Lots of Beer!

With autumn here in full swing, there is not a lot of soaring anymore but yesterday we had a very nice day here in Holland. Skies looked fantastic, as you can see on the next picture from Peter Millenaar at the airfield of  Teuge, not too far from Terlet. The plane [DC3] is superb and so is the sky.

A few nice glider flights as well: 377 from Terlet in a Ventus CT /17.6 m by Paul Wijsman. With “Spring” showers, blue holes and GREAT visibility, as Paul mentioned and good lift [ up to 3 m/s at places] till…TEUGE where he had to pull the engine, as he was impatient!

31 Dutch pilots added their flights yesterday on the OLC. Today is not too good, so this might have been the last nice 2012 summer day here in Holland.

Also Belgium had great autumn weather. As Niel Deijgers said on the OLC after his 386 km flight from Diest in the St. Libelle:
—” In the beginning low cloud base and a lot of rain showers or big blue holes that I could not cross. later on the day very nice cu with some streeting. Had to fly a lot around so been everywhere and nowhere.—”

Also at Keiheuvel soarable weather, specially later in the day; Jeroen Jennen still flew 254 km in the LS 8.

In Munich the Octoberfest started yesterday and as usual the mayor opened the first cask and poured the first glass. This is version 179 and they expect this year about 6 million guests. Last year they had 6.9 million and they drank 7.5 million liters of beer!! What about that!

The party goes till October 7. Lots of Dutch friends will go there and I know a few German glider pilots who will be there as well!

It’s a new trend to come in national traditional clothes. We saw the trend as well in our soaring sport with the Austrians and the Japanese in traditional clothes.

When you visit Munich you will see lots of clothes like the Austrians, but also Dutch people on wooden shoes and Scottish people in kilts.

   

Dirndl dresses and leather pants.[Lederhosen]in UVALDE.

 

Mac in a Japanese traditional outfit  in UVALDE.

In Australia the season started with some nice flights already, as yesterday in a St. Libelle;  an FAI triangle from 400 km from Kingaroy in Queensland [East of Australia] .

My friend Gerrit flew in his Nimbus 4T [ which is for sale as he gets a new Quintus M] from his home field at Jondaryan 541 km and pilots must have a real good spring feeling over there already.

Containers for Bitterwasser have been packed this weekend again and also Pokweni is expecting containers, one with a brandnew ARCUS in it, I noticed.

Kiripotib surely will have new and “old ” guests as well.
In South Africa, of course Bloemfontein will have their visitors, and one of our Dutch girls, a student in medicine in Amsterdam, Sietske, is going to do practice as a doctor in South Africa and I presume we will see flights from her from Potcheffstroom this winter.

AND….2 Places to fly now in Gariep Dam, so whenever I hear from them again I share the news. Last I heard was;
—“the airfield at Gariep Dam is now exclusively owned and operated by Gariep Dam Aviation. (owned outright by Mr. Gunter von Versbach.)
Mr Lessle has moved operations to Douglas (his business is still called GariepGliding / gariepgliding.com—“

Picture courtesy Doris Wiesenthal.

Got a short note from Gariep Dam Aviation that they are very busy with the preparations, already 26 guests announced their stay for the season at this early stage and as I heard they made arrangements to rent 4 houses in town to accommodate their guests.—“Cheaper and convenient to all be close together.—”
Containers will be packed and I get more detailed news later.

Still some competition soaring in the USA where in New Castle, a regional [4 South] competition is in progress. Nice to see that my new Uvalde friends Sarah and Andreea are both involved as tuggie/maybe even participant in the comps [ I could not find a list of pilots!]  and editor/helper.On the pictures I noticed more new Uvalde friends who are flying there, as Gary [crew for Bill Elliott [WE] , Richard Maleady [ who was involved with all what happened at the field/grounds], Dennis Linneken [the TC from the USA],  Al Tyler [SSA chairman], and I even recognized Karl Striedeck who I met at a few WGC comps in the past.

Unfortunately the weather was windy so the last day was skipped and the winners are known now, as I read on Andreea’s blog: Tim Welles in 18 m  and Gregg Leslie in FAI class.
http://wordsaboutsoaring.com/  by Andreea.

Really liked the words from Arne Boye Möller  this morning on FB;
Texas is BIG, Texans are hospitality personified”!!!
SO TRUE!!!!!

Still a lot of after-news and memories all over FB from Uvalde, as this picture from Frans from little Fin, son of German TC Uli and his wife Chrissie, who is a top glider pilot as well and on his way from Texas to South America to be in Chaves for the next WGC.

” Clearly impressed”  by Frans Guise .

NO BLOG NEXT SUNDAY. Just to let you know. I will be off for a few days. CU later.
All the rest of the news from last week at www.soaring.eu

Cheers Ritz