 Webmaster Jeroen Kroon
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| Opdrachten en Uitslagen maandag 4 juli |
July 4th historic day in gliding.
July 4 2005 was an historic day in gliding. As far as I could find out , yesterday was the very first day on which a 1000 km task was set during an international competition and flown.
HERE IS THE STORY:
"A normal day" some locals said yesterday morning, proudly looking at the skies. But later they honestly said. " It's better than normal". So we had a very special day on this first day of the 13th European Gliding Competition. It started already on Sunday at the openings evening.
The competition director, we are allowed to call him "Silva", had mysterious smiling eyes and after listening to the opening words and some nice Finnish singing and accordian music, he invited all Team Captains to come forward to sign a sheet. "We are going to change the first day's briefing time from 10 till 08.30 AM." The word "4 digits" was softly spoken.
Excitement all over and early nights.
At 8.30 all pilots were there. Most crew members were still busy on the grid, or at the scales as weighing is a daily procedure here. With a small delay, 15 minutes, we had indeed the first start at 10.15 for open class. Task, 1011.8 km, a polygon with 6 points and also a polygon with 6 points for the 15 meter class; 833.8 km. "WOW".
It was a very special morning. Pilots were rather silent, they might have been stunned, amazed or pleasantly surprised but they were clearly behaving different then normal. One pilot said: "This is just great. What ever happens, a 1000 km, on a first competition day is courageous and super, even if we don't make it home". We only could wait here on the ground. Tapio, the meteo man was sure and confident they would come back, but how many, as we heard that the East turned blue.
The evening started and smiles appeared on the faces of Silva and his deputy director, Jorma. Lot's of people slowly moved to the side of the runway to be part of the tension which was slowly building up during the day.
And there it happened. The first 15 m glider arrived at 18.55. It was Janus Centka in the new Diana 2 (BB) who arrived under applause over the finish line with a average speed of 117 km/h. More and more 15 m pilots arrived and in the end we had 21 from the 22 back here on the airfield. Super!
In between we heard that the big ships should arrive about 1 hour after the first 15 m class glider.
And yes, this happened as at 19.51 Russell Cheetham arrived straight in together with 3 other gliders. (see for results).
Russell also flew with average speed of 117 km/h. More happy faces and congratulations to the team as 17 from the open class gliders arrived back home. History was written in Finland at Rayskala Airport.
For quite a few, it was their first 1000 km. Not for Finnish competitor Antti Lehto, as he flew his 4th 1000 km flight this season!!!
What a great day! As for many of the 15 m. class pilots it was their longest distance ever!
We will long talk about this day! In another 25 years we will say: "Do you remember the 4th of July in 2005? They flew 17 1000 km flights and 21 833 km flights! "
A day to never forget!! Also for the 3 pilots which just didn't make it. They still flew over 900 km and only got about 400 points!
July 5 2005.
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