Alphen aan den Rijn Sunday June 5 2011 ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
This is over Terlet, but it looks like on June 1 here!
And yes…when I looked the next day, that great weather was not only here, but in more parts of Holland with flights over 500 km [ Johan Hamelink from Malden with a great 500 km FAI triangle in Ventus 2CT 17m] and in Belgium with flights going straight to nearly the N. of Holland .[ Dennis Huybreckx from Keiheuvel 511 in LS 8]
Ekeby at Eskilstuna [Sweden] , where I had the honnor to be the editor during the WGC, had some good flights up to 500 km. I remember that already then, some German pilots have a soaring-camp over there .It seems they are there now again.
And I also heard that they had rain in Varese.
While we suffer here more or less from draught! A weird world, when I lived in Australia I never would have thought for ONE minute, that I would use the word draught in Holland. I told you already that we had the dry-est spring ever , not the warmest but for sure with the most sunhours about 200 more then the normal average; 710 hours now, —517 the normal; average.
Talking about Varese after rain came atleast one more day of flyable weather however, with a small task , low clouds and weak thermals; this time Giorgio was 2d. The last day was cancelled due to bad weather as well. A pity!
The comps ended still with a clear winner in this 18 m.class ; GIORGIO GALETTO, with 28 points !!!! Runner up was from Austria but flying a lot in Italy as well; Peter Hartmann with 21 points. As many points, also 21 for Corrado Costa .
Only 3 days out of 6!!!!
Giorgio with his wife Marina and good friend Leonardo.
The 45th Hahnweide Competition has finished and had lot’s of German pilots but also some pilots from Holland , as well as a few from Europe who belong or belonged to the top, may I mention; Russell Cheetham, Guido Achleitner, Werner Meuser, Reinhard Schramme, Wolfgang Janowitsch, Uli Knauss, Uli Schwenk, de de Broquevilles , Josef Eder, Alexander Müller and I surely forgot one .
After 2 days of rain and 3 flown days , they tried again on Thursday with short tasks!
Wolfgang in the middle.
But Thursday turned out to be a “black” day . They first cancelled the open and 2 seater class. Flying was possible for the others , but on the end of the day a fatal accident occured to a 55 year old soaring- friend. The very first deadly accident, in the 45 year history. It happened while landing on the airfield of Hornberg. Investigations are on , to find out what happened. VERY sad!!!!!!
Friday there was a day of reflecting , of settling, after loosing a soaring-mate, and on Saturday life continued so did the comps with their last day!Most probably this is what the pilot, who lost his life would have wished as well.
By the way we lost this week a 28 year old pilot making hours by flying around with an advertisement- banner behind him as well.
So on the last day,yesterday, small tasks between 196 km. and 218. Pilots lost points and some won.
Adrian Henry won in standard class the title.
In 15 m. class it was Italian pilot Giancarlo Grinza who won the last day and received about 150 points more then Michael Eisele, so the “PeterPan pilot” from Italy won with 23 points ahead of Michael.
In 18 m. class, Reinhard Schramme won the last day but that was not enough to make him winner overall, though he moved up to 3d place. This honnor was for ,Werner Meuser. Both are great pilots, certainly in the past and as we can see still now.
The open class last day was won by Uli Knauss but the Hahnweide title was for Alexander Müllerwho was just 40 points ahead on Wolfgang Class, both flying ASW 22 BLE and both from Bayreuth. Pierre and Arnaud de Broqueville ended up on spot 3 ……ONE point ahead of French pilot Sylvain Gerbaud.
The 2 seater class had top pilots and top gliders, as both the ARCUS T AND M ended in the top 2! Former WGC champion Wolfgang Janowitsch flew the duo discus to a very good 3 spot.
Some of my Dutch friends ended in this class on a great 7th and 8th place.
A joint dinner and the prize giving closed this great competition with unfortunately not a real happy end.
My deepest sympathy goes to the family of the pilot who got killed!
From the former part of Holland, Curacao, in the Caribbean several people will depart in 2014 , who have bought a ticket for a commercial space-flight! At this stage 30! They pay 95.000, dollar for 5 minutes outside of the atmosphere. They expect to sell in 2010 about 200.000 flights which means a boost for tourism at the Island of Curacao, where I had a very pleasant life in the past.
Great to see over the last days that the pilots flying their camp at Ekeby are at the right time on the right place. I noticed good results yesterday on the world wide OLC list, up to 712 km in a discus 2T and 555 km in an LS1 f.
And last but not least. The Airbus, making a very successful emergency landing at the Hudson River with captain “Sully”, is on its way to its final destination; Charlotte. It was supposed to arrive there in 2009 but now it is on it’s way on a truck; final destination now an aviation- museum for a longtime rest and PR for courage , great airman ship and a touch of good luck, as all 155 aboard survived!!!!
Enough for today, off to Amsterdam, finishing with some pictures from the Dutch Nationals by Bert Kuijper
Cheers Ritz
