Back to “normal”! Normal??? What about 26 x 1000 km. — plus in Europe!

Wow like the pilots and the organizers, I have to kick off a bit as well from this Sisteron SGP. You have to “bite” yourself into such a competition to share it, otherwise it doesn’t work.

Perfect race , perfect winner and 20 TOP PILOTS giving us a great show.
THANKS and CONGRATULATIONS to ALL pilots and specially Didier, Sebastian and Uli.
Farewell SISTERON, and Hello to VARESE, where next year the final from the 6th FAI Sailplane Grand Prix will be flown.

Z Didier en Sebastian

The 2014 winner and runner up as seen by Didier Capdevila and shared on FB.

 

We had absolutely perfect weather in Europe especially over the Alps! Unfortunately some Baltic states as Bosnie-Herzegovina and Serbia suffer from real bad flooding at the moment, killing already 20 people.

Last Wednesday the weather really turned better here in the afternoon , FINALLY and at more spots in Europe.

2 Times a 1000 from Celje [Slovenia] topped the OLC list for a short while.
One a declared task in a LAK 17/18m. by Anton Sybanc of  1.068.05 km. and one in a JS 1, also declared and 1.144 .7 km. by Uros Krasovic.
They flew direction West and in those areas great flights as well as in Calcinate in Italy where they flew 718 km. in a LAK 17/18m.
Also from Maribor [SL] great over 800 km. flights in  a LAK 19/ 18m. and a St. Cirrus.

ZSlovenia 1    Z Slovenia 3

courtesy Uros.

A bit later Italy added more flights and what flights they had.
Alberto, flew 1.633,38 km. from Calcinate in his Quintus M. As said already it was a declared 1400 km. task, a 1250 badge and an Italian and Continental record. Congratulations to Alberto.
Ugo Pavesi added his declared 1000 [1.244 km.] flown in the Ventus 2ct /15m.When that’s not an effort!

The weather must have been fantastic also in Austria and Switzerland as flights over 1000 km. were flown in an ASW 24, an LS 6 , a DG 300, a Duo Discus . But over 800 km. flight in gliders as DG 100, St. Cirrus are worth mentioning.

On Thursday the weather stayed good and 1.372 km. in a Ventus 2C /18 m. from Noetsch in Austria was the biggest distance that day.

Antti Lehto flew in his new ARCUS the 2d 1000in this glider,now  from Rayskala the place to be from June 22 till July 6, when 122 pilots from 27 countries will visit this lovely place on the lake for the 33d WGC. 102 Gliders will fly in 3 classes.

On Friday Bostjan and Thomasz added their  1.293 km. flight in good wave over the Alps, from Lesce Bled in and EB 28  and yesterday Guy flew from Useldange in Luxembourg in his Quintus a good 922 km.[624 FAI] thermal flight. YES the weather is GOOD in Europe.

Yesterday a few competitions here in Holland with this weather. Not good everywhere but still ” character-building-circumstances, till real good ones. Great to see young an upcoming pilots win at the Gilzer One day comps. Robin Smit won in club class over 369 km.in a St. Cirrus and Jeroen Jennen, who flies already junior worlds for Belgium was the runner up.4 From 12 finished.

In combi-class the 1000 points were equally shared between Robbie Seton, once in my Junior Worlds team in Husbos and Wim Akkermans the brother-in-law from Jeroen. 3 From 11 finished.

Jim Payne is a name regularly coming back in my blogs ,as he loves his long distance wave flights and we love to read about them. In the last issue [May/June] from GLIDING INTERNATIONAL Elke Fuglsang-Petersen spends a few pages on this extraordinary pilot.Great reading!
Also in this issue a report on Schleichers ASH 30 [ the replacement for the ASH 25] by Aldo Cernezzi with a lot of information. A lot of news on the latest instrumentation and what’s the future for our soaring mates in KIEV in the Ukraine???? In the first half of June they fly their open and standard class championships.

Also the Major decisions of the latest IGC plenary are clearly written down for those who missed  that.
I also liked the book review of WINGS OVER ARABIA by Maurice Weaver, with 2 Royal highness’s as pilots!!!!

Enough for today CU next Sunday or earlier on Wednesday in www.soaring.eu 
cheers Ritz.