PUBLIC LIBRARY IN TOCUMWAL ON JANUARY 11 2013

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

Spend yesterday afternoon at the airport , where it was pretty busy with pilots from Benalla’s multi class Nationals, as not all made it back home to Benalla .Atleast 2 pilots had landed and were retrieved by car and trailer , others were flown back by the Pawnee and also the Scout returned a few times;KKZ. Interesting is that this Scout belonged to us in the past and it knows it’s way to and around Tocumwal without hesitation. It was great to hear the so-well-known noise of the engine again.

Had dinner at the airport as well as Dundee prepared for 3 a fantastic osso-buco with mashed potatoes and ratatouile.He has the best spot at the caravan park at the airfield with cookaburra’s sitting on his balcony, and bees drinking the water from the hose to keep the area nice green.

 

Today seems to be a nice day for soaring here in Tocumwal, though skies are very blue.The Benalla open class pilots only 70 km. S. from here , have a 3.30 AAT with distances between 250 and nearly 600 km. direction Oaklands and Glenrowan.[308 km].
The 18 m. pilots even got a 4 hour AAT , with distances in the cylinder between 316 a 756  km. [371 km] while the smaller ships still have to fly AAT’s from 3.30.

5 Days of flying now at Chaves for Standard Class and good to see Italian pilot Vittorio Pinni, winning the 2 hour AAT. Still not a 1000 points day at Chaves.
After 5 days the German pilots are doing well with a first, second and seventh place , while the Dutch are in good mood with spots 3 and 5 overall with Sebastian Kawa in “the middle”.
Club class had their day 4 and the best overall scores are for our young and very talented Dutch pilot Tim Kuijpers , but Roman Mracek is on his tail as he has only 3 points less. The Aussies on 4 and 6 are doing a sterling job too. Unfortunately Sarah had a bad day with 9.6 km and 15 points for the day.
In the World class the PW 5 pilots had 4 days as well and on day 4 3 Czech pilots topped the daily list and on top overall there is Matias Pastor from Hungary but straight after “our” Aussie pilot Allan Barnes. Good on him as he did not start too good on day 1. with a 19 th spot , but luckily the points were not expensive that day as the best pilot had 332 points and Allan still 247.

 
Tim Kuijpers from The Netherlands.
courtesy Frans Guise.

 The OLC still shows great flights on the 9th from Namibia, but I heard today is not such a good day; blue and hot. My UK friends left Bitterwasser today again but they had a SUPER time!!!

Last Monday the 7th of January the World Championships Hang gliding started in Forbes with a few well know names. Tove is one of them. I just missed out on seeing her and Grant but others caught up with her before she left Tocumwal. Noticed quite a few Dutch pilots there as well.
When you are interested you can follow them in Forbes at;
http://www.forbesflatlands.com/

That ‘s it for today, cu soon again do not know when
Cheers Ritz