Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday March 21
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.glidinginternational.com www.soaringcafe.com
The astronomic spring has started here as well yesterday at 6.14 AM. And…it is clearly spring. Nice VERY nice weather, bit cold in the morning and high up , but sunny with temperatures up to 20 in the rest of this week .
But what’s more and even better, great looking cloud streets on Monday. I saw them here and in Amsterdam and in the evening on TV at the meteo -news. The radar showed fantastic cloud streets also over the UK [519 km for Dave Masson from Lasham in 18m. LS 6] ] and the meteo-man kindly informed the Dutch viewers about this phenomena.
Of course you look straight away in the late evening if the weather was really that good and….some lucky pilots who had time to fly went up and one of them Peter Millenaar, who just finished his training at the CAE [Sponsor of the Dutch Nationals]and is a “real” pilot now , had time and flew 514 km. [ in Discus 2A] over flat-as-a-pancake Holland/ Germany, without water as he still had his water tanks at home. With this flight he topped the OLC list on Monday.
Great start of the season though it was not a real easy flight he says;”It started difficult as I had to find out where the lift was, so I dropped to 220 m. ” , but….quickly he found 2m./s and off he went and with the 35km/h. wind in the back, he raced over Holland to Germany, taking all kind of “streets ” with fantastic view on top of it. The same streets did not always “work” on the way back , but he made it home to Hoogeveen with lots of OLC kilometers. Peter was already once our National champion [2009 in combi class] at age 20 , flew at the JWGC in Rayskala and…… this was his first flight for the season.
Courtesy ;Peter Millenaar.
“3 Diamonds in One flight”, the overly happy reaction from USA pilot Richard Roelke. He tried this for years and NOW the moment was there; 566 km. and 3000 and 5000 m.
Flying his 17.4 m. Glasflügel 304 cz from Gorham , he thinks this is the first time, it happens in New England and as he says maybe also the first East of the Mississippi. Starting with ridge-soaring…. the rest of the flight was wave and exactly on the places it should be!! What do you want more!? Well done!!!
Great wave-conditions in Norway as well.But a bit too much ground wind “taking the ASK 21 from the club for a ” low ride”. A pity as there was damage . According to Robert who flies every year from Freya, conditions have been good with great looking lenties up to 4000 m. as you can see on the pictures close to his hotel in Vaga and from the air. http://robbangliding.blogspot.com/
Pictures courtesy; Robert Danewid
The track for the EUROGLIDE is now defenite and here you are and…if you want to see on the map how big this task is go to www.euroglide.nl and click on 2012:
Already this year in June [3-10] the traditional local gliding competition Jannen Kisat will take place , the 30thiest anniversary and the Finnish 18 m. comps with Riku Rissanen as CD. In the summer from 2013 the Pre Worlds will be held.
For the full schedule you can go to the site.
Rene [left] and Tim after the 2011 Dutch Nationals.
Just looked at the farewell ceremony from the 17 victims from Lommel [Belgium] , involved in that tragic bus accident in Switserland. Together we are strong , was the motto from the kids when they were still enjoying theirselves during an unforgettable ski-holiday.Only from that little town Lommel, 17 were killed. Impressive, emotional and unforgettable!