“Go Big or Go Home”; take 2!!! And…great ridge flights in St. Cirrus and PIK 20! And..some nostalgic pictures!

 Z tony 4

He did it again!

He only realized how long his flight was when he drove back home; 1400 miles round-trip for his club-crew-members John and Mike, chasing him and bringing him home, with ice cream in Dallas in the middle.
Though his wife Leah mentioned” I think they will be getting more than just ice cream.”

Talking about Tony Condon, who had another “good and long one”  in his St. Cirrus; going South 2 gave him 866 points on the OLC for a goal flight of 857 km.Not a bad speed either for the “little” Cirrus;132 km./h.
An inter-state flight from Wellington in Kansas to Lake Charles in Louisiana!!!!
After landing on the center line of the runway at the airfield of De Quincy,he got the idea that the guy who lived there had heard from gliders but never saw one. Interesting!!

Z takeoff Tony by John    Z Tony take 2

             Take off in Kansas                        AND                    landing at the center line, in Louisiana.
Courtesy John and Tony.

Got a short mail:”You may have heard but I chased another cold front yesterday. Similar direction to last time but with a stronger wind and clouds! Lift was easy to work even though the wind was strong. Distance ended up being 525 statute miles. I’m told it was 844 km. I basically flew to the gulf of mexico, was less than 50 miles from water.
Of course I had seen it AND already written about it but I had to wait till today to publish!

Z Tony over Oklahoma

Flying over Central Oklahoma with nice clouds.
Courtesy Tony.

His comment on the flight;
“Spring go South take 2! What a flight!! Excellent conditions in general for the entire flight, character of the air changed a bit once in southern Oklahoma. Very strong NW wind which increased in speed as I went south, but even weak lift 45 minutes before sunset was glassy smooth while drifting nearly 40 mph. Incredible!

Declared goal was San Augustine, TX for 439 miles, distance from Wellington to DeQuincy was 525 miles.

Next time obviously need to start further upwind as the land mass doesn’t extend far enough south. “

z Tony take 2 2

Greetings!!! This time from DE Quincy in Louisiana!
Courtesy Tony.

One of the reactions on his flight was:” Wow… A significant percentage of the power pilot population has never done a 500 mile nonstop flight!!!”

You can see this epic flight on the OLC on April 8 2014!ON THE TOP SPOT!!!!
They can even make a new movie now with Tony in the leading part:”  Gone with the wind”!
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3523858

Another wonderful flight in the USA was the 2d 1000 km ridge flight from Brian Collins in the PIK 20B!!! It must be very special to ” dolphin”  with an average speed of 139 km./h. over the ridges.
From Blairstown ,Daniel Mockler,” captured”   the ridge  as well in his ASW 20; 1.046,06 km.with 134 km./h.
A 989 km. in an LS 3 is , also from Blairstown, pretty impressive too.
It seems, it all happened pretty late in the day , but then the ridge and the super-cu’s did a great job.Even the ” old”  Schweizer’s flew between 418 and  659 km.with up to 78 km./h.!!!!

Europe is pretty awake as well, with good flights in the Alps and other mountain areas.
Also our Japanese friends enjoyed some long-distance-weather over their long-stretched island; up to over 700 km. between the waters to the left and right.[ Big Ocean and Japanese Sea]
Yesterday 500 k from Itakura in the ARCUS , the day before 780 in the VENTUS 2CT/18m. from Nagano.

Over 1000  flights posted yesterday by pilots on the OLC!!! A good Saturday!Still 5.200 ft in Toc on a beautiful autumn afternoon and great flights from South Africa where Uys, Oscar and Pieter flew over 500 km. in their JS 1’s, calling it each a ” donnerse lekker vlug”  . It must have been then an excellent flight!Love the SA language.

I did look back at Australia’s 2013/2014 fantastic and long season already, so did the Australian Magazine Gliding Australia in her March issue.[ www.glidingaustralia.org ]
Conclusion;9 pilots flew
—1 world record
—10 continental records
—46 Australian records

Talking about Australia, the NE,  with places as Cooktown, where the roofs from houses and the West Coast Hotel were blown off  and Cairns where they had flooding,  were hit by cat.4 cyclone Ita, this  weekend. The wind was up to 230 km./h. getting back to 120 km.h. over land!
Between November and April, cyclones more or less belong to Australia, but they are not often so strong as this one.
About 3 years ago they had Yasi, in that area, the most expensive one till now.
From friends I heard there was not too much structural damage, but still damage, no electricity and flooding. They are stuck in their house for a couple of days as roads are closed due to this flooding.
Got an SMS when Cairns was in the middle of the less strong cyclone still with winds up to 120 km./h. and looked at weatherzone.com.au to follow it.
Whilst living in Curacao, we had once a bad one ,so I know what it is. Looked often then to the weather channels, broadcasting all day.

Love the old pictures they put on in EFRY, as an introduction to the Rayskala WGC. These below are from the WGC in Rayskala in 1976 and shared by Sami Hamalainen.Of course you recognize Ingo [Renner] and George[Lee]
Both became world champion there, George , [who lives already for years in Australia],  in open class in an ASW 17 representing  the UK [ he now flies his Nimbus from the field with his own name in Queensland!!!] and Ingo flew for Australia in a PIK 20 B .
He won a brand new PIK 20 and it was shipped straight from the factory to Australia.
From what I heard, Ingo sold it to Bill Riley from Sportavia , the at that time already very popular gliding-school specially for German pilots [to be ] where he was THE instructor .
But one day on a retrieve it  crashed and was dropped for a few years in a corner of the big WW2 hangar. Between 1995 and ’97 , it was rebuilt and frequent flyer Tim bought it and he still owns it. Sometimes it flies on line with Eddie at Sportaviation.
Later one of the the designers of the PIK 20 , Hannu Korhonen, flew with us at Tocumwal and he still is a good mate and still flies so now and then  in Tocumwal  on the  LS 6.
No not on the PIK , but he was pleased as I remember, to see it in good condition. It always had IR as call sign.This world is SO small !!!
By the way ; Bill Riley turns 90 on April 16.He is not the fittest anymore , in and out of hospital, but still alive!!! In his younger years he was one of the most inspiring speakers about aviation.

Ingo and George  Z Ingo

Ingo and George sitting on the fuselage and Ingo with his crew Ivy Dixon.
Also in the photo: Ross Briegleb, Tommy Beltz, Dick Butler, Dick Johnson.

courtesy Sami Hamalainen.

The BIG exposition ,visited by many from the aviation/gliding-world; the Aero in Friedrichshafen is on and as you can see ,Katrin was ready for her guests.

Z Friedrichshafen 1

Katrin with her art [it’s not all about gliders] as always successful on the AERO.
Pilotessa Design-com

BUT  I should show you one glider the brandnew VENTUS 2 cxaFES. The first public presentation of this Ventus at the AERO.

  Z aero 3

As shared by Erazem.

And to finish,….the ” WHITE GOLD ” has arrived! It arrived earlier than normal this year, due to the good , read warm weather, so the gold might be cheaper this season.Now it is 10 E a kilo.

So it is official; the asparagus season has officially started in Holland!!!Love it!

Z asperges

Picture shared by Leo.

Have a good week.
cheers Ritz