--ekru ylla@ami.fi
I'm sure many people enjoyed the same experience of waking to a wonderful blue sky this morning and realising what a wonderful day was coming. Most of us expected a cold and cloudy day like yesterday. What transpired, was a day which will leave us all the memory of a classic Finnish gliding day. Magnificent plump and firm cumulus as far as the eye could see.
Now as I write this, pilots are washing and packing their gliders into trailers for the journey home already. We in the office and organisation are starting to feel the pangs, that go with the end of a big contest. Our great gliding family and friends will be leaving us tomorrow. It is always a very sad sight, the day after a gliding contest. The gliders are packed away, the people rush off in a hurry to get back to jobs which need them, and suddenly the airfield is like a ghost town. Back to real life, the shock we all face after contests.
Tapio has run a wonderful championship and I must congratulate him for the efficiency, great decision making, bravery in introducing the Cat's Cradle and camaraderie he has achieved here in Räyskälä. I'm sure we all take our hats off to him.
Now I would like to say goodbye to all my wonderful friends, the gliding family I so often speak about and love. See ya! JO
I cannot believe my eyes, while I am writing my final report for Groundloop. The sky is filled with marvellous cloud streets, no blue thermals, no rain. When I started this project some two years ago I had a dream to finish the competition with this kind of weather after eight contest days. For some reason at the bottom of my heart I knew that dream would come true but I could not have dreamed for eleven contest days.
It has been a great honour to work with such a professional team. Every now and then we had some (mainly technical) difficulties but nothing that the hard working volunteers could not solve. I could mention names of people who have made phenomenal performances during the past three weeks and longer, however, then I should list all 60 members of our team. Everyone is worth a smooth, five metre thermal. A huge thank to all of you!
I have also enjoyed the good spirit and fairness among the pilots, team captains and crews. Thank you! You made this a great competition. Last but not least I would like to thank our understanding sponsors. They have contributed enormously to help make this competition an economical success too.
See you all in Leszno
For three years now, I have been trying to teach Ollie how to stay and walk on a lead, without success and the first days here it looked as though he'd never seen a line. Ollie managed to find a few ways to take in some exercise, nevertheless, such as racing the jury car to and from our barracks. His best speed was 47kph. If we overtook him, he first looked very offended, then simply stopped and pee'd on a tree.
Not a single day went by, without some major complaint or incident, no matter how hard I tried. I must admit, that I found it very difficult to imprint on my brain, that dogs must always be on the line. Ollie is a dog who adds new meaning to the word energy, so to keep him totally restrained is not really natural, to me or him. However, after almost three weeks it finally sunk into my brain. Ollie also came to know his routine and became popular and friendly with everyone who came to the Press Office. He had his own jobs, such as showing his appreciation at briefing, joining in applause and he became most efficient at retrieving Nokias during the contest. He also gave a vote of disapproval during the Karaoke singing contest.
Still, he caused some headaches, such as a member of the Danish team complaining that Ollie had stolen a large piece of beef defrosting in his camp. Then I heard their was a female dog giving off 'doggy' Chanel, so Ollie had to include a tour of the camping ground, in his daily program to show his manliness, no matter how I tried to avoid it. This also included inspection of garbage and antagonising every other male dog living in the park. Another memorable moment, was when the famous gliding dog 'Lenti', of the small yapping variety, attacked Ollie rather tediously for some minutes. Unfortunately, the moment Rainer Wienzek grabbed Lenti, was the same moment Ollie retaliated and poor Rainer put his hand in Ollie's snapping jaws, requiring a tetanus shot in the rear end (Ollie was survived without any ill effects).
Ollie enjoyed the fly past of the F18 during the opening ceremony. He is fascinated by planes and really watches them. He has often chased finishing gliders in the past. He is a real flying dog, always looking at what goes on in the air. Actually, his mother Star, who is still living at 14, was well known and popular in Australia, as the Aerobatic dog and many people here now, can still remember her tricks from Benalla. Ollie has developed some of the same endearing (?) traits, such as enjoying a beer with pilots, but most specially, the ability to do aerobatics, in particular a barrel roll and loop manoeuvre, which is unique to type (see picture).
Ollie loves the gliding scene and all pilots. He and his mother have always been part of my gliding. I have had to learn to respect the rules as they are in Finland and it is me who is to blame for any of Ollie's offences. I would like to apologise to anyone Ollie has really given any problem, however, I hope some people have enjoyed his type of fun, because I feel, he has his own place in the gliding scene for everyone to enjoy.
The 1996 edition of Groundloop had a humble beginning. Originally it was not planned to have a Bulletin in Räyskälä at all, however Tapio realised there would be enough equipment on site to produce it if an editor could be found. It has been a great pleasure to produce Groundloop here and I have enjoyed every minute, despite the fact I have to admit it was a much bigger task than I anticipated. Flying contests is much easier! The first days of production saw me sitting at my computer until 1 to 2 AM and up again at 7 AM to deliver it to the office girls for printing each morning. The printing was a nightmare for the girls as the pages stuck going through the copier and it became very complicated. I have to say thankyou very much to the girls, who also had to juggle the one hour printing time between printing task sheets etc. It wasn't easy, because although it is enjoyable to have a magazine each morning, the running of the competition doesn't depend on it, so priorities had to be set. All in all we've coped very well.
I must also say a thankyou to Print Technik for giving Groundloop use of the Casio digital camera. None of us had any idea how to use this device previously but it proved perfect for a small publication such as ours. Eventually we found a technique for producing better quality photo-copy reproductions and it was a lot of fun to use the camera. For those who don't know, the camera will store up to 100 pictures and may simply be downloaded onto the computer and placed on our pages. Wonderful technology.
Many thanks also to our talented cartoonist Petteri Patolinna and most of all, I'd like to thank all those who contributed stories and ideas to Groundloop, because you made it a success. Some people contributed regularly, others gave little snippets and that is what a daily bulletin is made from, thankyou so much for supporting us.
I'm sure sometime in the future there will be further issues of Groundloop. Finland is a popular place for championships and I'm sure pilots will be happy to return someday.
or contact Baudouin LITT (OB) Belgian Team
Rue Ruisseau des Forges 80
B5620 Florennes
Tel +32-71-687616
Poland will do its best to minimise competitors' costs and to raise PROEUROPA '97 and EGC '98 to the highest sports level.
In the area around Leszno, pilots can enjoy magnificent gliding conditions, skies scattered with cumulus of bases up to 3000m and 5m/sec lift. Every pilot will be given a Turn Point Catalogue with 163 photographs. Turn points will be spread in every direction from Leszno which can make gliding there very interesting.
The organisers hope to help every competing pilot learn as much as possible about Polish gliding conditions, so you are invited to Leszno in 1996 also. There will be two big competitions there this year:
Standard Class Nationals 20.7 to 4.8 Entry fee US$225, towing US$27 per tow
Junior Nationals Std Class 6 to 20.8 All fees same as above
See you in Leszno.
Mfd 9/1995
TT app 90 hrs
See Team NIL
with engine
For more information see Henryk Muszczynski
of the Polish Team
See Janet Janowitsch
or Tel/fax +43 2627 3633
If you want to buy a new one, we need your old one, will pay the lowest price you accept
Polish Team Captain
The British Cricket Challenge was also well supported. A real cricket pitch was marked out and practice proceeded for about an hour beforehand. About 90% of the people here have never had anything to do with cricket. It's a standing joke in middle Europe, about the funny English and their funny game. However, when it comes to competition of any sort, glider pilots are always a little bit serious. And so began the great match, in perfect English weather (light drizzle). The British bowled a large group of people, who had never seen a cricket bat before. There were swings at the ball which were definitely baseball inspired. The best moment of the evening, was when star British batsman Russell Cheetham was bowled out by a female member of the Dutch Team. Some of the bowling styles of the challengers also had to be seen to be believed. Ollie showed his skills and faithfully followed the ball up and down the pitch, but we were not so sure about his fouling the pitch. It was a fun night, eventually coming to an end as a result of rain and bad light. There was only one promise not fulfilled, the beer was not warm and it actually got colder during the proceedings, as it was a very cold evening. Thanks very much to the British team for this educational experience.
I'm sure everyone on the airfield would also join me, in thanking the crew of Lift and Sink for working such long and hard hours to keep us fed and watered. In particular for their efforts in organising music, entertainment, hosting the team parties and of course, the Nokia throwing contest.
JO
They settled in the best they could, Dopey and Sneezy in one room, Grumpy and Happy in the other, Bashful on the couch of their living room and Snoozy in the sauna. I arrived next day by air, they picked me up in Helsinki and we all had a wonderful dinner prepared by our outstanding chef Sneezy, famous for his culinary - not flying - accomplishments. We had soup, gulasch, cheese, cake, coffee and brandy, but we did not have a Snow White!
Now those of you with a dirty mind, can wipe the smirk from your faces (nothing like what you are thinking would ever come into the pure minds of the dwarfs), the lack of Snow White meant there was no-one to wash the dishes!
This of course is quite a problem (the other problem due to lack of Snow White can be dealt with quite easily.) There could be no question of the pilots, Grumpy, Dopey or Bashful doing the washing up. Sneezy was the cook, he should not be counted on. Now, I had in my stupid youth married an English girl, a mistake I would rectify some years later, so washing up dishes was not quite alien to me. However, the team declined my offer saying it would be below the dignity of their captain and they would never live it down. What a team. However, that left Smiley and Sleepy only, Happy said he gets sick from washing up. Sleepy ended up doing it alone. How he wished for Snow White! She is in his dreams all the time, as his hands are in the washing up water I think he is having wet dreams.
Now all historical stories start with research and I want to go back to the beginning of this one. I know the names of the 7 dwarfs only in Hungarian, so I went to the British Team for help. Interviewing nine of the team I could only come up with six names, the seventh, which happened to be my name, we still did not know. One of the British ladies promised to call home and ask her children so I had to start with six. However, by the time this went to press, Janet, the resourceful lady she is, had discovered that the boss was Doc.
Back to the seven now ......they woke to the cool sunshine of their first practice day. It was 3 o'clock in the morning. All went well and we have to skip this day for lack of space. The following day was another story! If you want to know what happened, read it again in Groundloop no.1, titled Surprise, Surprise. The driver was Happy and he was driving with our reserve dwarf and I cannot say they were very unhappy after that adventure.
I have just found out this is the last issue of Groundloop, so I have to cut it short. We had a lot of fun during the championship, some outlandings aside it was all pleasure. We learned fishing, fattened up from Sneezy's cooking and have resigned ourselves to the lack of Snow White. Sleepy, who is only 26 years old and 190cm tall, handsome (quite big for a dwarf) has learned some Finnish expressions in the hope of seducing a Snow White to do washing up (does not dare to hope for more) but no luck.
Next week, they all set off for their own private Snow Whites at home and I would not be surprised if they take all the dirty dishes with them.
If you want to know more about the 7 dwarfs, come to Hungary for the national Championships 9 - 21 July in Szeged where you will probably meet:
Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful and Doc. Not to mention lots of beautiful Snow Whites. You can also do some great flying between gorging yourself with wonderful food washed down with excellent wine.
(I can vouch for that JO)
VP8
The world's smallest GPS Documentation system
&
The first European unit with FAI/IGC approval
The organisers of the 8th European Gliding Championships here in Räyskälä, would like to gratefully acknowledge the suppport and help of their major sponsor Radiolinja, for their contribution to the success of the championships.
I've been in Räyskälä since 24th May and enjoyed working with all pilots and staff. Each person at the airfield has a different perspective. I sleep while you fly. I work while you sleep. The worst times are the long hours but they are well compensated by the late night discussion in the Sauna and quiet breakfast in the cafeteria.
GNSS flight evaluation is now accepted in gliding competitions. I sincerely hope this new technology makes competition gliding safer and more enjoyable.
I have dragged him away from his celebrations to ask him for a brief description of his flight and some comments from the championships. You may also enjoy comparing his comments to the trace of his flight today.
The day was classic, cumulus with 3 to 4 m/sec. Like any pilot in his position, Mike flew tactically to protect his position on the final day. Still, he had a lot of fun, flying up to 220 kph between thermals, even if it wasn't efficient, it was great fun. The only tricky part of the course was near Lahti, where the clouds became more spread out and the thermals harder to find, so he flew a more zig zag course looking for the lift.
The rest of the day was without problems, cloud base from 1900 to 2000 metres and a final leg and final glide under a cloud street.
Mike has to admit he was surprised the conditions here in Finland were so good. Sometimes superb. Conditions to the north today were higher cloud base and looked perfect. 1000km triangles must be possible. The only thing he wouldn't like to take home from here are the biting bugs!
Mike wanted to comment that he felt Tapio had achieved a unique balance as a competition director. Serious but with good humour. He and his Finnish team made his stay very comfortable and trouble-free. He felt the Cat's Cradle was well worth a try, to avoid the kind of gaggles that took place over the blue days.
Mike would not hesitate to come back to Finland for another contest. It tested all weather, good days, bad days, wonderful streets, blue, sea breeze and very interesting wave. It's got it all.
Now we are all looking more or less like Tapio Savolainen in this picture.
European Gliding Championships 1996 on gei.aerobaticsweb.org
Dr. Günther Eichhorn Travel Website
Soaring website