--ekru ylla@ami.fi
It was nice to take some time away from my desk yesterday and look at the spectacular finishes. Actually, it occurred to me that I'd never stood at a finish line before, because I usually flew over finish lines. I think the finishes over the lake yesterday, would have to be one of the most spectacular sights I've seen in gliding, with gliders coming thick and fast. I tried hard to capture a few pictures on the little digital camera and at one stage had to duck under a glider. It was fantastic.
Slowly I'm learning the right technique in persuading people to write little articles and stories. It's not gentle persuasion but it works. I'm sure there are more people who would like to write something. If you're worried about your english, why don't you just come to the Press Office and tell me what you'd like to say. We are trying a new technique to reproduce our pictures, so I hope the quality will improve. If you are interested in the Internet, the pictures appear in colour. Enjoy your flying.
On Sunday briefing I felt a little ashamed about the long tasks of the previous day. I had the feeling that the pilots did not like to finish late. Today I found out that I was wrong again. The pilots really like to finish late. The weather was as usual unreliable. We had difficulties to estimate where, if at all, the soarable climate would be on Sunday. We wanted to play it safe and give rather smaller tasks bring all pilots home early. By the launch time, the most common opinion on the grid was that despite the short tasks, most of the pilots would land out. I did not want to share this opinion. Still the earlier start seemed to be the only choice of the day.
The towing team made a new record. Every pilot was in the air in 54 minutes. They had a good chance to depart quickly and come back early. The real-life manuscript did not follow my ideas. The holding patterns got stuck above the start gates. Nobody wanted to leave first. The open class stayed near the field forever. The biggest gaggle went away only at about 4 p.m. My bet with Janet about the number of outlandings seemed to crash because of the open class! The phenomenal performance of the modern gliders did not betray us. We had three waves of incoming gliders in the evening. The first was like an air raid. The sky was black with gliders. The second was a bit smaller and the last one included most of the open class. They really like late finishes. I will keep it in my mind.
Göran Ax had a little adventure he could do without. Outlanding only seven kilometres from the airfield his crew needed five hours to retrieve his glider. At about midnight, the crew arrived at Lift and Sink a bit weary and said they needed a small scaled map. They still couldn't find how to get to the glider. There were trenches round the field and a small road on one side of the field, but they just couldn't find the road to get to the road. Finally they were able to find a very small road through the forest and with help of a four- wheel-drive finally got the glider home in the wee hours of the morning.
A small incident in the air on Saturday was described to me as two gliders making love in the air. It was quite late and we had already enjoyed a couple of beers, so the story began to grow. It turned out, that the two gliders were named 64 and C64. What would be the result of this consummation? Why any multiple of 64 has to be an LS8. Then we wondered what the Charlie in C64 represented. Copulating (a bit crass), crash (poor taste), contortion, chancy and so it went on. Someone asked what position (according to the kamasutra) had the gliders assumed and the British Team manager was a little slow to answer, saying it all depended on which glider had been male or female
While we're on the subject, we have a list of violators of the don't- drive-near-the-Press-Office rule. YC, Uli Schwenk, The big green German Four-Wheel-Drive Mercedes (S) and LH (this means Czech beer!). We're waiting for our 6 packs! As for the person who ran over the little cart, you'd better think of something nice for Antti.
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Although the Swedish sauna lovers have always tried to tell the world that the sauna is a Swedish innovation, it's not true. The sauna has had a place in Finnish history for centuries. Nobody really knows who was the first Finn with the idea to heat little stones in the fireplace and throw water on them. Maybe it was an accident. The ancient Finnish man or woman tried to put out the fire by throwing first stones and then water on it. If you think about those long and dark Finnish winter nights, there must be something for warming up your body, your mind and your soul!
There are at least one millions saunas in Finland which has a population of five million inhabitants. If you live in a house of your own you always have a sauna. In your summer cottage you might have two, a normal and a smoke sauna. If you live in a big block of flats there is at least one sauna in every block. Sauna is connecting people
Saturday traditionally is the Finnish sauna day, at least it was before TV came to Finland. When I was a little girl I went to the sauna with my mother, father and two brothers every Saturday at 6 o'clock. It was as if we were sitting in church, it was not allowed to make any loud noise or jokes. To go the sauna is a kind of a holy ritual to the Finns. You can also enjoy the feeling in the big sauna in Räyskälä call the University of Gliding in Finland. The pilots are sitting there hour after hour, throwing water to the kiuas and gliding their tasks over and over again.
Surely you have noticed that the Irish team is a very small team. And maybe you have, like myself, wondered why you always saw two gliders and just one pilot running back and forth between those. Until you found out that they are identical twins. But that's not the only thing that's double about these lads. First of all there's the scary Jolly Roger that makes you wonder whether it is always Paul in the C64 and Stephen in the C65. (or was it the other way around?).
I wanted to know more about their Piracy and sneaked up to their planes. No need for that. The only Pirat seemed to be their crew, who said he'd crew for any-one, as long as they pay. It was he who once brought the Jolly Roger in the English(!) Gliding Club where the two brothers are members, and it became their club symbol. But it is not the Jolly Roger that brings luck and thermal under their wings. The tough image of the Irish team melts away as soon as they start talking about their mascotte. A soft glare comes over their eyes, and they open up to tell you just about everything you might not even want to hear about their luckbringer. Their luckbringer is an official crewmember who is not taller than 40 cm. It has a pink furry coat and listens to the name Pink Panther. And believe it or not. Pink Panther has an official logbook of the British Gliding Association. An impressive Logbook. It seems that Pink Panther made more flying hours than the Twin Pirat pilots. From Johannesburg to L.A. The Pink one has been around! A Jolly Roger and a cuddle.
Irish, Finnish, French or Dutch. I couldn't help thinking: For Pilots it also counts: Boys will be Boys.
It was time to pick a good field to land, as with the other pilots, I had been operating at a low level for sometime, I was tired and too low to catch the 'bubble' that my partner was now climbing in. The field was long, green, no wires and there was a road and some houses. Yes this was the one, a good circuit, wheel down and I was into the middle of the field, stopping quickly on the soft soil.
I climbed out, stretched, had a drink and wrote down my GNSS position so I could phone Uncle Bob, our manager. I heard some shouting, looked and saw a man coming from the farm waving his arms and carrying something.
As he approached I could see it was an axe. I put all my belongings back in the glider and stood waiting for him to approach. He had two boys with him and was very gross. He lifted the axe above his head as if he was going to hit the glider (it might be the oldest glider in this competition but it is my glider and I would like to keep it in one piece).
I shouted "I am English, I don't understand", I handed him the landing slip to read. I knew it had some Finnish writing on it and hoped it did not say "Please introduce me to your daughters I am a lonely glider pilot" or something similar as we had joked in the team. He gave the paper to his son to read and I phoned Uncle Bob. "Help Bob, there is a farmer who is very gross who's going to break my glider, or me with an axe for landing in his field. What am I going to do?"
"Just give me your GNSS position and Turn Points rounded." said Bob. The farmer climbed over my wing with his big boots, I needed help and someone who could translate English and Finnish, to tell the farmer that it would be OK. I phoned control and the lady spoke to the farmer's son. The farmer calmed down a little and walked back to the farm to park a tractor in the gateway to the field. I now had another problem, how would I get the glider out of there, the soil was soft and it would be hard to push. I took the canopy and tailplane off to make the glider easier to handle and the sons helped me push the glider nearer to the gate. This took about 40 minutes. I went back to get the canopy and tailplane and to my surprise a family was walking across the field to look at the glider. The farmer exploded again for another 10 minutes, so the family turned on their heels and left.
Now what would I do? I couldn't leave the glider, I didn't know how Barbie my wife was going to find me, then when I was alone with the youngest son, he started to speak to me in perfect English. He was also very scared of his father. Barbie was 'the lost lady' at a fuel station nearby and some young boys helped her. She contacted me on my radio, her young boy spoke with the farmer's son and the ordeal was almost over.
Yesterday, thirty 15 metre and Standard class gliders finished in two minutes. The finishes over the lake were spectacular, to put it mildly. If it wasn't for GNSS recording, it is unlikely so many finishes could be recorded.
Field Marshal Juha 'Silva' Silvennoinen and Tapio Savolainen and smiles. Honestly: would you buy a used SAR car from these guys?!
Briefing in the grid.
Ichikawa Makoto '10' from Japan.
Need a tow? Ropeboys Teemu and Ville.
European Gliding Championships 1996 on soaring.guenther-eichhorn.com
Dr. Günther Eichhorn Travel Website
Soaring website