Alphen aan den Rijn Wednesday June 6 2012.
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.glidinginternational.com www.soaringcafe.com
Räyskäla; Picture courtesy Aku Jaakkola
I am not joking, but we had last Sunday the same temperature as at Christmas in mid-winter. And Saturday was just gorgeous, for us on the ground and for those high up and flying 750′s and more!
1329 Flights were added on Saturday on the OLC, on Sunday only 222, that says it all !!
Weird weather! Feel sorry …AGAIN …for some of the comps having to deal with rain and a struggle to “make ” days. We were so lucky in Holland with the Nationals and so was Denmark with nearly the best you could get out of the max days.
A shock this morning when I read the “dry ” words on the Provence2012 site;
—” Our friend Giorgio Galetto (Italy) crashed on the south side of the Tête du Peyron noth-east from St Crepin airfield. Giorgio is well (just slightly injured) and has been transported to the Hopital of Briançon for a check-up. We wish him a quick recovery.”
AND this morning .
“A little problem with lumbar vertebre has been found. Giorgio will be operated in surgery tomorrow at Briançon Hospital.”
Hope as EVERYBODY else that he may recover totally and if possible can fly in Uvalde. But…a total recovery is the first priority!!! All the best for him, Marina, and Chiara!!!
Giorgio during the GP last year!
The open Dutch Military comps started with rain last Monday and 10°C !!!!! So day 1 to 5 were cancelled.
But NOT day 2, yesterday, with 3:30 AAT’s in four classes and flights up to 307 km (by Peter Millenaar in a Discus 2).
No soaring today. I guess it will rain there as bad as here.
The women in Ulm, struggled with rain as well and waited until 3:00 to start for small AAT’s on Monday. Then the day was cancelled at 3:15.
But…300 km in st. class yesterday with winner Meike Müller in the LS-8.
In club, the girls had to fly a race over 237.7 km and Swaantje won the day. Good on her!
The 15 m ladies had 335 km and believe it or not Katrin Senne [ASG 29] won again!!! All five days they flew the daily prize was hers!!! Super! She tops, of course, the totals, but Annette Klossok [ASG 29] remains close—3599 and 3526 points. It looks as if they fly together or at least always start together.
The Bayreuth pilots prepared their gliders on Monday for short tasks; would the weather finally allow them to fly??? There was hope !!!! BUT…at 3 :10 they had to cancel as well.
BUT, yesterday the words were there;”Nun geht ‘s los!” We can start now!! After five scrubbed days they could fly!!!
So they did only two outlandings and in open Uli [ Schwenk] won in the EB 29 with a speed of 112 km/h over 325 km.
To have three days, meaning they have a valid competition, they might fly one day extra, as the comps only have tomorrow and Friday to go as…today is CANCELLED.
The Uk pilots in 15 m and open class had a good Monday morning…the weather was brightening!!!!! AND…after waiting and waiting the classes got the message—SCRUBBED! Today they wait again…but another scrubbed day!
The European pilots flying Provenceglide 2012 had after one day of soaring also a cancelled day, but started the week fresh on Monday with 302K in 15 m class, 363 in 18m and 403 in open class. Start times were open between 13:52 [15m] , 14:20 for 18 m, and 14.33 for open. At least SOMEBODY was flying despite this miserable weather.
And….in 15 m all but one flew the 302 km; the best pilot was Louis Bouderlique!
In 18 m Gilles Navas got the 985 points and in open Bruno Gantenbrink was the best. Yesterday the weather was less good then expected! Mike Young, whom I met as young crew in Benalla in 1987 and who became friends with my kids, won the day in 18 m.
In open Bosjan Pristavec won the day and in 15 m Jeremy Badaroux was the best.
VERY SAD to hear that on this day Giorgio had such bad luck.
On day 2 some pilots violated the airspace and were out after 15 km like Bruno Gantenbrink. In the end Bruno [ETA] won the day but lost 1000 points for the violation—0 points. Peter Hartman [ASG 29] from Austria had an incorrect start point on day 1—0 points.
Good to see that at least my friends in Ocana are having fun, as well as in Greece where Alexis flew 752 in his ASW22BLE from Kopaida. Not a lot of pilots put their flights on the OLC from Greece.
Spain is “waking up ” as a TOP soaring country for long distance flights and I noticed not only good flights from Ocana but also from Beas de Segura and Fuentemilanos.
The Finnish 18 m Nationals from Räyskälä have 2 days now and yesterday was a bad day for the two Martti’s [Sucksdorff and Koivula], good friends from Tocumwal and from when I was there. Both outlanded after 244 and 266 km on a 1000 km day, won by Timo Saarnimo in ASG 29 flying 275 k. over a 3 hour AAT!!!
As said, rain then sunshine and super soaring conditions. Yesterday was the perfect day again; today it rains cats and dogs.
Yesterday pilots from Holland and Belgium flew big distances—923 for Tijl Schmelzer who tried a 1000 km triangle, flew 786 km of it, missed out on 20 minutes- more lift to reach the powerplants [always giving lift] to fix it and some daylight but still a great flight.
Wim Akkermans flew from the airfield of Woensdrecht in Holland, a very nice 866 km task [677 triangle in Arcus M]
From Luxembourg kilometer-eater Guy Bechtold flew 879 km in his brand-new Quintus M.
Each of them are very grateful to the many [international] controllers they have to deal with. Good cooperation!
From my Perth friend I got the next news which I share with you as well;
—”We had our safety day at work today and we all traipsed off to the Perth Convention Centre to hear Richard de Crespigny talk about his experience as the captain of the Qantas A380 that had the spectacular disc failure in 2010. It was an amazing talk±sufficiently technical to keep the engineers spell-bound, but also very human too—praising the team he had with him in the air (including the passengers). Such a combination of misfortune and good luck, and of course a great deal of skill and training which eventually led to a happy outcome. He even gave the passengers his mobile phone number so they could ring him if they were dissatisfied with the way Qantas handled their ongoing journeys etc (no one has called him!).
There was too much in de Crespigny’s presentation to relay here, but he has a book coming out, and I have included the link below in case you are interested.
http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/display_title.asp?ISBN=9781742611174&Author=de%20Crespigny,%20Richard
To finish some great pictures by Bert Schmelzer jr, brother of Tijl, who lives and flies in Switzerland and made during a race over the Jura. Enjoy.
Great soaring along the lake Saint Point.
Great clouds and great visibility!!
CU you at Sunday June 17. Enjoy all soaring in between!!!! Most of the results can be found on www.soaringspot.com and www.soaringcafe has a link to the UK Nationals.
Tomorrow a blog in Soaring Café instead of Sunday. I am going to enjoy some “pretty cool ” days at the beach.
Cheers…Ritz
