Kenyan African weather !!

Hello everybody, yoregelt,

Let us speak about yesterday’s task. Against all odds , and against what you felt and told me on the grid, the weather turned to be quite OK and the task was a good call with the best speed of the contest so far.

But apparently some of you spend too much time at “Victoria’s Beer Bar” after their flight and dinner and do not get enough sleep. Thus tiredness sets in, and that is not good news.

Here are the different “stories”:

It is bad airmanship to dump your waterin a thermal, you should do it when getting to the thermal. If I say this, it is because it happened her, at Szatymaz, with one pilot of this group, in this room, not at Nitra,or Prievidza…No safety problem incurred, but….

More so, during the take off, one pilot had a hair raising start with a very poor control of his glider. He was lucky the Sempair people had cut the grass short ! Safety was at risk there.

Another one had to restart his engine forgetting that the rule says that, in this case, he should land and take off again.

Another pilot admitted that, due to some loss of concentration, he turned back towards home, much too early, got disgusted, disoriented, went through the ring, but missed “ingeshor” and lost many points. Safety was not obviously at risk, but…

A third pilot managed to fly over the airfield, dumping water, to the very end of the runway, made a 180° turn and landed in the opposite direction from two incoming gliders. Asked to turn right to vacate the strip, at the end of the roll, the pilot turned left on a colliding course with one of the two others who had to change runways at the very last moment. The radio in the glider was dead. All these incidents were properly dealt with, but they definitively are the mark of tiredness and stress. There safety was very much at risk.

in.

So here is what I state as director :

• If you suspect or have problems with your radios and/or batteries, take along ans spare one, a handheld, and make sure it is on before you are in the vicinity of the airfield when you will need it.

• If, for any reason, you are tired or do not feel well, be reasonable, and do not fly. It is not worth the risk.

  We, the organisation, do our very best to avoid such incidents or mishaps, because we know where they lead. And we urge you to behave sensibly.

  Penalties started appearing the day before yesterday. We do not enjoy giving penalties, but there are rules, and we have to respect them and apply them. In this situation leniency will lead to accidents.

  I have been teasing Ludek repeatedly on many subjects during this contest, but having worked with him, I can vouch that he is fair and square. We checked the amount of points some of you lost due to errors. We never pointed the finger at the guilty pilot, it is un-necessary and not the style of this event, the LX Napvigation Cup, but we use these ”markers” so that everyone is fully aware of what may go wrong and makes the right decisions.

  We try hard to accommodate all your requests, but there is a limit, we cannot, and will not rebuild one flight from two halves present on two different loggers!! If you have such a problem, the solution is to have the loggers repaired or buy some others…

  This being said, let’s go to the distribution of presents for the day winner.

  And yesterday winner is a two-head team ! Both of them being good pilots, I had doubts about them getting along well. And I was right !! They could not stand being in the same ship, so that is why they hurried to come back and flew the best speed of the contest, so far !! Congratulations Bostjan and Lazslo ! I couldn’t cut the bottle in two, so I have to give you one each. You are costly winners !! Bostjan has accepted to have me in the back seat of “Seven” today, just because he knows I do not drink wine, and hopes to get the two bottles….

  I am tired pf shaking hands with men, so today I have delegated this task to a young lady who is no relation to either of you. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I am making !!

  Now the weather and the task…….  JR Faliu