World Gliding Championship 2008 Lüsse, Germany - 1st August
1st August 2008
Today Ross is finally in the air! What a week it has been since we arrived in Europe.
Firstly, as we were half way here waiting for our flight out of Singapore, we received an email ffrom Annie Stuck advising that Roland has crashed his ASW27 in the south of France and had totally destroyed it. Fortunately his injuries are not life threatening. However it meant that the glider Ross was to fly in World Glide 2008 had evaporated - and Ross didn't yet know it! We sent him an urgent email, as well as advising as many as possible of our contacts in Germany that we thought might be able to assist in finding a replacement competitive machine for Ross to fly. Then we got on board and hoped for the best.
By the time we arrived in Zurich, Ross had been making phone calls to anyone and everyone that he could think of. It was very high stress and very expensive on the toll account! Prior to this he had been certain that everything was to hand and well under control. After 3 days and heaps of calls there was a definite glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and eventually Ross had the luxury of a choice of two competitive gliders that came within our very modest budget. Our grateful thanks to both Helmut Brunner and especially Thomas Wettemann for being generous enough to allow their personal toys to be flown by somebody else for 3 weeks. We salute you!
On Saturday 26 July we were introduced to Thomas's Ventus 2b, D-5471, on the Hahnweide airfield near Kirchheim/Teck, the home of Schempp-Hirth. Ross had worked for several years for Schempp aand Tilo Holighaus kindly offered us the use of factory facilities to do a little pre-comp fettling; replacing mylar tapes, sorting instrumentation and batteries, replacing the tailwheel etc. We left the glider on the Hahnweide and drove back to Wetzikon that evening feeling mightily relieved that our biggest obstacle was overcome.
Sunday 27th was a long day's drive. Wetzikon, south of Zurich, via Stuttgart and Nurnberg to Luesse was 800+km for the crew and Ross did an extra 80km with the out and return to pick up the trailer from the Hahnweide. The pilot treated the crew to dinner at the Italian restaurant in Belzig that night. We had arrived!
We are staying in Belzig at the same apartment as last year. It is approximately 6km from the airfield but it has all mod cons and extremely hospitable hosts. Ross was determined to clean and polish the glider and trailer, and fit an extra L-Nav screen before we headed to the airfield. What an absolute windfall. Herr Zimmerman allowed us use of his garage and free range of his well equipped workshop to prepare the glider. "Golden," said Ross. The retired man watched avidly over shoulders as mounting bracket were made, the glider was polished and the radio mast was raised in his back garden. Now we needed only to register and get loggers sorted, which all went as smoothly as any other bureaucratic process.
Tuesday morning saw us rigged, fully ballasted and through scrutineering. Yes, we are ready to go!