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 29th 2009
29.06. 08:55 It looks like another great day !!!
Good morning
and ….we woke up with nice blue skies again. Sorry, my mail box was
overloaded yesterday, so I have to make room for more comments from you in the
world. It is great to have so many and such nice ones. I was not the only
one being dehydrated yesterday, several more had the same problem. I spoke to
one of the Finnish tuggies and after towing he wanted to go for a glider flight
but he did n’t ; did not feel well either. So lots of water and salt should do
the trick today. It seems that the very dry air contributes here to it.
Off to briefing 1 and briefing 2.
29.06. 09:41 Briefing postponed to 10, 00 .......tasks around 300
and 400 km !
9.20; More sick people as young Dutch pilot Patrick [28]who won
day 3 during these comps is in bed with the flu. Very sad for him and his team.
Briefing is postponed to 10 due to severe printer problems. Poor Silva, he has
to make the task copies in his caravan today.But….as you see Silva has a
solution for EVERYTHING ! But… also good news. Janne the new meteo “guy”
told us that we are going to fly to the West. It seems that to the East [heavy]
showers with thunder are expected. At this stage Silva thinks of a racing
task around 400 km for standard class and about 300 for club and they will be
launched first. An AAT is ready as B task if necessary.
Yesterdays
flying was difficult for some. One of them being AA Andrew from Australia. Of
course he is used to Australian weather and over there, some of the best lift is
found in the blue. Till now he flew very well here, yesterday as well, till he
arrived in a big blue hole. No worries, blue is good, but not always here in
Finland, he really had to struggle but ….good on him….he made it back home.
One of the better pilots[ in my opinion] , flying here is Rasmus from
Denmark with F1. Yesterday he had to outland and this is the end of a dream to
win the Juniors. Feel sorry for him.
29.06. 10:41 Competition day 5 about to begin,first launch at
11.30 .
10.30; Today’s tasks on competition day 5 are, at this stage
task A; Club class a polygon with 4 points 320,1 km. Standard class a
polygon with 3 points 410,9 km.
First launch to be expected at 11.30.
Runway in use 30 and finish line 12.
The TV crew from National TV
Channel 4 was welcomed. They will make pictures from the air as well, going up
with today’s sniffer. So more PR coverage from these comps, which is great!
Janne added to his earlier briefing a cloud base for the morning from
1500 m and the afternoon should get 2000 m. Temperature will be 26 dgr. So a
quite similar day as yesterday, tricky at some places but it should be really
good up West with good thermals.
The winners from yesterday were cheered
on and received their bottle, prize and cap; today it was green. Winner in
Standard class Leszek Dudak and in Club class Petr Hofman with great speed if
you look at the weather.
Trackers in XC, WE, W, S, 28[ this will be
changed as Patrick is sick] T1, 2T, KC, 2A.
29.06. 11:42 A change of runway for standard class to 08
!
11.15; TC meeting at the grid at 11.05 is over. Due to a change of the
wind part of the “gliding-circus” has to be moved to runway 08. Club class will
be launched from 30 as first and standard class from 08. First launch will
be at 12.15 !! TASK A still valid at this time.!
It is pretty silent
in the evenings Silva said, he would like some action.BUT…… I saw at the water
point, that on June 30 there will be [heavy] Metal music night The poster
says; METAL NIGHT on JUNE 30. Place ; Briefing hangar Time; 20.30 AIR
GUITAR CHAMPIONSHIPS At 21.30; KLUBI KIRUES life. This should give
enough “ noise “!!!!
Just finished the story with well known and famous
Finnish pilot and writer Jyrki Laukkanen for the PROFILE that will be on later.
At the field it looks very busy lots of cars move, with glider, to 08.It
all seems to go easy! Stand by !
29.06. 13:08 Club class has been launched, line opens at 13.25
!
13.00 update ; At 12.15 sharp UK pilot Will Ellis was the first to go for
TASK A. Both glider-pilots and tuggies had some cross wind but it did not
disturb them. The West just looks beautiful with nice cumulus A very new
looking tow plane has arrived with bright red, yellow and blue colors to replace
one ,which had mechanical problems.
With a short delay to let TC’s and
crews, if necessary, move to runway 08 the launching progressed at 13.03 for
standard class.
The start line for Club Class will open at 13.25.
29.06. 14:42 I would like you to meet ....Jyrki Laukkanen
!
The startline for standard class opened at 14.07 . All launches went
smooth as every day!While pilots are flying their task you have time to read a
new PROFILE about a very interesting and well known , even famous pilot from
Finland.Thank you to Lasse ,one of the members of the jury, for introducing him
to me.
Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure and honor to meet one of
the Finnish tow pilots Jyrki Laukkanen. 66 Years old now , married and dad of 2
daughters and one son, all 3 .....not interested in flying ! I had heard
that he was an interesting person and a very special pilot and…a writer of books
. And…indeed he was one of the most interesting people I have ever met.
Here is the story !
----Jyrki is active in aviation since he was
15 years old. His interest for flying might have started when he was a baby and
his mum, who had a Stuka hanging over his bed got him asleep, when she moved it
above his head. Growing up he folded from A4 paper the best flying little
paper planes and he started with model planes. At age 15 he started gliding.
There was NO double -seater to learn it , so a primary glider was hooked on a
car with a 100 m long rope. The instructor was sitting on a jeep with a flag and
with intensifying speed the flag went up and the stick had to move backwards and
the flag went down and the stick had to go forward. The “flight” was about 15
seconds, just a bit up and a bit down. This all happened in winter on
sea-ice. With more experience the rope became longer up to 300 m and the flights
went up in time to 1 minute. With 5 minutes total time you were a real hero….
that was something!!! After that he started flying in a Rhonlerche and other
gliders.
Of course I confronted him with the fact that people think he
is famous and asked him WHY are you famous!? He said that there were several
reasons. ----he is a glider pilot since 1959 and always has flown gliders
and still flies them now and he flew demo’s in a glider. He has an average of
100 hours a year in gliding since 1963 with a total now of 4700 hours.
----he served in the Air Force between 1966 and 2002 when he retired at the
age 60 as a Lt. Colonel. He was a test pilot in the air force for 32 years and
he was special as he combined his grade, gained as aeronautical engineer at the
Technical University of Helsinki , with his flying skills. He has 9918 hours
in the air force , an ALL TIME RECORD of military flying in Finland, doing test
flying up to Mach 2 MiG-21s and F-18 Hornet. Nobody will ever “catch” this
record it is one of a kind, as he flew till 60 and pilots normally retire at 45.
He had 3 “close calls” as we call them ,but never crashed. In case of “dead
engines” while flying, he brought the planes safely down as a glider. That
happened one day with a MiG when the engine went dead at 19.000 m. He glided
down to 10.000 , where he was able to restart the engine. For a moment he flew
the MiG-21 as a GLIDER. Knowing the procedures is what kept him out of
trouble. -----Test pilot for all different type of planes as the PIK 27
flying here. He still does that now. -----Jyrki is the only pilot in Finland
who has flown a P-51 Mustang alone. He did this in Ohio where he made two 30
minute flights. As he had flown a Gloster Gauntlet, he had the background for
flying the P-51 , without other training in it. He did it with the message “
don’t break it, it is half a million dollars”, which of course he did not do.
One of his proudest moments! The Gloster Gauntlet still exists and flies…and
is the only one in the world. He flies demos with it and he is still the only
pilot who can fly it! -----Since 1963 he writes articles in National
Magazines named “ILMAILU” which are read by all aviators so that makes him
well-known as well. He has shot 55.000 slides from planes. ------Since
he retired he has written one book a year . Finnish Air Force aircrafts part
1-2-3-4. They are partly in English and Finnish. One book was About the
Finnish Air Force –90 years!! He is busy with a book with ALL types of
planes he has flown including one helicopter. There are 153!!!!!! He writes the
personnel comments with pictures taken by him. This book will appear in
October 2009. So YES, he is famous!
He started with paper planes,
went to gliders, light aircraft , jets and MiGs and is now back to primary
gliders and maybe when he is 90 back to paper planes again, then the circle is
round.
29.06. 15:30 All pilots have left Rayskala ,to be back in 3 or 4
hours!
15.15 update; All pilots are on their way. First to start in club
class was N1 [Finland]at 13.32 and the last pilot left at 14.07. If the weather
is good they should be back in 3 hours. What I hear…… it seems good “en route” ,
but there is quite some wind here at the field at this stage. The Standard
class pilots left between 14.08 and 14.17 [2T -Finland], so most probably busy
finishes today with so less minutes in between .They should be back in 4 hours ,
or less concerning the weather is good! See you later !
29.06. 16:29 Off to the finish line !
16.15 update; It is
getting more and more busy, I can see from far, at the finish line so I move
there now too. Clouds still look nice, wind feels still pretty tough. They
predicted showers over Rayskaka and to the East of the line Tampere-Helsinki. We
do have some dark clouds but nothing to worry about. It still looks fine to me !
29.06. 18:01 First pilots arrived back home!
17.45 update.
I was for sure too optimistic with the finish times. It took more then an
hour more, before the club class pilots came back, so somewhere on the “road” it
was difficult. I heard about big blue holes again. First finishers over the
lake between 17.23 and 17.40 were; N4, CI, CX, Y, 57, IS, 99, G2, BW3, 47. In
between some pilots landed on the other finish line not visible for us because
of the trees. I might have seen 74. At 17.40 BR arrived home and then at
17.45 HS. Most of the gliders arrived in scantily.But I heard that a big
gaggle is on its way as well, to make it back home.
Go back to the field
again.
29.06. 18:22 More pilots home.....still a few on the
way!!
18.15 update; The difficulties started , as I heard from one of the
pilots arriving back, when a total different air mass entered the task area.
Really big holes made it difficult to find good lift and slowed down the pilots
. Some did not make it home as you might have seen already; 1Y from Finland,
KS from Australia, WE from the UK ,ML from Austria and P7 from Switzerland.
More arrivals; 41, C41, Y4, IF, 2C, EA, YX, TK and still more to come.
No more outlandings at this stage. Back to the field again !
29.06. 19:07 Standard class arrives home !
18.45 update; More
outlandings as VK from the Netherlands in standard class landed out.But…finishes
from standard class are expected as well. The first arrived at around 18.44.
I saw 2T, N8, F1, FL, FX, and a big bunch arrived at 18.51. Further on 4J,
RD, N8, Y1, 2A, SF, W8, SF, ET, NX, AA, T1, ER, ET. They all arrived at 08
so difficult to see, please look for the result site for their scores.
29.06. 21:46 Wrap up from day 5!
21.00 ; wrap up--- flying
day 5. A very interesting day, for some good for some very bad, as TEAM UK
where the whole standard class outlanded and one more pilot in club class. Feel
sorry for them, but ….before 21.00 they were back home again. Young Belgian
pilot Pieter Lievens got an applause when he arrived at the café. He was the
last pilot to come back home at 19.21 flying 5.30 hours with a speed of 57 km
/h. and thinking for a while, as he said , that he was not going to make it. He
flew all by himself in the blue , struggling to keep as high as possible.
Then…luckily he “found” some standard class pilots on his way and he could make
it home !!! Great effort! A happy Argentinian pilot Horacio in front of the
TV looking at the scores. He was 7th today , climbing several places in the
overall list. His crew is the brother from Damien Goldenzweig, who flew in
Eskilstuna. We looked at how their Argentinian flag was taken away by
somebody from the organization, standing on the truck of the Firebrigade; that
looked safe….but we have to keep an eye on it, as a few days ago 4 international
flags were stolen and have not yet been delivered back…. More tomorrow!
2906
if you want to react.