Great weekend of soaring; 1248 -plus-flights on Sunday only! HELP !!!!!!

After the coldest April-6-night  in history, here in Holland, 11… MINUS, SPRING  finally arrived. The cold dry Eastern wind gave great pleasure before already to glider pilots, even those who, like here in Holland or Belgium, are used to flat-land-conditions only, now the nice warm sun on Sunday, was a pleasure for everybody.

Bart konings in Pawnee

Ready to go behind the Pawnee with Bart Konings.
Picture courtesy Arjan Scheffer, who is a member from the ZES and digitalised all my old pictures and from many other friends , from the 50 -year- ZES- past for the lustre not long ago. For sure he knows to make a picture!!!!!

With 89 flights in Holland and 15 from Belgium a lot more pilots world wide added their flight to the OLC; over 1200 is a good number after a long winter here .
Junior pilot Jeroen Jennen topped the Belgium list with a good flight from 615 km. flying direction S.E.  from Keiheuvel in the LS 4.
Several FIRST flights for the season from Keiheuvel and as I have quite a lot of friends there, I was pleased to see them happy.

Kilometer -eaters have ” woken up “ as well and one of them,  Guy Bechthold flew in his brand new QUINTUS , a x-country flight from nearly 1000 km. ;935 [622 km. FAI Triangle] from Useldange in Luxembourg.
TOP-SPRING-CONDITIONS!
And yesterday it was Alexander Müller who flew from Lienz [Austria] the first flight for the summer season 2013 in his ASW 22 BLE;540 km. MANY more kilometers will follow for both pilots.
And more good flights from Sunday,…. 934 in Germany in an ASG 29 from Leverkussen is not bad either., as well as 720 [605 triangle]  in an LS 7 from Mannheim.
Like to mention 665 [500 Fai triangle ] from Aachen close the the Dutch border and Belgium border as well in an LS 1f !!!!
Best distance in Holland was flown by Etienne Dillen and Roland Termaat in the Nimbus 4 DT, as after some fog in the morning the weather started to “boom” and they flew 783 km [ 760 Fai triangle] from Terlet, also in the SE direction.
From the S. of Holland , Venlo, several over 500 k. flights, one  in an ASW 19 and over 600 in a Discus.
Denmark had nice conditions on Saturday and 2 pilots spending their winter in warm Corowa, flew with snowy and cold conditions this time,  from Arnborg, over 300 k. in a DG 808/15m.  and and LS 1 d.
And the first flights from Räyskälä are a fact as well, young Aku Jaakkola flew N. of   the airfield over 130 km. in the LS 8!

No FAI sanctioned comps at the moment, the end of April is close by with the KLIX comps from April 26 till May 4 and a competition in Serbia, called Zrenjanin Soaring Cup starts at the 26th as well going till May 5!
The Dutch Nationals will be flown  starting on May 8 with an official practise day and continue till may 18 [ will be there with my laptop for 3 days!] and HAHNWEIDE is from May 3 till 11.
Also starting on May 4 the Qualifying Sailplane GP in Sweden from Langtora Airfield , the Alpe Adria Cup in Austria , from Feldkirchen and the Italian Nationals from Italy in Thiene.
On may 9 there is the Danish National Competition from Arnborg.

And to finish the Aussie comps-season here a picture from the winner in club class, first time amongst  the seniors ; Adam Woolley on tow.

Adam on tow at Eastercomps

Some news from the 17th EGC in Ostrow, Poland .

WORLD CLASS NEWS:

Because the minimum number of competitors in the world class wasn’t reached, the registration continues until overall competitors limit is reached or until the 5th of July whichever is first. At the same time, the maximum number of pilots in the world class is increased up to 3 per NAC (change approved by IGC).
The entries will be accepted in order of delivery (up to the overall limit of 120 crews) with priority for the world class pilots. Please remember that the entries are valid only with official entry form confirmed by NAC and with entry fee payment (entries must be sent via info@egc2013.eu).

We also ask the Team Captains to enter any possible reserve pilots in all classes.

Talking about Poland, Ard Tielenburg a very enthusiastic young DUTCH glider pilot hopes to fly with 5 of his mates in Poland during the 8 th JWGC in Leszno; 3 in club and 3 in standard class ALL talented young men.
For this event, Ard is trying to find a glider as a Discus 2a, LS8 or ASW 28?
When you can help him, please let me know and I send him the happy news.
THANKS!
Ard is an Apache pilot and flies for the Royal Air Force here in Holland.

Apache by Ard

As shared by Ard on FB.

More help wanted, if you can please let them or me know!
Eskilstuna’s Flying Club are looking for a DuoDiscus T, XT eller XLT after the fire. Any tips?

Found some very nice pictures on FB. One of the Dutch glider pilots , Alexander Venema, participating in the May National Comps, practised last weekend in the beautiful LIBELLE.

Libelle Alexander Venema  Libelle Alexander

As shared by Alexander’s club; The Noord Nederlandse Aeroclub.

That’s it , will finish from now on, with the date etc. as that looks better when they link this blog to SoaringCafe.

cheers Ritz on April 10 2013
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com      www.soaringcafe.com       www.glidinginternational.com