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Monday 18^th August

The final wrap of the action at Lusse, Germany for the 30^th FAI World Gliding Championship. 3 weeks of mixed fortunes for the world’s best pilots and for our three South African competitors. The contest was one of ups and downs for a good number of the pilots – having good flights one day and then being near the bottom the following day. A real mix of weather, with good and poor, hot and cold, wet and dry. Any infringements of airspace, exceeding maximum start altitude, and other wrong-doings were strictly penalized with no latitude whatsoever. This cost a good many of the pilots dearly and their eventual overall placings.

The task area was virtually flat-land with some attractive scenic areas of rivers and forests, and also included flights into Poland. There were a lot of areas of airspace, which had to be avoided whilst others were often not active, all of which added to the flying complexities. Gaggle flying and following others is an on-going problem when conditions are weak and/or pilots want to be ‘with the leader’ or ‘follow my leader’.

With German precision, a lot of the details for the championships had been carefully arranged and organized, whilst other aspects would appear to have been overlooked or considered not important – e.g. on arrival at the venue, there were no specific tie-down areas for each country’s gliders, so it was very much a ‘free for all’ which did create problems when an area had been identified by the first arrivals for the rest of the team to then try to fit in, as other trailers & teams had encroached into their ‘space’; the team ‘huts’ were excellently equipped with electricity, internet connectivity, tables & chairs, but they were positioned behind all of the airfield buildings so one could not see any of the action, gliders or runways.

The South African team was relatively small with just 3 pilots – other countries had up to 8 pilots competing, this included reigning World Champions. The SA team worked well together, assisting each other as and when necessary. With the exception of one crew member, the team members stayed in a charming hotel approx. 8 km. from the airfield – this provided excellent facilities and food, as well as much needed peace and quiet away from the airfield and ‘communal camp-style’ living.

Attie’s JS.1 created a lot of interest from other pilots, crew, visitors and OSTIV people. There were always people having a look and asking questions. Amongst other new/newer gliders were the Antares, LS.10, HpH304s, and the Diana.

Both Quintin and Attie, flying in the 18m., finished in the lower half of the 50-glider field. Their final position and their flying abilities are probably not a true reflection of their abilities. Attie did have some excellent flights finishing in the top 10 on two days, but he had two disastrous days which somewhat negated the good flights leaving him in 39^th overall. Quintin finished in the 30’s on most flying days and even when he thought he had done well, it was not quite fast enough to be up with the top pilots. He finished 35^th overall. In the Open class Laurens started in excellent style with 2^nd place on the first three days - this gave him the edge and first place for the first half of the contest. Then the German team of Michael Sommer and Tassilo Bode slowly closed the gap on Laurens and finally took away his lead leaving him in 3^rd overall. Laurens is to be congratulated on an excellent performance, flying on his own without a ‘team-mate’. Congratulations to one and all – the pilots, the crews, the webbie (Steve Thomas), all the many supporters with emails, messages on the WGC2008 guestbook and the SSSA forum, Peter How for the loan of a hand-held radio, and to Herbert Martin (contest director) for all that he does for the S.African team.

Signing off – Carol , Team Manager

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