The Café staff offers condolences to our German friends whose airfields were flooded by torrential rains last week. Here’s an excerpt by Klaus Burkhard of UL-Segelflug.de about the deluge and its aftermath. For the full story, complete with photos of the drowned airfields, click here.

While glider pilots in the northern parts of Germany lately had the unusual fortune of logging 1.000 km distances in club class gliders over the north German flats, torrential rains in the south converted peaceful glider fields within hours into water-aerodromes. Club members at Reinheim Airfield had just enough time to evacuate their glider trailers by transferring them to higher places away from the nearby runlet “Gersprenz”, mutating to torrents.

A waterlogged airfield in Germany

DASSU should use the present situation to think about a new business concept perhaps. As in wintertimes, they equip their motor-gliders with skis, so why not equipping those motor-gliders in such a situation with floats as a new attraction for pilots too. Sure, this would be a new highlight in the region. Who could resist such an offer?