Alphen aan den Rijn     Wednesday September 7 2011     ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

The season is nearly over. Let 2012 be as good as this day in 2011.

To be honest the answer on that question is… NOT TOO MUCH! Some pilots are busy to clean the mud from this season from their gliders to ship them to their over-seas destination in the hope to REALLY fly over there and believe me , there will be a lot of mud!
Specially Australia ‘s quarantine does n’t like to see one bit of sand!Luckily Australian Soaring in Corowa, from Grietje and Francesco have a lot of experience and know how to deal with this and as their customers are regulars they do know what to do as well. Never a problem there!
For a few moments we hoped we would have a real nice after-summer-period ,we were HAPPY already,….. but after 3 nice days we are back to 15 dgr. tomorrow and rain -as usual-.
Now we had our first autumn-storm, yes a left-over from Irene, but no real harm has been done.

I looked with interest to the results from  Gary Ittner’s  flights last week. Being 2d behind Bruce Taylor in the Uvalde Glide 18m. pre-worlds a few weeks ago , he seems ready for the 2012 WGC at Uvalde [Texas] . Now this USA top-pilot,  from the Houston area, so used to flying in Texas, flew 2 super -fast flights in his ASG 29/18 over the Eastern Sierra ridges;on Sept.3 an 870 km. flight with a speed of 165.94 km/h. and on Sept 4 a 1013 km.distance with 164.48 km/h. NOT BAD!
Gary is already for a long time [1995 as far as I could find] on and off , in the National Team and participated in several WGC’s, till now in the 15m. class. Lately he flew as well in Eskilstuna and Lüsse.

During the last JWGC at Musbach  I was amazed/shocked to hear that one young man from the USA was removed from the team and comps. 
This is what I found about it on the SSA site News and Information [ www.ssa.org ] and if you have not read it/found it, I copied the statement as it is an important one for young people. I admire the openess they give now and hope others will learn from it and NEVER get into such a situation!!!!!!

US Team Committee Statement Regarding the 2011 Junior WGC

During the recent JWGC, the US Team Committee (USTC) determined that the behavior and conduct of one member did not meet the standards or Code of Conduct set forth in the US Team Policies and Procedures (210 USST Team Policy & Procedures Ver 14, 01/14/04 ). The behavior and conduct were discussed with the team captain and this team member.  It was made clear that the behavior would not be tolerated; and, that if not corrected, the next course of action would be removal from the team and competition. 

Inappropriate behavior persisted, leaving no option other than removal from the team and the competition. In addition, further disciplinary actions are being taken by the USTC to include, but not limited to, a reduction in the amount of reimbursement from US Team funds. 

While the USTC deeply regrets that this action was necessary, we cannot and will not abide serious material failures of the US Team members to hold to the standards of conduct expected of all team members while representing the SSA, US Team and USA.

Bill Elliott, Chairman
US Team Committee

 Of course I asked Bill for permission first. You might know Bill who together with Rand is “the engine ” behind the SoaringCafe, the very interesting site with lot’s of news not only from the USA but also from everywhere in the world;  www.soaringcafe.com add it to your favourites!
So straight away some news from Bill;
—-we do receive many posts from pilots from all over the globe.  We are just eight months old and have nearly 500 posts !
We average over 20,000 visits per month with roughly half of our visitors from outside of the US.  It is our desire to have a strong international presence with articles from around the globe. 
AND
We would be very happy for you to create a post on SoaringCafe.com.  Perhaps a short excert with one photo and then a link back to your blog to read your entire post. 
And here is Rand;

And yes , that’s what I am going to do! Very pleased to hear that such dedicated and much more professionel people as I am, like what I write in both Gliding International and in my blog. So co-operation will happen from today on!!!! Love it!!!
What we have in common is passion for soaring!!!!!!

Something totally different and less nice and…as a hotmail user [ gmail users are a target as well!!] it scared the hell out of me!!!
This is what I received from Iain Baker from Jonker Sailplanes. I , luckily, DID NOT [yet]  get such a mail, but this is an extra warning to be careful. Iain is such a nice hard working guy and now they STOLE his email account and used it for spam-fraud;
Read and shiver!!!!

It would be helpful to resend any emails sent to me or by me recently (or indeed, at anytime) as I used my email account to store a history of email correspondence with around 3500 emails