In service on the field, call Hannu
tel. +358 400 828 744
The future of our environment is decided by choices we make today.
Europcar - the greenest car rental company!
June 25th The second official competition day
25.06. 08:57 Good morning. Welcome on day 2 of the JWGC ! Another
SUPER day???
It is a bit of a “weird” morning. Earlier then the days before
, I meet pilots and crew to the café , the grid and the place where the glider
is. I feel some excitement. “They” whisper that even longer tasks then
yesterday will be written out! Now…of course I know that, as a journalist you
should not listen to “rumors” but I still would like to share this whisper with
you. About 600 and 700 km…..!!!!??? And….we talk club class and standard
class NOT open or 18 m. To know for sure I rush to the TC briefing now,
which starts at 9.00 Pilots briefing straight after at 9.30. Stand
by!!!!!
25.06. 10:05 Tasks for today !
9.45; Briefing is over.
The whispers remain whispers and the truth is ; Club class 480,7 km and
standard class 575.1 km. First launch at 11.00 from runway 08 and club
class goes first. Trackers will be in glider; T1, 21, GX, TW, 2T
-----standard class and in glider CX, VE, Y4, 7Q, Z8 -----club class.
During briefing the first winners of this competition were invited to
pick up their bottle of champagne and a nice cap with WINNER DAY 1 on it.
Congratulations to Jan Louda from Czech Republic who flew in his cirrus the
531.6 km. with a speed of 100.5 km /h. Congratulations as well to Leszek
Duda from Poland who flew in his LS 8 the 623.5 km. with a speed of 114.2 km.
Back in just 2 minutes!
25.06. 10:35
More news from the briefing. Axel , the
chief steward pointed out that sitting/ checking at the finish yesterday some
speed finishes were not the very best. He advised to make a straight in.
Another remark; ONLY release when the tow plane rocks, not earlier.
Today the pilots fly from 08 which is a big walk, but…I have a brand new
red bicycle , so I can go at the last moment. On 08 you have to stay, till
launches are over or when the ground crew permits you to move.
Because
of their “too early” start yesterday the 2 Slovak pilots got 0 points on the
preliminary list , as you might have noticed. Will come back on that later!
The weather today seems to be better then yesterday. This high pressure
is still even more active over Finland. One Finnish pilot [not a JWGC competitor
to inform you correct ] tries his 1000 km today. Will keep you informed about
him too. It will be 25 dgr. with a cloud base of 2300/2400 at 16.00.
According to Heikki there will be clouds in the whole task area. I hear the
tow planes “roar”. Off to the grid now ,to be not locked out there ! CU
later!!!!
25.06. 13:35 Pilots leave on track with great conditions
!
13.00; Back from the field .Here is what happened! The first launch
for club -class -glider CM was delayed with 15 minutes. At 11.15 day 2 was a
fact. The sniffer found nice lift 1/1.5 m and at 1000 m they gave the sign;
Start at 11.15. It went smooth and in 40 minutes they were all up. Then
there was a 10 minute break to give car’s and bicycles room to leave the grid or
to go to the other grid. At 12.00 the standard class was launched and their
last glider ET from France was up at 12.37 on my watch. In both classes the
gate opens 30 minutes later. So 12.25 and 13.07.
The difference with
other days is, that there were less clouds around 11.00 and the wind was much
stronger then the days before. Looking at the sheet now, it says 10 knots from
080 at the surface at 12.00 UTC and 5 knots at 15.00 UTC, so it will be less
during the day. Further on pilots had no struggle to climb. Lift was good
but in the beginning, there seemed to be only ONE big thermal everybody liked.
Later there were more and it was nice to see how pilots got their height and
came back again to the field in formation, to be close to their start point.
It was also nice to see how the German boys wished each other well before
the flight. They were the last to be launched in club class and each of them
made a fist and touched the fist of the other with a happy smile. I was touched
in a different way.
You really feel, see and hear that you are on a
JWGC. The music from the open cars is loud and the crews move with the music,
they even clean the glider in time of the music and the kisses from the young
girlfriends are firm before start. Really nice!!!
That’s it for now ,
off to lunch and more info.
25.06. 15:13 Some other news while waiting !
15.00; What I
hear is that pilots are at around 1800 m. some have passed the first TP. Pilots
mention that it looks very good on track and as far as they can see. So they are
happy and we have some time to do other things. Be aware that both classes have
ONE VERY LONG LEG in their task! Club class has one from 196 km. and Standard
from 180 km. both from W to E.
First I have to mention to you that we
have NOT 2 but 3 lady-pilots in club class. I just overlooked Orsloya
Diofasi…….and she is just such a lovely young lady. I received an email from
Hungary, with compliments for the writing, but ….that there definitely was an
Hungarian girl too. So this morning I visited her at her glider an ASW 15,
apologized to her and gave her the very best regards of Peter from Hungary.
She was pleased and was not aware of the fact that I overlooked her, which
is good. Yesterday Orsloya got 826 points on her first flying day.
Then
Hilde, the Belgium TC made a phone call to Bert jr. to check if Nitra with the
3d JWGC had a task bigger then the 623.5 km here. I remember that one of our
Dutch girls did some really great flying in Nitra, but …that was before the
comps I heard. So it seems that Rayskala has set the biggest task this year in
the short history of the JWGC. Back later.
25.06. 16:54 Strong thermals on the ground disturb " office babes
" !
16.30; Far to the W. from us, in the task area is a big lake and the
pilots have to cross that, but it seems that they are high enough to do so
without trouble. Though not all pilots say it is SUPER –weather, some parts I
hear have less lift, but some other pilots are very happy with the 2.5 m. nearly
every where. Some love to go higher then the max 2000 m.
Just some
analyses about the start times. The time difference in club class is between
12.28 for the first pilot who started and 13.20 for the last one. Which
decision was the best, as there is a nearly one hour difference. We will know
later! In Standard class it was between 13.12 and 14.20, also nearly one
hour! The 2 Austrian pilots definitely do not do pair-flying as one was the
first and one the last to start in this class.
On the ground it is just
HOT. But we should not complain. Most people try to find shade. The
“office-babes” have locked the office as it is too HOT in there and are sitting
outside under a gazebo,nicely in the wind, but…..sometimes the thermals are SO
strong that they lift the gazebo and all paperwork flies as well. It must be
pretty bumpy up there high!!! We noticed also that the gazebo from the
French team in front of the café, nearly “ went with the wind”.
It looks
now that the first will be back in an hour , so between 17.30 and 18.00.Let’s
wait and see. Will be back soon.
25.06. 18:25 " Spectacular finishes " over the lake !!
18.00;
I was pretty right with the arrival time, the first glider coming in arrived at
17.40 and glider CI was the first to be back, after him a lot of pilots landed
the first one 3 minutes later V20. Then till 18.00 the next ones came in.
CX, 2C, XL, 99, TK, Z8, ED, C41, PW, HS, EA, TF, G2, Y4, 1F, 47, 57, N1, Fb,
BW3, BR, IY, ZS WE YX, 41, TB and I missed one just before 18.00 while writing
and biking.
Finishes were at the least “spectacular”. If you see 7
gliders on nearly the same height arrive behind the trees and fly over the lake,
it is a bit scaring, but also wonderful. Within 20 minutes about 30 gliders
arrived and the crew was busy enough to get the gliders quickly out of the field
after landing. Rayskala finishlijn 12 is one of the most beautiful in the
world I know, but you have to respect ,that you should not fly too low. With
some it looked like they had sink over the water as they were pretty low , but
safe to land.
Heikki said that the 1000 km attempt was stopped , as the
morning weather was too slow, but it was according to him and he knows, a 750 k
day. I hope the times will be quickly on for you as I can’t go back now.
Even more improvements for the Ritz Corner. Katja made it on top of the
home page , so I will try now first if it works.
25.06. 19:58 Happy and less happy pilots, that's gliding
!
19.30; Most gliders are back home! At 18,47 gliders still came in and till
19.00 I spotted , DI, VK, S1, ER, CG,. After 19.00 FX, N3, 21, H2, and a bit
later C1 ,9, At 19.15, we had still 7 gliders out. I heard one on 46 km out
and not overly happy with the less good lift, but it still looks good and the
sun still feels HOT !! No outlandings at this stage.
The preliminary
results are on now from a lot of gliders. Interesting scores! In Club class the
German boys are doing well ,as well as the boys from the Czech Rep. Danish
pilot Orskov Rasmus was 5th yesterday and today he was 3d making him the
preliminary number 1 at this stage.
Too early to say something about the
standard class, but the winner from yesterday Polish pilot Leszek Duda did well
today too, with a 9th place so at this stage he is number 1 overall.
Everything is still possible for a lot of pilots, we are just on day 2.
The game is only over after the last finish on the last day.
When you
are here and loving a nice and not too expensive lunch or a meal in the evening,
you can “find” that in the hangar. Music is on and the tracking system during
the day! Teemu , his wife and their crew are doing a fantastic job in feeding
us. And….Teemu is also the Finnish TC.
Tomorrow looks promising again,
so see you then. Enjoy the scores on the result site and the lot’s of great
pictures on the picture & story site put on by Katja. For sure you will see
some spectacular ones from finishes over the lake. And don’t forget Hubi’s
videos. His profile will be soon in the Ritz Corner. Cu tomorrow. Only
when something special or worthwhile- telling- you comes up, I will be back
later, but don’t count too much on it..
2506
if you want to react.
