Alphen aan den Rijn     Sunday July 22 2012

ritzdeluy@hotmail.com     www.glidinginternational.com     www.soaringcafe.com

For ALL the news about Uvalde you can click on soaringcafe , [above] and you find the LATEST and also what happened last week. A WGC is the highest form of competition soaring in our sport,  so I will spend a lot of time on it, not only on the Soaringcafe-site.
Without forgetting in this blog all the other news, you are used too. I continue my blog as well on Sunday and Wednesday while being in Uvalde , as writing every day for SOARING CAFE.

On the way in a glider from Houston to Uvalde.

As you know Bill Elliott and Rand Baldwin have set up the “cafe” to share our soaring stories, news about competitions and interesting technical news. Last week we have invited all TC’s or a member of the team  participating at Garner Field to be part of the soaringcafe -blogs. Most of them have answered with a YES and you can click on Uvalde already now, to read all the latest by the several teams. So on ONE spot you find lot’s of stories from the different teams in Uvalde.

http://soaringcafe.com/category/special-events/2012-wgc-uvalde/

One of the HOT items in SOARINGCAFE of course was and is the Concordia. Dick’s stories about the progress of this magic project,  got lot’s of readers! I look forward to catch up with Dick again after many years and to make my OWN picture of the Concordia. What a fabulous project he started!!! What I heard the glider flies super and I hope Dick will have great safe and fast flights in it.
As said before I look forward to the difference in performance in open class this year. It will be VERY interesting.
The gliders have been added to the pilots now and at this stage I counted 4 JS1-B gliders in open class flown by the Aussies and ……what Aussies former WGC champion in 1991 Brad Edwards and topper Bruce Taylor AND…. another 2 are flown by the Goudriaan brothers, who both fly WGC’s as long as I know them! So 4 JS1-B in open class !!!!!!
Further on Tilo and his men worked HARD , very hard!!! 7 Quintus M gliders are competing, 2 x EB 29, 2 Antares 23E, 3x EB 28, 3x ASW 22 BLE, 1 ASH 25, 2x Nimbus 4T and the Concordia!!!!

Here is the news , for when you have not read it already, from the 21 span JS 1- C I got last Friday!
—” As you mentioned the rumour of an Open Class JS1 on your blog (& Soaring Café), I thought you might like to know the rumour is now official see
http://www.jonkersailplanes.co.za/index.php?pageid=6 for a photo and http://www.jonkersailplanes.co.za/index.php?pageid=128 for a video.

Courtesy Iain Baker.

18 m and 15 m are OF COURSE interesting too, the first WGC with the JS 1 in 18 m. class and the 2 owners of the business Attie and Uys are flying them their selves!
More JS 1 gliders as a total of 7 x JS1-B have entered till now and 2 xJS1-A. Also 6 x Ventus ,2x Antares 18S, 2x LAK and 17 x ASG 29.

In 15 m. I counted 17x a Ventus, 8x an ASW 27, 1x a Lak, 5 x an ASG 29 4 x a Diana [SZD 56] and 1x an LS 10.
So all BIG glider business will be represented. Now the pilots have to do the rest.
The weather might be an influence too. Normally you would think , hot and dry, but it has rained quite a lot over the last few days with thunderstorms and wind as well. Could be interesting. As the rest from the USA suffers from heat waves we might have that as well. But …the weather is the weather we have to deal with it as it comes!

Other news as the Summer competition in Malden continued. The 2.30 AAT was flown but…..no finishers! Patrick van Bremen Schneider, once already Dutch National Champion won the day with 124.2 km and got 36 points. The runner up with 94 km. 26 points and one pilot flew 2.4 km. In the mixed open class 2 pilots managed to fly over 100 km. One of them Thijs Pare, yes son of….Daan Pare ,he was the day-winner with 73 points in the pocket. No finishers.
That says enough about the weather. Thursday was cancelled.
But..it started to improve on Friday. Here several gliders in a paddock, on Wednesday,  pictures from Gijs Schwarte and Patrick Hoeve via FB.

 
Very green paddocks not a good sign for a nice summer!

The weather on Friday was good enough for 171 km. in club class and 202 km. in open class. Finishers as well, [ it looked pretty good here too] as 7 from 12 in Club arrived home. Under them a young lady called Sietske, very much involved in soaring [she has been in the National championship- organization- team for several years] and now she flies to maybe qualify for the Nationals and fly herself. Good on her , she was 4th on Friday in the LS 4. Daily winner in the St Cirrus was Jeroen Verkuijl who represents Holland in Chaves in Club class and flew there last year and kept a great blog.
Only 3 from 14 finished the 202 km. task. The rest was “out” between 11 and 145 km.

Yesterday they could fly again and 2 hour AAT’s on the last day would decide who would be the winners from this competition. 3 Pilots in club finished the best was Patrick with 161 km.in LS1f. Winner in this class overall was with 1161 points out of  4 days from 7, Jeroen Verkuijl.
In open class Jan van Ronnen won with 1159 points.

Also Sweden’s weather was “off ” with 5 cancelled days and 3 flown!!!!!
Luckily the last day was the  soarable day 3; and whataday/expectation!!!! 417.4 km. was the task to show who will be Sweden’s 18 m. champion. BUT…..in the end they changed the task in a distance of 218 km.. Holger Erikkson was on spot 1 on day 1, on 7 on day 2 and on 2 again yesterday, being pretty consistent he won the Nationals over 3 days in the ASH 26 E.
Torbjörn ended in the total scores [ 5th on the last day] on the 3d place just ONE point behind the runner up  Janne Nordt in a Discus 2 T; 1799 and 1798.
Yesterday it turned out to be a real top day in Sweden as one of the  pilots making great pictures at the WGC in Eskilstuna , Per Carlin, [I published a few as well!] flew 546 km in the LS1 f. from Arboga, where 2 years ago the WWGC was flown. And good old Äke Pettersson flew 632 in the Ventus 2 from Enkoping.
A pity to see that Räyskälä had only one day during their comps 2 weeks ago and Martti [Sucksdorf ] now easily flies 550 km. in the 18m. ASG 29E. What can you do!?

The Livno Adria Cup flown from Livno in Bosnia Herzegovina, was won by Italian pilot Aldo Cernezzie in the Antares/20m. in the HIGH performance class.[4604 points and 5 days out of 8]All AAT’s between 2.30 and 3.30.
Boris Zors was the best in club class in a standard cirrus with 4410 points.

BUT……It is not everywhere in Europe soup-weather. The South as Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey enjoy temperatures of up to 38 dgr. sunny conditions and it is very dry there. The farmers are complaining about the drought, as they do in several parts of the USA.
Talking about Spain they have fantastic soaring weather with over the last days a lot of great flights from Fuente and Ocana. Guy Bechtold from Luxembourg tried out his new Quintus M. , with water ballast,  with a 1000 km. flight. By the way he flew a 1000 in the Quintus already in May in Luxembourg without water and yesterday he flew another one! I like his comparison with the Quintus with and without waterballast. With is like a Ferrari and without like a Mercedes!
Also Minden and Inyokern in the USA have great soaring conditions.

Love this picture from the Quintus flown by Tilo.

The German juniors have started their National  comps in Stölln /Rhinow with a free practise day yesterday.2 Belgian participants in club class Jeroen Jennen and Jochen Schoeters. Quite a few already well known names, certainly for such young people,  in both club and standard class. Will keep you informed and I wish all the young ones a great safe and weatherwise great competition!

That’s all the news . Next Wednesday the last blog from Alphen and then the next one will be from Uvalde. CU cheers Ritz