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Latest news
June 13, 2006
Last hot day??
Picture; Compliments to the people who run the restaurant with breakfast, lunch and dinners every day! Great food!
9.00 Will this be the last hot day?? As briefing is delayed till 11.30 we will only know later, what the weather will do.
Felt very sorry yesterday for Gerd Peter Lauer, from the German team. As Gerhard Waibel, said" he must have stepped out of bed with the wrong leg"! First he was on the ground after 26 km. of flying. Then in the evening he was happily looking with his son on his lap to the soccer, when the table on which he sat COLLAPSED and ...he was on the ground again. So was his son , but no harm to both. Hope he has a real good day today!
It is blue and sunny and surely this week is a "heatwave- week", as we will reach atleast 25 again today. They whisper that today will be a flying day too. Let's wait and see.
10.00 While waiting for the briefing, I have some time to write about the oldest and youngest pilot in the comps here. And ...as "elderly people go first" I start with Tony Tabart , 70 years young, from Australia, who was 4 times Australian champion and represented Australia 5 times at world comps. He has 9000 flying hours both power and gliding and flies already for 50 years.
He set many records and was the 2d pilot in the world to fly a 1000 km FAI triangle in the Tocumwal area in 1979.
Tony is in "real life ", a 5th generation fine wool producer in Western Victoria.
They have their own air strip on the farm and he and his son Tracy, also a top pilot and several dairy farmers from the area use the strip for flying. Jo, his wife and crew is as dedicated to gliding as Tony is.
We wish Tony a good finish of this competition. Happy and safe flying Tony! And...THANK you to Jo who gave me lots of info!
Next time we hope to have a word with the Polish pilot Pyotr Jarysz, " only still " 23 years old as his birthday is on June 20, just after the competition.
11.00 Just spotted Hans Werner Grosse, the pilot who flew so many world records. Another LEGEND this time from Germany. More and more people still arive. The Team who organizes the World comps in Germany in Lusse in 2 years, is here too, to look and to learn. WELCOME !
Tasks for today competion day 7:
15 m. class; pol. with 3 points;213.5 km
18 m. class; pol. with 3 points; 187.4 km.
St.class; pol. with 3 points 220.9 km.
Open class; pol. with 3 points 229.2 km
HAPPY 50thiest birthday to Andy Davis from team UK. The BIG FIVE O. Welcome in the groupe from over 50 Andy, you are still NOT old. We are just a bunch of wise, interesting and nice people!
Off to briefing now!
11.50 Hans Werner Grosse was welcomed today in the briefing. We sang for Andy and on a nice picture from him and his glider the call sign 80 was changed into 50!!
The winners from yesterday were honnored with a free tow ticket and weak weather must be the speciality from the Polish pilots as 3 of them belonged to the winners. Swedish gliding "hero", Goran Ax won in open class.
Saka urged pilots to fly safely , specially in gaggles on weak days. Most important: ACCEPT the pattern of the gaggle!!!!!Make NO ABRUPT movements. Don't go INSIDE in a thermal, pilots do not see you!!!!
He got applause as some pilots really complained yesterday about the flying behaviour of some other pilots.We are here to have fun, "find" a winner and go back home safe with good and happy feelings!
v Pos is in Standard class today.
Don't forget the combined Dutch[cheese, stroopwafels, bitterballen and pancakes !!] and German [300 liters of beer!] evening tonight. With the day off tomorrow you can really enjoy the night.
YES NO FLYING TOMORROW. We have a RESTDAY! The weather does n't look very promising, with possible thunderstorms and rain, so a good idea to set a restday. According to the metereologist ;a cold front is expected to pass tomorrow afternoon or evening!
I am sure you will miss the daily routine of reading the news from our WGC2006 site and your local sites. But we will be back with some news anyhow! Tomorrow I will talk with the youngest pilot flying here. Looking forward to the story of his life.
The Weather for today ;day 7 of the competition.
In short it is the same as yesterday! We are still in the same airmass and we will have clear skies with later, incoming cirrus from the W. In the afternoon Bernt expects stronger winds, 20 to 30 km on the surface and up to 100 km /h at 2000 m. We seem to not reach that height as thermals might go up to 900 m at 13.00 and 1400m. at 15.00 .So weak to moderate thermals only today.
And......28 dgr.
For that reason, more or less the same tasks as yesterday; they will be only flown the other way around, so pilots can "use" the wind on their tail and not fight it too much on the nose.
First possible launch at 12.30. Let's see what happens today in a new article Ritz
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