Latest news June 15, 2006 Evening Shift! Picture; Courtesy to Dick Bradley.For some the Dutch/German night was too much! They did not make it home to sleep . 21.00 What a day it was again! I asked some pilots for their comment and they were different in opinion.
71 pilot Holger Back [18 m. class]mentioned that it was a difficult day because of the blue thermals , for that reason the big sometimes dangerous gaggles and for some areas a too long time without a possibility to outland.
HM pilot Michael Sommer open class], "stuffed up " as he said his start, had to fly the whole AAT task by himself and had no clue what he had done compared to the others. He knows now; HE WON.
GD pilot Thomas Gostner [st. class], thought it was great fun today. Finally a good one again.
VC pilot Rafi Luski [st.class] had the same opinion,
good fun, I am here to have fun!
H1 pilot Wolfgang Hartl [15m class] did not say anything. But his face said everything. He just looked worn out after his flight and outlanding.
And what was the opinion of our youngest pilot flying in St. class Piotr Jarysz from Poland.He thought the day was not too hard, as thermals were high, but his class flew together in the blue in big gaggles and it was for that reason difficult to center. He decided to take extra safety height to come back as he heard that this was a problem. He used a weak thermal till the end and had 100 m. extra to come home. He was happy with his decision, as he saw pilots low and trying to dig theirselves out and he saw several outlandings in front of the field.
How come Piotr flies!?? No , there is nobody in his family who flies. So he was not really brought up in a gliding world. He started with plastic model planes and wanted to fly power planes, get his license, but that was rather expensive, so he went gliding and fell straightaway in love with it!!
He started at the glidingfield of Poznan and is still a member there now. He does a lot of gliding now and on my question why he is so young already so good, he said that even when he was not allowed to fly cross country he asked all instructors how their flight was and all of them were willing to talk with him about all flights they made. When he was ready to go C.C. he practised what all his mentors had told him and it worked!
His first competition was in Polen ; a regional comps and he was third, just 18 years old !!!He also competed in the Club class World comps in Norway and was 7th there. Last year he fllew in Nitra in the EC and was 9th. He flew 2 times in the World Juniors and was 8 and 7.
He is still a student in production engineering and his family specially his mum, supports him very much. She knows by now the different clouds and therms used in gliding as; Stay high and go fast!!
In this competition he is on 16th place now, with 2 days to go. He won one day , but had one bad outlanding as he lost that day 500 points. But....he learned a lot, certainly about the weather here." In fact ",he said," we have had no day with normal weather."
Flying in Scandinavia learned him about the great visibility. "Today you could see already from 80 km. far Eskilstuna. In Poland you have more continental airmasses with dust in it. It is very rare to have a clean fresh airmass".
Piotr is a delightfull young man and I really hope that he achieves his goal in life to be WORLD CHAMPION ONE DAY. He deserves it!
Just got the ranking in TEAM CUP for all classes. After day 7 ;
1. Japan with 1 pilot
2. UK with 7 pilots
3. Poland with 6 pilots
4. Italy with 6 pilots
5. Netherlands with 6 pilots
6. France with 6 pilots
7. Germany with 7 pilots
8. Czech Rep. with 6 pilots
9. New Zealand with 1 pilot
10. Sweden with 6 pilots
Well, time to go home now! 10 PM. KG just arrived back after his flight in the Tiger Moth and he is happy as a child! Have a quick look at the scores to see if something weird has happened if not ...CU tomorrow Ritz
