QGP continues in Potchefstroom with 170 km. on the clock on day 2!

ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN     WEDNESDAY November 7 2012
HAPPY 40thiest BIRTHDAY TO MY PRECIOUS  DAUGHTER INGE!!!!

ritzdeluy@hotmail.com     www.glidinginternational.com     www.soaringcafe.com

The first 10 points during the QGP in Potchefstroom were for Oscar Goudriaan. He still seems to be in that great soaring mood he was in Uvalde; relaxed, which makes him a STRONG contestant, already for years!!!!
Big brother Laurens was on spot 3 with 7 points and in between Andy Davis [8 points] from the UK. But they only just started so more great soaring to expect.
You see Oscar’s YELLOW hat on the picture below??
They have introduced the RACING HAT.
The YELLOW hat is for the daily winner.
The GREEN  hat is for the OVERALL LEADER of the comps!
A RED hat for the “KING OF THERMALS”, which will be worn by the pilot who had the biggest/largest thermal on the previous day and a
BLUE hat for “SPEED MERCHANT’, which is for the fastest inter -thermal- speed recorded for the previous day.
On day 1 the yellow hat was proudly on the hat from Oscar, the red one on the hat from Tassilo [Bode] , recorded 4.6 m./s, flying the glider with JET as call sign which was flown before the GP by  ” our ” Jeroen and the blue hat was for Mannie [Mclaughlan] with an intern thermal speed of 133-277 km./h .
Great idea , those hats!!!!

Winners on day 1.LOL!!!

 

Impressions from day 1 before the first launch of this QGP.
Pictures coutesy African Sailplane Grand Prix FB site!

Day 2 in Potchefstroom was a fantastic day…. “nail biting” as they called it,  with 6 m/s lift up to 16.000 ft. and a photo finish for number 1 and 2,  Oscar and Andy or ..Andy and Oscar and what SPEED!!!! Words as “holy smoke ” were used and YES such a race  is what a GP is all about!!and later; “Everything less then 5m/s. lift , we just neglected and continued”!
I love the stories and comments on the African- Sailplane- Grand -prix -2012-  FACEBOOK- site, it makes it all so vivid to follow. All GP ‘s should do so and ALL comps big or small.
Thanks for that!
But then …disaster struck for Oscar. His reaction: “Win by a second, miss the finish line by 13 m”.
He won the day ,…BUT missed the finish line by 13 meters!!!!! Can’t believe it! GONE …10 points!!!!!
On my shout of despair,  his reaction came straight away:” Stupid mistake, but with a finish line of 500 m. and 4 pilots arriving at the same time with 250 km on the clock I did not look at the instruments. But tomorrow is another day.”
What a “cool”  hero!
In the end the yellow hat, so the winner from day 2 , was Andy with a speed of 170 km./h.He also wears the green hat as overall leader with 19 points.
The number 2 was Attie [Jonker] with 169.3 and a tad slower with 169.2 km. /h. was Laurens.
Sven [Olivier] said; “Must be the best weather I have ever flown in  .” And do you know how many comps he flew!??! And how many flights he made!?!? A lot!!!!

Day 3 was fore casted on  the day before,  as “expected to be even better than day 2″!
And what I read ; “Another cracker of a day!” BUT…not the speed of day 2, though 127 km./h is not bad! At some places it was faster and better and higher,  at other places it was difficult, but another interesting great QGP-day.
Same winner however,  as Andy got the yellow cap again. Oscar was 2d and Robert Schroeder from Germany was 3d.
But they “stick to the rules” as they should , so quite some penalties!
Even up to 546 penalty points for one pilot ; missed finish line violation and finish height violation, others for start height violation or finish line violation.[ www.soarinspot.com ]
But on the fun site the green hat is for Andy as overall topper, the red hat was for Pieter Nouwens and the blue hat for Andy Davis with 276 km. /h.

 

Spectecular finishes on day 3!
Courtesy African Sailplane GP.


Andy back on day 3 with another win in the pocket!
Courtesy;  Hennie Boshoff.

And what about day 4, it still has to start but expectations are HIGH. 7m. /s. is the forecast and look at this picture from Oscar;

with text;If this is true we are going to the moon today! Somebody tell Houston Space Control and tell them we will be in their airspace !!!
GOOD LUCK TODAY GUY”S!!!

BUT;  The organizers are a bit more modest for today this is their morning reaction;
—”News from the ground reports that the weather is going to be, well, challenging today. Reports of “iffy” weather to the south of the field that is moving in a north easterly direction. Welkom, which is further to the south west south of Potch, is cold and overcast at the moment. But, onward we go. Sniffer will be launched at 12h00 local, with first competitor expected to launch at 12h30. Good luck for today guys, its going to be a testing day—”

Snow in Switzerland and Bert [Schmelzer] jr. went for a short but good flight with some mates to check the West-wind-wave and as you know he shares his flights with us in word and picture so here you are , ENJOY;

https://picasaweb.google.com/101367179377196465151/03112012WestwindWave#5807021397965166786

And here is an example , why he loved his Saturday afternoon, with a visibility of more then 200 km. and lenti’s on FL 200 and the first snow from winter on the mountain tops.

 


Soaring over spring-snow this time in New Zealand
where my FB friends Jill and John had great flights  in their single seat glider , which they bought with a few others, specially for YOUTHGLIDE!!!!
Last Sunday they  attached a GOPRO on the back of the tail flying from Springfield and this lovely picture , flying over Castle Hill Peak  is one of the results;

Soaring in Australia and Africa continues with nice long spring-flights not only in open class gliders. Looking on Sunday in Australia a 500 FAI triangle in an LS 3 is just good.
The first flight from Stonefield is a fact as well, when the first German guests “checked” the area in the Marianne.
Evelien Nijland and William Stalenburg are both collegues from my daughter , flying as captains for Transavia here in Holland. In winter they both disappear to Narromine flying their duo discus and the first flights have been made . They do what I did for more then 20 years ……..avoiding the Dutch winter as long as possible!

Melbourne CUP  long weekend ….yes the race [horses] who still brings Australia to a standstill……brings  lot’s of guests from Melbourne for a visit to Tocumwal.
In Judy’s e-news for the last week, I read “460 km and had a five hour flight“, …..”comment on the flight sheet was “MAGIC”!  “…..”Saturday night everyone enjoyed a good Aussie BBQ in the hangar “…..” Ingo took up our grandson, Braden, after school.  He is only 6 but thoroughly enjoys gliding and told his class about how to use the controls for news on Friday”…..Wednesday it was also over 30 degrees and this time the cloud base was about 12,000′”.
Longtime friends Tim and Laurel , David and Swiss Chris visited as well from Melbourne at Eddie and Cheryl’s Sportaviation, all enjoying local flights and each other’s company. And with a week full of days with 30 dgr. that’s just fun, however on Sunday the weather deteriorated a bit and the WEEKEND had rain.
The RACE by the way was GREAT AS ALWAYS [thanks Jo for the update] ;
—”Green Moon upstaged a field of international stars and former victors to win the 2012 Melbourne Cup.
The Robert Hickmott (Australian)-trained horse stormed clear in the final 200m to win the $6 million race ahead of European stayer Fiorente and Jackalberry.
Ecstatic winning jockey Brett Prebble, who rides predominantly in Hong Kong, said he had realised a dream.
“It’s my life’s dream to do it,” Prebble said.  “Was never going to get beaten.”—”

The other RACE in the USA by OBAMA.Interesting , the question here in Holland was who would you like as president? Nearly all voted for Obama! So he has another 4 years to lead the country. As he said in a touching, convincing and enthusiastic acceptance speed he wants a UNITED America not red or blue and , “the best is still to come”. Hope so for all the people in the USA and for all of us!!

On Saturday November 10 there is an OPEN DAY in Utrecht [Maarssen] from the GLIDER PILOT SHOP [Maurits Dortu] ,  in co-operation with EPST [European pilot selection and training….young Tim Kuijpers, world champion Juniors in Musbach,  studies here to be an airline pilot] ] and Alexander Schleicher BENELUX [Rene de Dreu runs this business and he was our young European Champion]; it starts at 10 AM and closes at 7 PM. Andrej Koller will be there from NAVITER talking about gliding soft ware in the 21 century .All about batteries you get to know from Noud Vermeulen from XCap Batteries.
You can bring instruments for calibration , updating or upgrading and reparation for special prices and parachutes for re-packing and all kind of the latest instruments are to be looked at ,  all about the ASG 29, ASH 30 and 31 and all kinds of batteries!

http://www.gliderpilotshop.nl/winkel/product_info.php?products_id=609

By the way, on November 11 , they do it ALL OVER AGAIN now the day will be organized in Belgium in the officer’s mess at Beauvechain.

CU next Sunday, or  on Saturday in Maarssen,  as it looks I can go.
Looking forward to the end result in Potchef, you too?

Cheers Ritz