Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday January 11 2012
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.glidinginternational.com www.soaringcafe.com
A normal procedure after a 1000 km in Corowa, a good red for the pilots who “did it” !! With Francesco to the left.
Picture; courtesy Jörgen Thomsen
Uvalde Texas here I come!!!!!! Very pleased to finish my writing career AT location in Uvalde Texas. No… not on invitation from the organisers this time, as they had lined up already somebody else, but as lead blogger from SoaringCafe!!!!! Bill and Rand invited me to write “in their Cafe”. Hope you are all happy for me as well!
Details etc. will come later.
I am more then pleased and invite you all to follow me for 3 weeks in August to visit the SoaringCafe, to share highlights, fun and pleasure and when there are also some disillusions /disappointments from pilots, crews and organisers!!!!!!Really looking forward to it!!!
Benalla continued with the comps and on Monday , the new start of the week, the pilots in sports class , had a 4 hour AAT ,as the weather after the rain, was fine with only a tough Westerly. And… Brad Edwards topped the list in this class again with 444 km in 4 hours 10. Bruce Taylor was as good runner up followed by the Trotters, Peter and Lisa.
In club, pilots had to fly an AAT of 4 hours 30 and Alan Barnes was the best with 462 km. in 4 hours and 29 minutes and 22 seconds. What do you want more?
In the 2 seater class Terry won in the DG 1000 and overall he is first again but only 5 points ahead on Graham Rock. And…..I only found out yesterday that Graham is flying “our” [former] Duodiscus IE , sold in the auction. Yes indeed that was a good one, as many who have flown it can admit.
Day 6 ;Had an other AAT this time from 2 hours 30 in sports class and Bruce won the day [ 311 km in 2.40] and is leading with more points now. 64 points on Peter Temple and more then 400 on Mac who is third again. Brad was 9th today, had about the same distance as Bruce but lost somewhere 10 minutes. Here is what Bruce had to say;
—“An interesting day, with lots of time spent dodging cirrus shadow, although some reported that it didn’t make much difference. There were plenty of cu at about 6500 feet agl, but after the start I didn’t see cloudbase very often – there seemed to be some wind shear that stopped most climbs at 4500. I enjoyed the first leg, couldn’t quite make the second leg work, and had a pretty good run home. I thought I might have gone well enough to get past Brad, but still I am too slow! I stretched my overall lead by a bit today though, so I’m happy. I am not taking too many risks.
There is a lot of cloud coming tomorrow – I hope we fly.—”
In Club, Queensland km-eater Alan and Victorian km-eater Tobias, were 2 and 3d.Tobias tops the overall scores with over 100 points.
In the 2 seater class ” our ” Duo discus was last for the day and…I told you already Andrew Georgeson is good, he won the day! Overall Terry [DG 1000] is on top after 6 flying days, with more then 400 points.
Day 7 , today, was cancelled straight away for the club class pilots but another briefing was given for the sports and 2 seater pilots. In the end due to a very strong wind on all levels, all classes were cancelled.
Great to receive some news from pilots in Corowa. MORE Danish records so I quickly give you the details, as I now have them.Only as long as I know news I can publish it.
A very nice letter and I share parts with you;
—-” My wife, Birgitte and I are in Corowa for our 4th season with our LS10 st.
Last season drowned, but this season looks a lot more promising, so far Birgitte has made 10 Danish records, and I have made 2 so far.
Birgitte flew December 30 a declared 300km FAI triangle with 109 km/hr in 15meter, a new Danish record.
She declared on January 1 a 598 km FAI in 15 meter, that flight contained 9 Danish records,
- Distance declared triangle(15m + open)
- Free distance triangle(15m + open)
- Free distance 3 turn points (15m )
- Distance declared max. 3 turn points (15m + open)
- Goal straight line (15m + open)
Brigitte Orskov and Jörgen Thomsen from Denmark. They married in December 2009 in Corowa!!!!Picture;courtesy Jörgen Thomsen.
I declared an 860 km out-return flight January 2nd. It turned out to be an exciting flight, as I ended up in only 1000 meter in the middle of a 100 km wood north of Hilston, with a gravel road as emergency landing site.
I completed the task flying 80% in blue, with 2 new Danish records.
Next day I declared 1000 km, could not reach my 3rd turn point, I instead completed 1005 km free flight, thus making it my 3rd 1000 km.
We have a blog, http://www.birgitteogjoergen.blogspot.com . In this we mostly writes about our experiences in Australia, aimed mostly at our friends and family.
We hope that the record season is not over just yet, I would like to fly a 1000 km FAI in 15 meter.
Kind regards
Team TT
Birgitte Ørskov and Jørgen Thomsen
By the way, their blog is in Danish but with google- translater you get far.
More records this time in Bitterwasser,where Jan Ritsma flew this time a declared 900 FAI triangle with a speed of 131 km/h. A Dutch 15m and 18 m. record. Record flying is great fun. Sometimes records are pretty low and it is easy to fly them, sometimes you have to fight for them. The only thing not so good is , that it needs a lot of paperwork and that some countries are pretty slow with their confirmation of those nice flights. Bureaucracy, you surely know what I am talking about.
A great run for young Patrick Puskeiler who in between January 2 and 10 flew 5 x 1000 km. flights. One in an ASH 25 EB28 and 4 in the Ventus 2CM/18m. About his experience in Bitterwasser you can read his blog on www.kilolima.de
On Monday morning I got some “alarming” news by phone about a glider accident involving an 81 year old female pilot from the UK flying in Australia .She was critically injured but seems to be in stable condition in Melbourne Hospital, which is amazing when you see the picture of the glider. She surely was lucky. The spokesman from the Victoria Gliding Club mentioned she became stuck in a down draught. The lady seems to be very experienced and flies already for 50 years. Hope she recovers totally.
From Gonzalez Chaves our Jeroen is having fun and flies well too. He was 6th on day 1 and 3d on day 2. Do you follow is blog at http://pre-mundial.blogspot.com/ ????And… you can find all scores on www.soaringspot.com
The European pilots are not doing too bad winning in 2 classes a day; 2 French pilots Killian and Lourent on spot 1 and 2 on day 1 and Christofe winning on day 2 and a Finnish pilot Eric Heinonen on day 1!!!
Interesting to see how Jeroen analyses the French team after a flight and by all means look at the link to his pictures!!!129 About the parade in town during the opening!
picture; courtesy Jeroen “You have to love Argentina!”
And….it’s looking very likely that the 2015 Junior Worlds will be held in Narromine in Australia in 2015!!!!! Good news, far away however for the European pilots but you can all start organising straight away , I mean after the final decision has been made in March by the IGC !!! “No worries, mate!” Hope it works out well for Narromine. Good luck!!!!
That’s it for today, cheers Ritz