Open and 18 m. Nationals from Hobbs in New Mexico!
18-6/27-6 2019.
as shared by Soaring Society of America
They started last Tuesday after 2 practice day’s with some American icons in soaring as Dick Butler [Concordia] , Ray Gimmey, [ASG 32 MI] Ron Tabery [ASW 22 BLE] in open and Doug Jacobs [ASH 31 MI] and Gary Ittner [ASG 29] in 18 m.
Also in 18 m. class 2 top pilots from Canada Jerzy [Szemplinski] and Dave [Springford] both in ASG 29.
Typical for Hobbs
as shared by Soaring Society of America
Steven Leonard who I got to know in Uvalde in 2012 wrote a nice wrap-up from day 1.He is also the task adviser.
“Day one at Hobbs complete. 4 hour turn area task to Levelland, Caprock Station, Jal, Seagraves and return. Turn area means you have to go “close” to each point. You had to get within 10 miles of Levelland, 20 miles of Caprock Station, 10 miles of Jal, and 10 miles of Seagraves. Fastest guy in Open Class flew 329 miles at an average speed of 79 MPH. I flew 279 miles at an average speed of 66 MPH, good enough for 8th place (so far)”
Open; Dick Butler in the CONCORDIA won this day 1 and he mentioned in an interview that he started straight after the gate opened and was glad to be “home” again. Speed 79.89 miles p/h.
18 m. Jae Walker was the best in this class in his Ventus 3 with just behind him Jerzy and Rick Indrebo 3d. In points the first 8 were very close …between 8 [Ken Sorenson in Ventus 3 ] and Jae the points were 802 to 850 for Jae.
Day 2; June 19
Open…Assigned task from 263 miles. It turned out to be a great day. David Coggins won the day with a speed of 86 miles p/h.
Bad day for the CONCORDIA , Dick was 13th and dropped from 1 to 7. The story seems to be that he got low, more than once, had to fight to get up again with cost him at least an hour. BUT,…he was up again!!!Respect.
18m..Assigned task from 263 miles. The Ventus 3 and the JS 3 were the number 1 and 2. From ..yes Jae Walker again 2d win and Keith Essex.
Steven’s look at day 2 ;”Day 2, US Open Class Nationals in the books. Another challenging day for many. For me, all was going good until getting out of Littlefield, where the wheels fell off the wagon! I have never seen that much standing water in west Texas! Wow! Standing water, and blowing dust. Amazing. Then I missed the climb I needed to get home quickly, costing myself what seemed like at least 30-40 minutes. Oh, well. It was a fun day of flying!”
He was 10th for the day.
Day 3 ; June 20 …..95 F at 10 and 101 [38 gr. C.] during the day, pfff,….
Open.. 4 hour TAT; and again another daily winner ;this time in the JS 1B ,Steve Nichols with a speed of just over 100 miles/h.
Karin from Holland and married to Heinz Weissenbuehler, who flies with her in the ARCUS mentioned;
“Super day at Hobbs. 4 hr TAT – 370 miles at 92 miles. Total 5 hours between 11000 & 17000 ft. Today made effort to come to Hobbs worth it.”
The HW is the ARCUS from Heinz and Karin.
as shared by Soaring Society of America
18m..Jerzy won the day with 667 OLC km’s. and climbed up to 1 overall as well. speed 98.88 miles /h. 9148 km./h] His Canadian mate Dave flew in his ASG 29, 690 km with 125 km.h.
An awesome soaring day even for Hobbs in the USA.
Good speed and great distances.You can find a lot of the flights on the OLC on June 20.
[Take off field INDUSTRIAL]
Ken Sorensen flying the VENTUS 3 F, mentioned in his OLC reaction; 136.6 km./h.675 km. speed
“ Screaming good weather. 4 hr turn area task with 4 turn areas. clouds at 17k+. some streeting. Much of the cruising was done at 105-110 kts, which was probably too slow for the conditions. Winning speeds were 100 mph +/-. Pretty amazing when you’re passing up 6 kt thermals waiting for 8-10 kts. I had one that was showing 13 kts for a while”.
Some happy landings after a happy day.
As shared by Soaring Society of America
Day 4 and 5;;
Too much wind from the wrong direction made it unsafe for take-offs and landings today, so the task was cancelled. More wind expected tomorrow, so it’s been declared a rest day.
Steven mentioned;
“Friday and Saturday flying at Hobbs canceled due to winds being almost 90 degrees to the runway. Friday, was 20 gusting to 25, with higher forecast for Saturday. Sunday looks to be a north wind (under 10 MPH, though) day, so we should be back to flying on Sunday. The rest of the week looks like good soaring.”
Day 6; Task 4 here is Steven looking back at the day :
“We missed the mark a bit on the task call today. Primary looked like it might be a bit much, as none of the advisers were getting climb rates to heights expected (of course, someone did, so that person thinks we “totally f’ed up”. I am one of two advisers in the Open Class). Went to Task B and it turned out that the turn area task had either too little distance available, or too much time required. Suggestion was made to shorten the time on task, but the decision was made to stick with the “B” task as called. As a result, it sort of became a task of flying to the furthest points in the turn areas. Not what we intended. 
Through quirks in the rules and scoring formulas, I ended up doing quite well“
So what happened. A turn-area- task was set as task B, from 3,5 hours.
Open; Steven was pretty happy with his flight so he should he was 3d for the day behind Dave [Mockler] and Jim Lee. Dave flew 266 miles in time 3.15.
4 x A JS 1C/21 m. in the top 4 at this stage.
DB was 4th and 5th overall now.
Action enough on day 6 ,task 4.
Soaring Society of America
18 m.; 2 pilots with 1000 points in this class .Rick Indrebo in his ASG 29 with 265 miles in time 3.25.and Sean Fidler in the same glider.
Jerzy is still number 1 overall but with only 17 points Jae Walker is close,very close.
Nice to share a task sheet from a USA competition.
In the end Leigh, Sam Zimmermans wife , who writes the daily reports, mentioned :
“Task Change in the air: Task B 3 1/2 hr. TAT. Gate opened at 13:45 posted by Leigh“
Day 7 ; Task 5…CONCORDIA -day!!Another Turn Area Task today;3.45.
The day started a little cooler but still mostly blue early in the day.
Open; you have to admire that gorgeous glider CONCORDIA and in a way Dick as well ,flying it with so much verve. He is such a gentleman!!!
By far the fastest today with 81 miles p/h. over 316 m. The runner up Ron in his ASW 22BLE had 78 m/h. over 298 m.
Nice pictures from the CONCORDIA and Steven’s Nimbus 3/25.5 m.
as shared by Soaring Society of America
18m; Very pleased to see John Seaborn is flying so great in his JS 3/18m, flying 321 miles.
Jerzy had a bit of an off-day being 14th for the day and loosing 120 points on this 1000 points day in this class. Which meant that he lost his first place overall.
Busy at the field .
Soaring Society of America
Day 8 task 6 with one more day to go tomorrow[Thursday June 27.] B task with 2,45 hour.
Stevens look at day 6;
‘”Day 6 at the US Open Class Nationals. Forecast was for an early starting, early ending day. Chance of showers all day, lift possibly all done by 5 PM. Task started off as a 3 hour TAT (concern over t-storms prompted this over assigned task). Launch started, and the gliders couldn’t climb up and get out of the way of the towplanes bringing the next bunch up, so the launch was stopped for a while. Then, BOOM! Like a switch, lift went from 2000 AGL to 10,000 AGl, cu popped, and suddenly the task at 3 hours looked like ti would become another geometry test for maxing out distance and maybe still being under time (max distance would be 295 miles!). The day had a few tricks up its sleeve, but overall, it was a pretty good, predictable run.”
open; Another name another pilot Jim Lee as winner in the JS 1C BUT, DB had the same amount of points ;935, so 2 winners for the day!!!!Dick started 5 minutes earlier. Jim is number 1 overall and DB climbed up from 4 to 3.
18 m;John is in the “right” flow. He won again!!! He is number ONE overall as well now with 5724 points. On contest day 4 he was still 3d. Jerzy is 2d but lost again some points as he was 7th for the day.
Tim Welles in Ventus 3 is 3d overall, with today and tomorrow to go.
Sunset over Hobbs on flying-day 6 and a bit later the message “All tied down, hoping the storm blows by us at the 18-Meter and Open Class Nationals in Hobbs, NM“
“RVs line up to protect their ships from the winds of a passing storm.” Hope it works out well.
Soaring Society of America
More next week.
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9th Polish Nationals in 15 m and club class…Ostrow Glide 2019.
as shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski
In my last blog I already mentioned that they had a 3 hour AAT on task 1 in 15 m. ,a bit of a marginal day with 2.30 [only 11 from 20 finished] , 1 scrubbed day and 2 good days;
The good days showed 408 km. on June 17 with task 3, won by Christoph Matkowski in ASG 32MI; 120 km./h. 15 from 19 finished and those who did not finish had airspace violations.
The 2 Lucaszes , Lucasz Błaszczyk in Discus 2A and Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 were on spot 2 and 4 with Jacek Flis on 3 in Discus 2A.
4 hour AAT on June 18 [task 4] showed 473 km. in time 4.31 for Jacek who won the day. 12 From 20 finished.
On Wednesday [June 19] they had task 5 with even more kilometers to fly, now 504!!! Still in the good “flow” Jacek won again; 102 km./h. another 1000 points. Such a pity he had a penalty on task 2 by not” recording the event marker” and on task 1 he was not yet in the “flow; 12th for the day missing out more than 300 points .
After 5 tasks and still a few to go Lucasz Grabowski leads overall with 4.498 points.
Lucasz and the Diana 2. as shared by Diana-2 New Generation
June 20 task 6; a smaller task ,2 hour AAT, flown by all 17 pilots, but nobody finished. Best was Lucasz in the Diana 2 who flew 227 km.Janus Centka did very well as number 3 for the day and climbs up from 6 to 4 overall. Good on him!!!
Daily winner Lucasz Grabowski, and before or after with some mates.
shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski
On June 21 they did not fly.
On June 22 and in the end the VERY LAST DAY,[day 10 had no task] it was all or nothing for some and they got 343 km.on the menu. The very first starts were at 1 PM, but Lucasz decided to wait for half an hour. BUT, as Tomas Hornik [ASG 29] was his direct concurrent, he decided to go 1 minute after him. They arrived back together , Tomas a few seconds earlier, so the 15-m CHAMPION was Lucasz. Speed was 120.0 for 120.8 km./h.
NATIONAL POLISH CHAMPION 15 M:
1. Lucasz Grabowski in Diana 2 with 6.167 points.
2. Tomas Hornik in ASG 29 with 6.089 p.
3. Christoph Matkowski in ASG 32 MI with 5.851 p.
4. Janus Centka in ASG 29E with 5.683 p.
Adam Czeladzki was on spot 8 overall. He lost more than 250 points on the last day. He started as the last one in his class in the Duo Discus XLT , dropping from 7 to 8.
7 Out of 10 valid days!!!
The Diana 2 with Lucasz on final glide.
As shared by Aeroklub Ostrowski
In the POLISH CLUB class 25 pilots fought for the honors among them well known pilot Stanislaw Wujczak the only one I “know” in this class.
Task 3 was a good one with 347 km. Mirosław Izydorczak [St Jantar 3] won the day in his ASW 20. It seems you need an ASW 20 nowadays to win. Stan was 3d.
During the 4 hour AAT Stan was 4th with 368 km in time 5.01.
They had 2 day’s less in this class.Task 2 and 6 were scrubbed for them.
276 on the last day and with Mirosław Izydorczak coming in as number 2 he won the club class. He won 2 day’s and was runner up on another 2.
With 5 out of 10 valid tasks the overall scores were;
1. Mirosław Izydorczak in ASW 20 with 4.598 points.
2. Stanislaw Wujczak in St Jantar 3 with 4.532 p.
3. Marcin Szymura in St Jantar 3 with 4.473 p.
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AMSTELGLIDE at SOESTERBERG.
Courtesy Reinier Koning.
More of his 152 pictures at photo’s google .com under AmstelGlide 2019 zaterdag.
The gliding club from Amsterdam [AZVC] organized their annual 2 day-competition and they were damn lucky with the weather.
By the way we get, as they forecasted a heatwave here in Holland.
This was “our ” weather on Saturday at Soesterberg.
Day 1!!
As shared by Dinand one of the ZES [yes my club] participants.
AND…, there were a lot of participants. AND ,..they had to work for it, as they got nice long tasks, belonging to nice weather, but not as strong/long as expected.
So excitement all over!!!
16 pilots in club class going for a 3.30 AAT….
269 k. min time 3.30 at the dot, was the best result for Simon van den Eijkel.
21 in the combi class having to fly a 4 hour AAT...
13 “made” it back and the best was Jeroen van Dijk in LS 3 with 371 km. in time 4.03.
17 in open class with also a 4 hour AAT…
only 6 finished so a real tough day. Best speed was 90 km./h over 361 km. by Sikko Vermeer. He always was good, still is good!!!!Peter Millenaar was runner up.
Daily winner Sikko in the middle with mate Mark Leeuwenburg who was 7th and the first “out-lander” after 304 km.
courtesy Reinier Koning.
Day 2 with temperatures up to 32 dgr.C. so hot and pretty blue. Later however clouds popped up everywhere.
Club had 157 km. Nick Faber in LS 4 was the best [92.78 km./h] on day 2 and as he was 6th on day 1 he moved to spot 4 overall.
Simon was 3d for the day and with the win the day before he won the AMSTELGLIDE in this class.[1.395]
Combi had 200 km. and local pilot Jeroen won again .[1.576 p.] Rik [vd Boer] from Belgium was runner up [1.388] and with his 4th place the day before he was 3d overall. Smitje was number 3 in the Duo discus for the day , with as overall result ; runner up!![1.411]
open had 228 km. Sikko was 5th for the day loosing 37 points on Peter won the day ; so pretty clear he was the AMSTELGLIDE winner [1.564] Sikko had only FOUR points less! Marco Vermeer ,no not family, was 3d. [1.464]
Peter and Sikko
courtesy Janni [Peter’s proud mum].
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Some great flights
UK; “The forecast was promising today and Edward Downham from London Gliding Club launching at Dunstable certainly made the most of it with what could be a new UK triangle distance record!”
837 km in ASH 25EB 28 on June 21 the longest day in this part of the world.Well done!!!
Look for more at https://www.bgaladder.net/DailyScores/Enquiry
In Germany Peter Fischer flew that day nearly 1000 km. ;964 [669 FAI triangle]
Great weather in the UK also on a-normal-flying-Saturday June 22.
50 Gliders out at Lasham and 6 tuggies. GOOD DAY!!!!
Andy Aveling and Garry Coppin flew in the ARCUS 755 k. and Roy 655 in the ASG 29E. Martin Clark in JS 1 C 760 k.
as shared by British Gliding Team
Keiheuvel in Belgium had another top-day on Saturday as well;Young Jeroen flew in the LS 8 760 km. and en route he took this picture.
His mate Tijl flew in the Ventus 3 702 km. and Tijl’s dad Bert sr. 600k in the Ventus 2CT/18m.
courtesy Jeroen Jennen.
Finland was good!!!! Kristian Roine managed to fly 1000 km in his LS 8/18m. from one of my favorite fields Rayskala!!!! Great job!!!
1020 km Declared 3TP task…even better!!!!! Well done!!!
Selfie from Kristian…..Finland is really BEAUTIFUL!!
As shared by Kristian.
Ramy Yanetz flew a 1000 from Parowan [USA] .[ ASG 29 /18m.]
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That’s it for now. EUROPE suffers under a heat wave, we all feel a bit tired. All kind of records will be broken,…hottest ever month, hottest ever day’s etc. Yesterday we had officially 34.4 in Holland [38 in my garden] which was the hottest ever June 25 on record.
AND,…do not forget to fly safe!!! We lost in Europa over the last 2 weeks, several “mates” by accidents with gliders and small airplanes. BE CAREFUL.
Not long and the WGC will be flown for the small ships. Prievidza in Slovakia is the place to be.
July 7-20 2019.
www.egc2019.sk
Cheers Ritz