Did I have last time good news about soaring in Sweden with the first starts of the season, this time it is BAD news. No TERRIBLE news, though…. nobody died or was injured, which is good!
They had a fire in the Eskilstuna work shop and several wings and other parts have been burnt.
” Is n’t that the nightmare for every pilot”???
When I wrote Teresa Toivonen for her birthday I  got the next message  from Germany where she was during the fire.
—“I have spent my [birth] day at Poppenhausen, (took our ASK21mi to the factory for some repairs) will tomorrow travel back home and inspect what is left our workshop after the fire there last night, we lost some wings to a couple of gliders and the fuselage of our beautiful DG1000.”

 

The airfield from Eskilstuna during the WGC in 2006.

and later from home.
—“Back home again from the trip to Germany. We still  dont know the extension of the damage after the fire in our workshop  as lots  of fiber and carbonfiber was damaged and created some poisonous ash  and  dust and need some cleaning by a special equipped staff, so we are not supposed to go into the building. The insurence company will arrive today to see what they will do.

The one who urgently is worse of is a clubmember, Pekka Havbrandt,  who had his wings for his Fox, an aerobatic glider there, and was supposed to start training for the coming season. He sent following mail to some people:

‘Dear friends I have lost my wings. There was a fire accident at the Eskilstuna club. No  people was hurt bur I lost the wings to my fox. Now I need to rent, borrow, buy or steal a Fox or a Swift to the team.

Best regards Pekka’

This is what you hope will NEVER happen to you or your club members. Hope other pilots will /can help out!!!!!!

—-” Also the instrument panel and some other parts for the ASW 27,  I am supposed to fly in a months time in the first competition for the season was in there, so also my near future is a questionmark at the moment.
Still all these are only things that can be replaced, luckily no people were harmed. —”
So far Teresa and I wish her and the members ALL THE BEST.

 

More news on the positive site now.
Last Monday was a top day on the OLC;  more than  800 flights were added world wide !
It is not often that THE NETHERLANDS tops the OLC list with 4 flights!!! An FAI triangle by Sikko Vermeer who flew the WGC in Uvalde in 1991 as by far the youngest of our  team then, was the absolute topper; he still “does it”!!!!684 km. …FAI triangle 539 km. in Ventus BT/ 17.6 m.
AND 2,…698 km [Fai 500 triangle ] in the Ventus 2CT/18m and 3  755 in the Nimbus 4D and 4, 547 km. in St Cirrus.
That means; very nice mouth-watering- Spring- conditions!!! However,…..you can only still fly with thermo clothes , double socks etc.
Yesterday we had such a “beaut” day again, cold[ -8 to -12 high up!]  sunny and not such cauliflowers-clouds as last Monday but still good enough to fly over 600 km in an 18m. version LS 8 and 647 in the ASG 29.
Also the UK and Germany had top flights from 693 in an 18 m. LS 6 from Lasham and 705 from Boberg in an ASH 26.

Nitra was cancelled. The weather- gods did not help and for the last couple of days the weather prediction was not good either! A pity but everybody understood and ALL will go back next year as the Pribina Cup is not just a competition, but an “institution for soaring” .
—” after a long term discussion, Vladimir and Dominink decided that there is no reason to elongate the waiting. Pribina cup 2013 is called off. The weather did not favour us this year and there is no way we could influence that.—“

Vladimir still smiles while talking with amongst others, Wolfgang and Ludwig from the Austrian team.
For more 23 more pictures by ELFO you can go to the site;
www.pribinacup.sk   [ day 4 kitchen] .

Not much better weather during  the comps in Italy in Torino. Only one day of soaring!
“Oggi meteo pessima: i tutti a terra!”, says it all. [bad weather everywhere in the world]

Australia’s Goondiwindi, where pilots finished the Queensland Easter Comps ,the very last comps in Australia for the season, had better weather.
Host was the Warwick Gliding Club, which is a small, friendly gliding club located at the Warwick Airfield on the Darling Downs in South-East Queensland, Australia. They were so kind to organise this competition on the Goondiwindi airfield, as they do not have a club.
Every day pilots flew an AAT  except for 2 days, so not too bad for autumn. It was good to see that father  Chris [Ventus 2 CXM] and son Adam Woolley did so well.
Adam  flew in his Cirrus 75 ;  “starting to really get in a good groove these days! Dad certainly still has it too” .
Not scoring him for his “lay-day”  Adam won with 4896 points in the club class, flying 5 of the 6 soarable days. Looking at the scores of the best 3 days,  he won as well. They had 6 out of 8 days, [ the last day yesterday was cancelled] not bad for autumn!
Adam seems ready for Finland where he really would like to go too. “Finland is my next comp, excited!!”

Winner in the 2 seater class was the Kingaroy team with Greg Schmidt and Nev Donald; 5719 points.
And in the sports class also lay-days by some pilots, meaning you can take a day off, if you wish  and get the average of the days before [this does NOT happen in National comps!] Looking at only the best 3 days Bruce Taylor won with 3000 points.
Looking at the 6 out of 8 days Lisa Trotter won [ 5436] with Tom Claffey [only 6 points behind Lisa!!] and Allan Barnes as runners up.
Dad Chris Woolley was on spot 6 ,” he was beaten by all the current Uvalde WGC team”.

To finish I quote an interesting article I read in the Mount Beauty Gliding Club Magazine, which was published by Mike Borgelt , who I still know from my Australian time;  Borgelt Instruments!
http://www.borgeltinstruments.com/

GPS Magic

From Aus-soaring Digest, Vol 114, Issue 91

By Mike Borgelt

Sent: Tuesday, 26 March 2013 6:09 PM

Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] GPS logging

I’ve been asked how it is possible to receive weak signals if they are below background noise which is the case with GPS and other satnav systems.
The answer is that you need to know what you are looking  for. Each GPS or GNSS satellite sends out repeatedly a  digital code unique to that satellite. So if you want to look for  SV19 say, you need to know its code. The receiver picks up  the code + background noise and you XOR (exclusive OR)that, a logic operation with the code itself and after some  repetitions the code appears out of the signal (ie the noise  averages out to zero, the signal doesn’t). Now this is also  how the range to the satellite from your receiver is figured  out too. When you initially XOR the code with the receive signal it is unlikely that you will be in the same phase as the  code so if you get  nothing you shift the phase and keep trying until the signal  appears.
The phase shift gives you a time offset which, given  that the speed of light is constant gives you a range to the  satellite.
This is all complicated by Doppler shift, the apparent shift in the  radio frequency of the signal due to the relative motion between  you and the satellite. Once you are locked to a satellite you can  look at how much the radio signal frequency has shifted from  what you would expect from the rotation of the Earth and the  motion of the satellite and derive your radial velocity to the  satellite. Do this with enough sats and you get your motion  relative to the Earth in 3 dimensions and your position in 3D. 4  sats is the minimum for a 3D fix.
Note that the velocity is not a successive subtraction of one  position from another, it is straight off the Doppler shift and is  very accurate – like millimeters per second in each axis.
Once you have a lock on a satellite you can then extract signals  you don’t know about from the signals plus noise you receive as  you know that the signal is repeated and you know the frame  length so again the noise averages to zero after enough  repetitions and additions and the signal is apparent. You need  this to know where the satellites are so your position can be  calculated in your receiver.
Some very, very smart people invented this system. As Arthur  C. Clarke said “any sufficiently advanced technology is  indistinguishable from magic.

If you think the above is magic the stuff we are working with now  is advanced magic.

Mike

Have a good week.” They” say we will have REAL spring weather from now on, let’s wait and see. Today we started with FOG, but it will be 10 plus and I believe in that. Ready to go in the garden again to finish my job from yesterday!
Cheers Ritz