A super fast magnificent flight

This is a belated post (it was stuck in the blogg editor)

The beauty of soaring is also to be found outside of the contest arena - on the 2nd of February I was privileged to fly with Martin Gruenert on a training flight in a DG500M - we joined up with Alan O'Regan in hsi LS 8, X32 and had one of the most amazing runs I have ever experienced, straight from Worcester to Klawer 220km at 145kph, without turning once - Alan's trace is at
http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-520879654
We were only able to download the flarm trace later and i will post it separately

Play the two flights together and see how we rushed down the Klawer gutter at 200kph plus, 1000ft amsl (the surface is a little higher than sealevel ;-) and spot the mistake coming back. We then had another amazing run down the Porterville ridge and spot how Martin races neck and neck with Alan. As Alan said, it was the best he has experienced on the front ridge. Speaking for myself: it was my first ridge flight to Klawer and it rates as one of the most memorable flights I ever had.

EY

RED BULL AIRRACE

I am a very keen Red Bull fan and got this snip from their website

"A brand new pilot joins the elite group competing in this year's Red Bull Air Race World Series. Glen Dell, from South Africa has been eager to be part of what has become one of the world’s most popular aviation races ever since he first heard about it more than five years ago. 45-year-old Dell, who has been flying planes and helicopters professionally for three decades, said he can still remember his excitement when he first learned about the Red Bull Air Race, then in the development stages.
“The Red Bull Air Race always had the potential to be an incredible spectator sport, especially with the modern filming technologies available”, said Dell. “It was great to see some forward-thinking people were making the concept work.”
Dell, who won the Aerobatic World Championship title in Sweden in 2004 as well as 20 titles at South African championships between 1985 and 2005, has been eager to break into the Red Bull Air Race for years. He passed the rigorous tests at the rookie camp in 2006, convincing the panel that he had the necessary skills and commitment. External factors, however, prevented him from taking up his place in 2007. Dell says he’s eager to make up for lost time."

I am looking forward to the first race of the season

I missed the last race of the season - has anyone taped it?
the link is at http://www.redbullairrace.com/news.php?id=155&lang=en

EX

V8 Pictures

After their visit to us Volker and Uli sent me these pictures. Uli is recovering from a mishap when skiing and hopefully will be ready to be German TC in Rieti (Ulf Dallmann is going to be to be the South African TC ;-)

Some preflight planning

Johnny doing what he does best - in this case helping to fix a puncture (after too perfect a landing in which the tailwheel clipped the sharp tar edge of 15


I wish ...

picture perfect

Alison going for a flight

a familiar picture (also look at the clouds on the horizon)

All smiles after her flight

Flarm and Some blogs of note

Flarm version 4 is on its way. Expect it to be available in the course of the next few weeks (version 3 will still run to the end of April). I will do upgrades for all those at the club who require them.

Why you really need flarm - Jerry pointed me the blog of Philip Plane - it is a really nice blog and please read the 18 February entry - if Justin Wills takes a week off then we should all be taking time - the link is http://www.xinqu.net/cgi-bin/blosxom

Another wonderful blog is http://hdsoaring.blogspot.com/ aimed at using video for soaring education - I think we are going to see a lot more of this - imagine a video of Alan O, Martin G, or Adriaan H, running our ridges. Surely must get some of this onto YouTube ;-)

regards for now

EX EY