as great flights but also long flights. In Vitesse gliders as LS8, Antares, discus, Ventus 2CTX, LS4, ASW 24 and LS6 and in Grands Vols, some of the same gliders but also ASH 25, Nimbus 3DT, ASH31mi, ASW27b and duo-discus.
In the Vitesse Robbie Seton  “my” junior from Husbos is still number 1 in LS 8. Good on him!!! They flew 7 days till now with today and tomorrow to go. A Belgium and Austrian pilot are still in the race FOR gold on spot 2 and 3.
In Grands Vols Dutch pilot David Miller is still on spot 1 with 2 local French pilots close by. Also 7 days of nice flights in this class.
There is another class called AMICAL, with when I guess well, pilots who are on their way to the top and still need some practise. Some fly a competition for the first time.
Natasja is on spot 11 at this stage in the class Vitesse.

More soaring as the Hungaryian Nationals in 18 m and clubclass  are flown. Nice to see Peter on 1 at this stage after 3 days of flying with a few to go as they only finish on August 22. I received a nice letter from Peter in Finland as he knew the young lady from Hungary who flew the JWGC in Rayskala.
In one of my favourite places from the past ANGERS, the juniors fly in an A, [31 participants]  and B [12] competition and the 18m Nationals are flown there as well same time same place!26 Fly for the 18m cup with a few well-known names as Gilles Navas, Alain Mazalerat and Jeremie Badaroux. The comps finish on August 14.

The OLC over the last days had some nice flights. I liked the one from Belgium pilot Paul Janssens, a good pilot , who flew 937 km in an LS 6 in Vinon last Monday! But it was a SUPER day in Fuentemilanos. Pilots flew a total of 24 flights over 1000 km!!! Must have been a great evening over there!  Being on the right spot on the right day!! Flights from 1.252 km by well known kilometer eater Guy Bechtold, but also some of my friends /aquantances added more to their list, as Hans Wiesenthal,Norbert Schlafke,Jorge Madrigal,Andy Sieber, Peter Zander and Bert de Wijs. Nearly all of them have been in Tocumwal and some fly now in the European-winter- period in Corowa.
 I was also impressed with an FAI set 500 km triangle in an ASW 15 around Hannover also on Sunday !! Start was at Grosses Moor in Germany!!

The Red Bull series for the 2010 season are over  with last years winner Paul Bonhomme [UK] as winner again. They had a bit of a turbulent season which made the organization decide that only in 2012 the next RED BULL RACE will be held. They want to check first on the safety, the efficiency of  their own organization and on the commercial site of this race which got over 2 days 118.000 spectators on the former East Germany motor sport circuit EuroSpeedway in Lausitz. NOT TOO BAD!!! Hopefully the nice competition between Paul [45] and Austrian pilot Hannes Arch [42] will be still existing then.

Today does not look too bad here for soaring, so next Sunday I will inform you what happened, if..something happened. Cheers Ritz