Today we incorporated a new feature at the Cafe–posts from external sources. From the beginning, we have looked for interesting news on the web and posted excerpts for you to “get a sip” and then provided a link to the full post. We have discovered that we can automate that process! The Soaring Cafe home…
The Dutch National gliding championships are at this stage in Arhem on the National Gliding Center Terlet. Interesting to see is how many of the WGC pilots now prepare for the comps . Mac Ichikawa from Japan flew Fatraglide and rushed to Hahnweide to fly there as well and with succes as he won 3 of the 4…
OK – so much for “I won’t fly until Wednesday”. Today turned out to be a really pretty good day. A new young German pilot did his first 300km (so he bought all the beer tonight) and one of the more experienced fellows did a bit over 400km. My Nimbus got done with the tail…
Every year I try to take a gliding vacation and in 2005 I visited South Africa for the first time and just fell in love with flying here. This is my 7th trip and, like earlier years, I will try to send on daily “reports” to friends back home. These daily reports really began as…
Thank you Leigh Zimmerman for these photos. — Ed.
The weather in different places in Europe is GLORIOUS!! Yesterday Holland had 4 over 700 km. flights and that means only thermals!!! Today it looks great again. Did we have yesterday pretty much wind and a very COLD one, today is much more pleasant on the ground and for sure also in the air! Look…
Terry Delore flying his ASH 25 Zulu Foxtrot with Yvonne Loader 29/4/12 in Haka valley over Ritchie McCaw country. Video taken at 12,000 feet, hook cloud develops quickly into a funnel cloud at cloud base, the cloud was spinning fast although the video quality does not show it. The funnel cloud was about 1000 ft…
In February I attended the SSA Convention in Reno and I learned about the Let’s Go Gliding! campaign. This is an extraordinary initiative that can benefit the sport of soaring, especially if all it’s members (or at least the active ones) would get involved and really promote soaring and the campaign. During the convention everybody…
This winter, Chris Woodward has been a regular in Dick’s workshop, applying a lightweight plastic film called SolarTrim to Concordia’s control surfaces. Last weekend, we interviewed Chris and asked him to explain the process and the rationale for using SolarTrim rather than gel coat or paint.
Schempp-Hirth recently finished the brand new high performance, self launching, 23 meter wingspan glider, the QUINTUS M. The test flight was done by the president of the company,Tilo Holighaus on December 23, 2011. On this 6-1/2 minute video you can see it fly, including an interview with Tilo. The interview is in German with English subtitles.
