ALPHEN AAN DEN RIJN WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 12 2012
12-12-12
Last special date for a long time, for people who want to marry on such a date to surely not get in to problems later by forgetting that special day.
We have to wait 989 years now and 20 days!!!!!!!!!!
BUT…..11-12-13 is already possible NEXT year
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.glidinginternational.com www.soaringcafe.com
As a blogger it pleases me a lot , that more and more young ones write about their soaring experiences in blogs and on Facebook. They share pictures as well, so we feel a bit what’s going on in their world on comps and longtime trips or JWGC’s and even WGC’s, as some juniors and several just-not-juniors-anymore will be in Chaves. At this stage the New Zealand team performs in Lake Keepit and a German team is flying from Stonefield. Yesterday they flew over 700 km. in the DG 1000 and LS 10.[777 km.] Today Max flew 834 km [783 FAI triangle] with Felix in the back of the 20 m. span DG 1000.
I follow with pleasure the Junior Comps in Australia. Long ago , in any case before the HusBos JWGC in 2005, young pilots as David Mc Manus and Adam Woolley presented their plans for the organisation of the junior comps during the Nationals. I was a bit astonished; such young people organising their own competition, dealing with notam’s, tugs and tuggies, inviting others, knowing they had to come from far as Australia is a HUGE country. But they did it and with some help from mentors as Paul Mander who went as TC with Nathan and Adam to Husbos , they have made junior soaring very popular in Australia.
I also liked to see how they still think back on Husbos as a fantastic competition with ONE dark day for for all youngsters and the whole soaring fraternity, when a famous young photographer Neil Lawson died being hit by a glider while making his spectacular pictures . A TRAGIC and unfortunate accident,…still now at this time and also unforgettable, what a nice and passionate fellow who made the BEST soaring-pictures ever !!!!
Our Dutch team had TWO bad days, one with the accident with the photographer as 3 of my team stood around him on roofs of cars and could jump down as they saw the glider come with their eyes and NOT through a lens and straight at the arrival ,when one of my young pilots nearly killed himself, while driving for one split second on the wrong site of the road seeing the airport and crashed with another car, [ both total loss] who’s driver sadly enough ended up in hospital.
In cases as this you see how helpful our soaring world is. The glider was more or less ok after a good check up, but the trailer damaged and someone brought from far away another trailer to use during the WGC.
And,…flexible as the young ones are, it all continued and last week I saw several nice pictures as memories on a competition in 2005 , with a great impact on some. The sadness combined with the JWGC atmosphere created a bond between many!
Back to Joey Glide from Lake Keepit;
Nick Oakley from NZ finishes over the Lake.
Same kind of pictures you see with finishes in Räyskäla [Finland]
I am not the only one who is interested also Channel 9 and PRIME [ nice item to be seen at
http://au.prime7.yahoo.com/n2/
They flew 3 out of 3 days till now and on day 1 the pilots [all 25 or under ], got a 2 hour AAT. Nick Maddocks won the 1000 points by flying 207 km. in 2.18. Brother Andrew was on spot 5 and both boys fly LS 8.
Our NZ friends were on spot 6 {Alex} and 8 {Nick}
Day 2 had an even shorter AAT [B task] from 1.30 and this time Matthew Scutter was the best in the Discus 2 flying 191 km. in 1 hour and 33 minutes while Andrew Maddocks was the runner up. Good on Matthew as he was one of the “au vache” pilots on day 1 with 24.1 km and only 57 points , BUT, …we know what a good pilot he is!!
The weather was pretty crap,but I read on the NZ FB site,” however once we took off the day got really good. The thermals were only 6500ft but were streeting. Most competitors started at the same time. While on course the thermals were good but there were many different possible routes. Later in the day the wind came up which made getting back from the last turn quite hard. Nick had gone further north so his head wind component wasn’t too hard but Alex, who went more to the west, had a strong head wind which made it hard for him to get on final glide. He did get on final glide but ran in to strong sink so chose to land in a paddock rather than having a dodgy glide over the lake. Nick got 11th for the day and Alex got 16th after his land out.”
Day 3 showed a longer task as a 3 hour AAT was set. A day with high expectations and even a fast day was expected . Matthew managed to get back with the best amount of kilometers; 397.3 in 3 hours and 6 minutes. so speed was 128.2 km./h. GOOOOD!!
The Maddock brothers followed on spot 2 and 3 and our NZ friends ended up on good spots 7 and 11., both flying faster then 100 km./h. All pilots finished!After 3 days the total score is 1. Andrew Maddocks,[ 2687] 2. Colin Strauss,who flies a Mosquito [ 2650] 3 . Nick Maddocks.[2577]
Matthew climbed up to spot 10.
The South African Nationals are in full swing , THOUGH,…… the weather refuses to co-operate. Only one day of soaring with that 534 km set task on day 1, BUT it was unfortunately not flown by any of the pilots . Pieter Nouwens was the best with 334 km. and got the 1000 points. Not such a good day for my friends ,the Goudriaans [HAPPY BIRTHDAY today LAURENS!!!!], being on spot 8 together with 617 points.
Did we have the NSW State comps last week, now the Victorian State Comps are on at Bacchus March, with 24 pilots in 3 classes. They flew 2 days and had yesterday the day off as it was scrubbed! Pretty marginal weather , a lot of outlandings or virtual outlandings, on day 1 and 2 till now.
A bit more NE, the weather was good with 800 km [750 FAI triangle] from Corowa and a nice declared FAI out and return from 300 km by the 2 Japanese guests from Japan at Tocumwal in an LS 4. Temperature around 30 dgr. AND,…today one of them Takeshi finished his silver C by flying his declared 500 km. AND his 5 hours! Congratulations!!!! Friend Toshi flew his first declared 500 as well.
And not too far from Bacchus a great flight by Tobias Geiger from Benalla yesterday; 727 km [ 536 triangle] flying up to Tocumwal and one leg along the mountains via Mount Beauty.
Good news for the glider pilots from the EAC at Eindhoven , they are allowed to stay at least till January 2014, to fly from the airport they fly from already for 70 years. They have to co-operate with the civil aviation as well as the military aviation and it is getting busier and busier there and the air-space to fly in is smaller and smaller.
AND…WHEN YOU LIKE SOARING SAFARIES , here is a link to the Southern Cross Expedition 2012 from the Beverley Soaring Club, I received from Jo and a fantastic picture from an approaching dust storm by Norm Block who I have n’t seen for YEARS!!!!More on this site!
http://sx2012.wordpress.com/ and
http://www.beverley-soaring.org.au
And last but not least; Not long ago I told you about Belle Brockhoff the daughter of our mutual soaring friend from Australia Bruce. Here is the latest on her. Will see Bruce by the way, at Benalla during the Multi Class Nationals between Jan 7 and 18. Most probably try to stay there for the last day and night to be part of the last soaring day , the dinner and the prize giving!!!
—”Belle Brockhoff kept the family name up in lights and has given Australia an excellent start to the world snowboard season with a podium finish over the weekend.
Brockhoff, niece of 1960 and 1964 Winter Olympian Peter, became the first Australian woman to win a snowboard cross world cup medal when she finished third in Montafon, Austria, on Friday.—”
Good on her!
See you on my birthday on Sunday for a short note as there are many other duties that day, cheers Ritz
