Happy Easter
courtesy Maria Böttcher.
Still cold! Too cold for the time of the year. Do you know that the temperature here in Holland with CHRISTMAS was HIGHER than now with Easter?? BUT … when visiting the ZES lustre last Wednesday evening, I realised, that on March 29 1967 when I saw for the first time in my life a glider and made my first flight as well, the green grass was covered by snow, so … what’s new!!!
We changed to summer time as well yesterday, but summer is still far away.
It ‘s colder than normal in Florida as well. I heard from Morgan Sandercock, the project manager of the Perlan Project.
” … a bit of news about the 13.5m class. I am currently in Florida, competing with five other pilots. So far we haven’t had any flyable contest days, but the weather is forecast to improve. In fact the weather has been so bad here, that we have had record low temperatures for Florida in March– colder than January.
I drove through a blizzard to get here from Oregon (6 days driving time) with a SparrowHawk. See the photos.
Courtesy Morgan Sandercock.
Today I noticed that the Florida sun is back!!!
Welcome in Nitra!
Pictures courtesy FAC @ NITRA
Nitra is one of the best visited competitions in Europe, the first for the 2013 season and some even call it the VERY BEST comps in the world and the BEST event of the year. They were supposed to start with a few free trainingdays ( between March 23 and 28).
From March 27, you could go online for a self briefing for pilots. Also the competition period airspace file is online! The field, however, was on Wednesday still covered with a thick layer of SNOW. The sun carefully tried to break through too, melting some of it, so there was hope that they could start with an official practise day without SNOW on March 29, then the opening briefing on March 30, and as scheduled yesterday also the first flying day . Indeed, some 20 gliders went up on Thursday (when the sun breaks through I heard it can immediately be good there), to mainly check their instruments and gliders after their not flying all winter.
The runway was OK, even for the heavier 2-seaters. Even better —the pilots reported good ridge conditions but poor visibility, forcing them to be VERY careful.
Small lakes at the field
courtesy FAC@Nitra
In the end, the official practise day was cancelled and day 1 as well; as they expected rain and rain there was, too much! With the extra water from the melting snow they now “can swim in lakes at the field ,” but …t hat will pass and the GAME can BEGIN. During the briefing at 11 they will find out, as the meteon will know the forecast for the next days! All news in English at http://www.pribinacup.sk/2013/
And … more bad weather this time in Goondiwindie, Australia, where the Easter comps are in progress, or…???? RAIN!!! This early EASTER spoils a lot of fun. This is what Bruce Taylor had to say for those who have not yet read it on FB:
“So here we are, sitting in the rain at a gliding competition. Have we been here before? Not in Goondiwindi, but on any number of airfields around the world, yes we have. Yesterday was a challenging day, with very European conditions. There is water everywhere around the task area, and after the launch it required some concentration just to stay airborne. A long, quiet glide after start found the first good climb, then it was OK till halfway around, when it went all soft again. Finally in the last sector it came good, and there was a great run home.
It has been so busy on the farm, I keep saying to myself that I am only here for the holiday, but the competitive spirit always tries to overcome any attempted relaxation! A few times yesterday I had to force myself to hold back when someone flew past me. In the end it all went well.
Today will be wet all day, then tomorrow should be flyable again, though the ground is going to be saturated. All good fun….”
For all other news from last week you can check www.soaring.eu .
Cheers … Ritz
