Latest news
June 17, 2006
Fabulous clouds!

Picture; Ritz in her favourite car: A Morgan!
14.15 At 14.00 the one and only thermal passing the ground as far as we could see during this competition, passed by at 2 and WHAT A THERMAL!!! We had to keep our tea cups otherwise they would have gone with the wind. Some even tried to keep the party tent and we saw papers go up, high, higher....highest!!!If this is what the pilots have in the air , they will be VERY HAPPY!!! It really looks very good here, with clouds popping up eveywhere. It looks like this last day is , like the first one ;super good! But...all the number 1 and 2 problems predicted this morning, might still occur! I don't say anything anymore with these quick changes in weather!

Great to see how many friends , visiting us at Sportavia in Australia,have arrived to see us and me here. Jussie, Martti, Kari, TG and many more Finnish friends also from the EGC 2005 .Also our Norwegian friends Bjoern and Lis drove up in their beautiful Morgan,even Martin Judkins, who was a tuggie 20 years ago in Tocumwal just surprised me with a visit. Never saw him since! Absolutely fabulous!

15.00 No worries for the 15 m. class pilots according to vPos. When I had a look Gulyas was up front in ranking after 23 km., while others had started earlier.

The restaurant people are doing an amazing job. We will have blue table clothes, with yellow serviettes and yellow roses on our tables. It looks very sophisticated! They expect 500 guests and BE AWARE, do not bring any of your own alcohol in the tent, as the owners from the restaurant can be punished heavily, and after the great job they did here with the cooking, they absolutely do not deserve that.

15.15 The 15 m. gliders on vPos are doing well and with a delay of 15 minutes on the screen, the first pilots are arriving at the second turn point Hed. They fly at 1500 m. The weather here still looks like 1000 km weather! We expect the first open class pilots over Ekeby in about 10 minutes I hear.

The fist 2 open class gliders just passed by the Ekeby turn point and on the radio also 2 other gliders announced their arrival. I better do not say who they are as this might help others. At least they are all very high and people on the ground try to spot them.

15.30 In between I tried to find out the differences, between the numbers 1-2-and 3 in the different classes, to make your life easier.
In 15 m. glider V8 with Hungaryan pilot Gulyas is 154 points ahead of number 1 BB [Janus Centka] and he has 389 points more then Y.[Giorgo Galetto]. That looks pretty safe if nothing happens.

In 18 m. Phil Jones in glider 210 has a lead of 194 points over WO with Wolfgang Janowitsch, who has 139 points more then number 3, Italian pilot Luciano Avanzini in 3AB. Pretty safe too, if nothing weird happens.

In st. class UK pilot Leigh Wells is number 1, with 86 points on ET , French pilot Olivier Daroze and he has 26 points more then number 3, glider 352 with Jez Hood. More difficult here as the points are pretty close.

In open class HM with Michael Sommer is pretty OK with a lead of 211 points over the ETA with the Italian pilot Georgio Ballarati, who has 82 points more the EGC champion Pete Harvey. Interesting class! But as I said already in one of my Viking stories; Michael Sommer was already "HOT" in Tocumwal ,when he made amazing flights in autumn.

Can't do anything else then WAIT!!But not too long anymore! After 5 I hope to see the first St. class gliders. 16 Of them started within 2 minutes from each other at 13,58/9. The first at 13.26 the last at 14.03. They fly 351.5 km. Stay tuned!

16.00 To get all chairs organized for the restaurant it looks like a" chair-dance"here. Around me" good chairs "are put behind the computers for pilots to down load their flight recorders, while the smaller chairs move to restaurant area. Pilots will feel the difference on this last day;Royal treatment and they deserve that, they have been FANTASTIC!! Huge job however to carry those chairs around with this heat.

Tuggies have finished their job and what a great job they did!!! Everything went smooth, quick and SAFE! THANK YOU guy's /girl!
Also thank you to the marshallers who in the morning organized the grid. In the beginning some steam came out of the ears from some pilots/crews but in the end; no worries at all.

A Huge thank you too to the task setters. They did n't go for huge tasks and many outlandings , but looked very carefully at the weather and set a task according. Only one class outlanded totally, all others days most pilots came in.

All their jobs have finished now. Everybody here is a volunteer , so THANK YOU for the TIME you spend.
But we continue, scorers will be still busy, the rest of the organizers too.