--Hessu
Slowly Groundloop is sorting out of a few bugs. There has been a few copies printed with some faults, particularly the picture pages, so if your copy was incomplete please let us know if you'd like a replasement. The staff in the main office are quite overloaded in the morning with printing task sheets and so forth and as we would like to have results attached to Groundloop each day, timing in the morning is a little critical. We will try hard to have the bulletins in the pilot boxes in time for briefing, with the most recent results.
Thank you already to those people who have made contributions to the bulletin. There must be many, many stories to tell each day, so don't be shy about bringing us yours. We enjoy reading them too.
Jorma Laine, our Tugmaster is very happy with his team here in Räyskälä. The tally on Monday was 88 gliders launched in 55 minutes. It will be even smoother when pilots and crews get into their full routine.
The towing fleet consists of eleven tow planes. Two Pawnees from the club here in Räyskälä and one from the club in Nummela, fifty kilometres south-west of here. There is one Suhinu flying here, registration TANGO OSCAR WHISKEY. This plane has an interesting history as it is one of only two existing in the world. The Finnish Students' Gliding club, PIK designed this tug, along with their other well-known product the PIK 20. This club is based at an engineering High School. The Suhinu was built by the Finnish company VALMET.
PAPA GOLF, a Piper Brave is privately owned along with the Cessna Aquagon, which local pilot Reijo Mäkelainen or 'Tikli' owns. This was recently rebuilt from two wrecks. Three of the Wilgas come from Estonia from the Tarto and Tallin Aeroclubs. The final two Wilgas are here from the Vilnius National Aeroclub in Lithuania. It was arranged that they exchange the use of the Wilgas for rental of an LS6 for one of their pilots. A practical solution which means more European countries can be represented here.
3Y Herbert Weiss found flying in Finland great fun last year. He won the Pre-Contest held in Räyskälä and is not disappointed on his return here. He found the conditions on Day 2 better than expected and was able enjoy the flight to the limit with maximum wing loading.
The German Standard Class Team has a special camaraderie. The four enjoy the same style of flying and it is working very well together with a strong team spirit. Conditions for the day were optimal with climbs up to 4.5 metres per second and average, as predicted by the metman 2 to 3 metres. Cloud bases between 1600 and 1700 metres. All four started more or less together and were immediately followed by about 20 other gliders. Leonardo Brigliadori was with them most of the way also. The first leg saw great streeting and dolphin flight, however the final turnpoint was a little weaker as cirrus cloud was already blocking some of the heat. Leonardo won the day with the four Germans taking second, third, fourth and fifth.
Great, great fun said Herbert with a big smile.
Along with 10 members of the Selänpää Gliding Club I spent yesterday in the early evening, in the depths of of the forest near Vuolenkoski. Not the normal place for a team manager but then it is not often, thank goodness, that it is necessary to finish de-rigging an ASH-25 in the middle of a forest. I knew when I left to meet the Selänpää club members, that my team members sounded very confident on the radio and that they were doing quite well.
It took us 90 minutes or so, once I had remembered how to de-ring the ASH, the biggest difficulty was in remembering to disconnect things like ailerons and brakes. I have only done it once before and the others never before. Then it was necessary to carry all the bits about 200 meters through the forest to the trailer in such a way as to be safe whilst on the road. We did not make any extra damage at all and we were all quite pleased with ourselves at the end of the exercise. The biggest problem for all of us were the Mosquitos, as big as B52's which had decided to carry out a million bomber raids on we tasty glider pilots. Once we had finished I offered beers all round but surprisingly for glider pilots nobody knew where we could buy one.
Having said fond and grateful farewells I set off back to Räyskälä. As I passed Loppi I wondered whether I should call in for something to drink and eat ( in that order ). I decided not to and continued because I knew everyone would be waiting for me at the Lift and Sink.
I got back, parked the trailer and went to find out the results, we really had a very good day and I was very proud of my Pilots but, where were they? Not at Lift and Sink, not in the Kahvio, not in the motel. I phoned one of them. They were all in the Restaurant in Loppi!!!!!!! Ahh the joys of being a Team Captain.
Tel +44 1603 660202
Fax +44171 481 5999
contact no V5C787
certificate no V5G505
ASH25WL BGD no 4026
Anyone interested in purchasing the wreckage should contact the above. The wreckage is not on public display. If you have genuine interest in purchase, you should arrange to view with the crew or team manager AFTER FLYING HOURS.
Nach zwei Wertungstagen: die deutschen Piloten in weiter in Bestform: der amtierende Europameister Erwin Ziegeler (Aalen) führt in der Standardklasse - Michael Grund (Böblingen)auf Platz eins in der Rennklasse und Holger Back (Weilheim) auf dem dritten Rang in der Offenen Klasse.
Räyskälä. Mittlerweile kämpfen auch die Segelflieger mit Zehntelsekunden um Sieg oder Platzierung. Beim gestrigen zweiten Wertungstag auf den achten Europameisterschaften im Segelfliegen war der Altmeister Leonardo Brigliadori 0.01km/h schneller als der deutsche Herbert Weiss. Erwin Ziegler, Holger Karow und Reinhard Schramme waren auf der 304 Kilometer langen Strecke 0.02km/h langsamer! Dennoch, noch sind die Sekunden nicht entscheidend, alle fünf landeten auf dem ersten Platz. Für das Kleeblatt der zweite Tagessieg in Folge, denn eigentlich fliegen sie alle gemeinsam auf den Strecken. Sie praktizieren damit einen Teamflug, wie er bislang nur nur den Franzosen gelang. Und der Fairness halber darf jeder einmal als erster durchs Ziel gehen, damit das Punktekontingent immer annährend gleich bleibt. Bislang geht die Rechnung auf. Die zwei amtierenden Europameister, Reinhard Schramme (Stadthagen) und Erwin Ziegler (Aalen) haben ihr Konzept bereits auf den letzten Europameisterschaften erfolgreich umsetzen können, nun probieren sie es zu viert. Zwei Airline-Piloten, ein Ingenieur und ein Lehrer, unterschiedlicher können die vier von berufswegen nicht sein, aber in der Luft verstehen sich nahezu ohne Worte.
In der Rennklasse sind "nur" drei Deutsche am Start, aber auch hier mischen sie ganz vorne mit. Allen voran der 27-jährige Wirtschaftsingenieur Michael Grund (Böblingen). Seit Beginn der Meisterschaften liegt er in Führung. Knapp zwar, mit nur 22 Punkten vor dem Briten Allister Kay, aber Michael Grund hat sich vorgenommen, diesen Vorsprung weiter auszubauen. Das dürfte zwar schwer werden, denn die Konkurrenz "bewacht" die drei Piloten Michael Grund sowie Martin und Georg Theisinger (Landau) schon vor dem Abflug. Auch auf der Strecke werden sie das große Pulk der Verfolger nicht los, die Sichten seien zu gut und wenn man mal besseres Steigen als die anderen gefunden habe, kommen die sofort aus allen Richtungen in unseren Aufwind geflogen, so die drei Piloten. Chancen habe man nur im Endanflug, und die nutzt Michael Grund konsequent: "Auf den letzten dreissig, vierzig Kilometern muß man die Punkte machen, sonst schwimmt man immer in der Mitte mit".
In der Offenen Klasse schließlich präsentieren zwei erfahrene Piloten die deutsche Mannschaft, Holger Back aus Weilheim und der Münsinger Uli Schwenk. Beide haben vielleicht noch nicht ganz richtig ihren Stil gefunden, zumindest am ersten Tag hatte Uli ein wenig Probleme, aber nach dem Vorbild der beiden anderen Teams, wollen auch die zwei jetzt nach ganz vorne. In dieser Klasse fliegen zwar nur 17 Piloten, aber es ist eine erstklassige Konkurrenz. "Und", so Holger Back, "schlecht fliegen wir nicht, wir müssen nur noch schneller werden". Bislang halten die beiden Rang drei und fünf im Gesamtklassement.
This is (parts of?) the SAR Team in/on/in front of their truck.
Wille Halonen, Tapsa Savolainen, Kiki, and the Metman, Tapio Tourula.
This is a good tool, says Ekru. A Wilga from Lithuania. One of the towing fleet.
A shot from the grid.
8th European Gliding Championships '96 - .net Groundloop on soaring.guenther-eichhorn.com
Dr. Günther Eichhorn Travel Website
Soaring website