Alright, so, here we go !
Well, that was a long drive !! Around 1000km accross 3 countries (that's without the Ferry time.. and the storms ! :? ) but when you love, you don't count!
I arrived at base camp on Thursday morning, not really fresh (2 hrs sleep in 2 days!), but a fresh beer (at 9am...) was the sign that I was finally arrived, and that sounded already like a great year !
I'll pass on the camp atmosphere/ambiance etc etc, as you have to live it from the inside !
But that was great, and I think some photos and videos will soon put a bit more shame on myslef, and on a lot of participants !! Some really really good laughs!
Later that day, I went to the slope... The World famous Wasserkuppe, basically where slope soaring is born ! Very nice place where you can feel the "aviation" atmosphere all over the place !
You are at the slope flying, and 10 metre behind you, you have full size gliders taking off and landing, on your right, on you have the hang-gliders, everybody is talking about one thing, and one thing only : flying!
You are in your element, you really feel like being at home! Everywhere you look, you can see something flying, and just that, what worth the trip!
Another thing that was worth the trip, was the Wasserkuppe museum. Actually, visited it 3 times ! So much to see ! (full size glider museum photos :
http://www.gliderireland.net/index.php/gallery/wasserkuppe-museum-full-size ). You can almost touch all the machines that made history. You also have a workshop, where you can see the guys restoring gliders (that was a Grunau Baby II when we did the visit), chat with them, but also, open cockpits etc etc and tells you stories about the machines in the museum... Great time with really pasionated people!
The Wasserkuppe museum, is also the home of a model museum (Model museum photos :
http://www.gliderireland.net/index.php/gallery/wasserkuppe-museum-models ) where you can see all the models that made history in all discipline (free flight, RC, CL etc etc). You can see the first radios, record breaker models, prototypes from manufacturer etc etc... All the techniques, materials used, and for some models, a building lesson !
On the visit front, thanks to a buddy who had to collect spare parts for a KA8 (full size), 4 of us where able to visit the AS factory on the near town of Poppenhausen (a few miles down the Wasserkuppe), and that was a rare occasion to see how they do the big/real stuff, from start to finish! Something is sure, even if everything looks the same (molds, materials etc etc), is that we complicate everything ! For full size, they really uses really simple tools and techniques to setup/build a glider ! Some I will remember and use for building scale gliders. Photos of the AS factory here :
http://www.gliderireland.net/index.php/gallery/as-factory-visitThe meeting now... Well, as usual, that was great !
Flying conditions were a bit difficult as we had no wind most of the week end, but that did not stopped us to launch the machines anyway ! That's the spirit! Launch (well, if you wanted to) knowing you were going down (and with 38 degrees on the slope, coming back was a bit of a torture ! Especially on the slope we used on the Saturday!), but I think everybody tried, some making really good flight (the ones with gliders that were not looking like trucks, like the Condor etc etc).
As for me, I had 2 bad launches that ended up in the slope, the 3rd launch saw me doind a decent flight seeing the conditions, but had to abort it as we noticed a flutter in the right rudder. Landed a few metres from me, no big walk for me. Flutter was due to a fix of one of the V tail joiner, not rigid enough... Fixed with a piece of tape ! :wink:
And for all the machines, nothing badly broken (the valley was not really friendly with trees, holes etc etc on the Saturday's slope), and prove that the piloting skills of all the pilots is really high ! :clap:
A few bad photos of Retroplane 2010 :
http://www.gliderireland.net/index.php/gallery/retroplane-2010 but better check the Retroplane forum / album for much better ones ! (I'll keep the post updated as soon as Vincent finished the hard work to check the thousand of photos! :clap: )
Another highlight for me, was my encounter, and the nice chat that followed with Mr HQ himself ! That guy is a brain ! Anyway, I had to start by shaking his hand, and just said "thank you"! Thanks you for the work he did, especially for the gliding community... Uwe Gewalt was laughing... Yep, that's Retroplane, the Wasserkuppe, and a bunch of "celebrities". Told Mr Gewalt about my ASH25 on the workbench, and got some nice adviced.
Later on, Prof. Quabeck called me at the slope, and to my surprise gave me his contact details as he want to come and visit me in Ireland! :shock:
We'll see that for next year!
Another highlight for me, was that I put the shame twice on the locals
Long story, and that will be certainly better related on the Retroplane forum! Basically, I'm not that bad!
(told you, you should have come!!)
Oh yes, we also had a tornado at the slope!! Yep, a real one (photos on all the newspaper the next day). Really impressive! But more impressive I think for the the last German that was in the bar, was to see 25 Frenchies cheering up big time each time something was blown away by the wind with pint of beers and loud noise ! Still really impressive.. And lucky too I guess!
Anyway, al in all, a great year, and I will definitively go back to the Wasserkuppe !
I'll post more stuff as the ideas/stuff I remember are coming back!
