Champions

Club Class
Bernard Eric France
Standard Class
Schmelzer Bert
Belgium
20 m  Multi-Seat Class
Steve Jones & Howard Jones
CUS, Great Britain

Tasks and results:
www.wgc2014.fi/results

Weather

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  • ilmanet.fi
    user: efrymet
    pw: mmkisa2014

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Katja's blog

WGC2014 Räyskälä, Finland 16.6.-6.7.2014

Competition period: 22nd June - 5th July 2014

Soon after JWGC2013 it was time to start the "last phase" of WGC2014, and I had to prepare myself to do all over again the same thing what I had done in Leszno. This time I also helped with other preparations as well, and not only the website, just because of the experience I've got from international competitions. And here we are, ready to start the World Gliding Championships in Räyskälä.

So....Here we go again!

www.gliding.fi

Index

Preparations...Sunday

Containers for office and scoring arrived in the end of May and after Finnish Gliding Nationals we were able to start cleaning and furnishing them. My place is in the "quiet container", where meteorologists, scoring and competition director are as well. Too bad that I can only see the office container from my window, I guess this was Heikki's plan to make me go outside more. I am going to update the facebook news stream during the competition. So if you see me walking with my iPhone, it means that some news is going out, not that I couldn't live without social myedia.

Weather has been quite weird during past few weeks; we have had cold, even colder, hot, sunshine, good gliding weather, thunder, bad gliding weather, really hot, rain and continuous rain. I am writing this on Sunday, and June has been quite rainy so far. Heikki said that if this won't change, he will use North-Korean methods soon (don't know if I want to know what that would be) and I am glad the weather has been pretty good for flying today.

Monday - Thursday

Preparations continued, the weather was quite bad on Monday, and we didn't get in to action yet, as only few planes went flying. My time went mostly with wondering the settings of my new PC and thinking why Adobe does things the way it does. I just would like to use my old CS2 and activate it, but it seems that they aren't interested of so old systems.

As the weather on Monday was so bad, I left to Helsinki in the afternoon, and had a nice dinner in the evening at Helsinki center. I assume that will be last Nepalese dinner for a while. Tuesday morning brought some peculiar news as it was snowing in Räyskälä! There were quite many surprised comments on our foreign pilot facebook pages. Also my hairdresser said “guess how many people want to talk about this weather during the day”. I guessed correctly that the amount would be equal to the customers they had that day.

I was glad that snow melted during the day, so I was able to drive to Räyskälä safely with competition magazines which we had done last week with Jukka Taipalus. Well, he was the designer and I checked the content and ordered the printing. The end result of the magazine was really nice. Not as funky as I hoped for, but the style is more Scandinavian stylish and not too busy.

In the Tuesday evening when I was washing my dishes at Räyskälä, I could put my basic Spanish skills into practice at the dish washing place…the Argentinian team was there washing their salad ingredients and I was proud as I could say Good Evening to them in Spanish. We talked also about washing the vegetables, and is it necessary in Finland. I told them that usually we don’t wash salads which are grown in Finnish green houses, as we consider those to be quite clean.

Hmm..after Tuesday we had only two flying days, but during the days I was busy with my computer, the website and setting up the routines with Visa - the other member of the communications team - I better fast forward my story until Friday at this point. As nothing interesting happened during those days.

Friday 20th June – Finnish Evening, midsummer night

During the week I had realized again that if your title is “webmaster” in the competition, people will come to you if the wi-fi doesn’t work properly. After explaining several times to people that I am only website designer, not internet connection guru, I might have forgotten the smile from my face and answering too harshly to people. So this is my way to apologize. Also during Wednesday-Thursday I spent wondering the Finnish Evening, which we were going to have on Friday, which also was the Midsummer Eve. I don’t know did I volunteer accidentally, or if everybody else were so busy that they hoped that “someone else” would take care of the party. Anyway I ended up talking about the arrangements with Jukka Rastas (the president of Nuorisoilmailijat aviation club) and Tanja and Teemu from Cafe26.

Luckily Teemu and Tanja are professionals and only thing we had to decide with Jukka was the menu and the schedule. Well, even I’ve arranged with my friends several parties, aero club Christmas parties and feasts, I still hadn’t arranged party for 300+ people. I ended up sending some SMS messages to Jukka around 5 o’clock in the morning saying “Hopefully I won’t wake you up, but something came up to my mind…”. Well, it didn’t take that many minutes when I got his reply which started with almost same words as my message “I am also up at this time of the night…”. Jukka bought all necessary items which we didn’t already have for the Finnish evening. I was surprised how many helpers and “helper’s helpers” was volunteering to set up the party, also Finnish Gliding Team was a big help giving out the salmon soup, the beer, sausages and ice cream. And of course they we’re doing that as it was – after all- Finnish evening.

To tell you something about the meetings we had during the spring time: We were wondering would it be any good idea to arrange the Finnish evening this early, I mean before the official competition was even started. But as Friday 20th was the Midsummer Eve this year, the main public holiday and party during the summer, we thought nothing would be more Finnish than to eat salmon soup, sausages, drink Koskenkorva (vodka) and see the bonfire at midnight.

I have to pay my tribute to Antti Lehto’s daughter Johanna and her friend, as they were responsible of making the salmon soup. Ingredients were prepared for them, but they didn’t have normal pots an pans and stove, but a soup cannon instead. I understood that both of them are somehow involved with studies of culinary/cooking (you know what I mean). And here I was telling to these girls at their early 20’s: Hello girls, thank you for helping us to make the salmon soup. You will be making the soup with this soup cannon (from Swedish army). They didn’t even blink their eyes or ran away yelling and screaming - like I would have done on my 20’s – instead they rolled up their sleeves and asked if someone could start the fire under the soup cannon for them. The soup was delicious and rumours tells me that Janusz C from Poland didn’t have seconds but thirds as well. (hopefully I am writing that correctly) Perhaps we have to give him the recipe so he can make salmon soup at home as well.

Party went well, people had to queue for a while to get sausages, but they got soup and Koskenkorva-vodka quite fast, as those were given to everybody when they arrived to the hangar.

But my night didn’t end that well. It went well first…I went to the bonfire at midnight, had a glass of red wine with Vicky (steward Terry’s wife) and talked with several people, serious stuff about marital law and some nonsense of course. At one point, which was too late, I realized that I was only one awake from the organization and all pilots had gone as well. So I decided to fetch my bike and go to bed and I should do I fast. It was easier said than done. Imagine the feeling that you are looking for your bike in the middle of the night and feeling a bit “tipsy”. But you can’t find your bike where you left it or nearby even. I had to walk few kilometres from the lake Särkijärvi (RWY 12 finish) to my caravan. Luckily our night guard Pentti picked me up and gave me a lift. I didn’t see my bike on my way to the caravan, and that meant one sleepless night, because my black-yellow “Jopo”-bike is close to my heart as I painted it myself and I’ve basically grown up with it, as I got it when I was 17. I was afraid that I’ve lost it forever.

I tested the power of the social media and sent immediately photo of my bike to the facebook pages of the WGC2014, Räyskälä airfield and Räyskälä village.

On Saturday morning I got good news :-) Mateusz Jedral, the Polish team captain saw me standing in the hangar when briefing ended and he came to me. He told me that he has found a bike from the bush at army area. Then he said that it is the same black and yellow bike which was on the picture on facebook. I told him that it is my bike, and we went immediately to get it. There the poor thing was, lying in the bush, muddy and like it had been beaten up.

A bit of washing and tender loving care (oil etc.) and the bike was on road again.

Saturday 21st June 2014 – Opening ceremony

The day started normally with briefing, but the weather didn’t allow setting a task, as there was going to be rain showers all day long. Local flights were possible. Lucky for us, the weather cleared up for the evening as we had the opening ceremony outside. Before that we had “flag-raising exercise” and I heard myself volunteering raising the SIL (Finnish Aeronautical Association). I must wonder why I did that, because usually I have been seen with my camera and taking photos of the ceremony. As I think back now, I should have not changed my place and should have stick with my camera. I will remember it next time.

Ceremony was short (as usual in Finland), first PIK 5 was winch launched to the sky, and it did some circling above us and landed as close as possible of the crowd. The FAI flag was given to Heikki by the pilot of PIK 5. Then it was our time to raise the FAI and SIL flags, Finland’s flag was up already as it was Midsummer Day, the day when flags are on the poles from 18 o’clock from Friday until 21 o’clock Saturday.

Then we raised all the flags one by one while the particular team was cheering. If someone wonders the order of the flags (not Argentina, Australia, Austria etc..) But Finland, South Africa, Germany etc..reason for that is that we were told that we have to put Finnish flag first, and rest of the countries has to be arranged by the French names of the countries, like in Olympics. Well, I have never heard or seen that before in other competitions, but if someone wiser than you tells you what to do, then you do it, don’t you.

Then Heikki and the president of SIL and our patron gave speeches, everything was done in half an hour or so. After the ceremony people were invited to the opening party to the hangar, arranged by Cafe26.

We left quite early, as I was still a bit tired of Friday and the excitement of losing the bike.

Sunday 22nd June – No grid, no task

The organization was introduced in the briefing at 10.00, and I got my few seconds of publicity as well, as we all were standing at the podium.

At weather briefing Jarkko’s (the meteorologist for the first week) comment that the weather is “quite moist” up until the tropopause with the day’s sounding image made people burst into laughter. I don’t understand much of those graphs even I should, but obviously it was telling that the flying isn’t possible today.

Honestly at this point (one week later) I can’t remember what I did that day. Took a nap, ran here and there I guess, as I didn’t even take pictures. Aa, I took one as Ailsa took me behind the fire truck and showed me how a kangaroo sticker has appeared on the side of the truck. It actually looked like it belongs there as the kangaroo was same colour as the fire truck. Also I cut Kimmo’s and Pauli’s hair.

In the evening at the barbecue Heikki (the competition director) said that we should be ready for early morning on Monday. We were rolling our eyes since everybody had said during the day that Monday will be as bad as Sunday was. But Heikki said that there is a chance that it will be better. So we went early to bed, except that I found myself reading WGC facebook page, my mails and answering to all, and went again to bed too late.

Monday 23rd June – Fire truck drive, spaghetti etc.

Competition office sends every morning a message, and tells if grid is open and what runway is in use and when the briefing will be. This morning we got first “briefing postponed” message, saying that no grid yet, and briefing will be at 11.

Jarkko told that weather front is over Räyskälä and is moving very slowly away and that it is too moist for competition flying. Safety team is here with fire truck and ambulance, and they had “open doors” after briefing. All children and childlike were welcome to get to know the cars from inside and also have a drive with the fire truck. Of course I went as well! We even used the siren for a while, hopefully the neighbours don’t think that something bad has happens as the sound of the sirens at the airfield usually isn’t very good news.

After the drive we went shopping with my friend Kimmo. I wanted a new support leg for my bike, usb port extension and some specific deodorant. That meant that we had to go to Riihimäki where all the necessary shops are close together. We even saw one pink/white Tunturi-bike behind of one superstore. You see, I wasn’t only one who lost a bike on Midsummer Eve. Also Howard Jones from Great Britain lost his bike, there was nothing else left than a basket which was back of the bike. But then we realized with Kimmo that the colours are correct, but painted opposite. So this wasn’t Howard’s lost bike. The shopping tour took longer than we thought, and we had a small snack at Citymarket café.

On our drive back to Räyskälä, we were looking the sky and said almost the same time: if Heikki sees the sky, he might be quite upset. Weather looked perfectly flyable, with big cumulus clouds and some sunshine. But perhaps flying would have not still been possible, as all good weather seemed to be on Helsinki TMA area, south of Räyskälä. And north of Räyskälä wasn’t looking good.

I met Norwegian pilot Kato Kvitne in the small class room when I was doing the dishes and borrowing one pot for my cooking. Kato told me that they had been flying with his wife and that it had been pretty good. Weather had been good and they don’t have that many chances to fly together. I can’t anymore remember did he comment if there would have been a possibility for cross country flying, anyway they had flown 2 hours or so. So not bad for “no task”-day.

In the evening I made spaghetti Bolognese and Kimmo repaired my bike. This is good “symbiosis”, Kimmo fixes things which I can’t do myself and I prepare a dinner in return for him.

Tuesday 24th June – almost flying day

Tuesday would slowly start the “flying day routine”, which means: waking up, breakfast, shower etc. checking that everything is ok on the website and social media, updating WGC14 facebook, reading and answering on feedback of the website, briefing at 10, updating WGC14 facebook, putting the links to tasks on the website, a bit of free time to get a camera and prepare myself for the launches, updating WGC14 facebook, taking photos, waiting for the towings to start, updating Finnish gliding team facebook page if I remember, taking photos, updating WGC14 facebook the start line times etc., after towings some comment of the weather on WGC14 facebook, soup lunch together with other organization members, perhaps helping the competition office with some technical stuff, then “developing” the pictures and publishing them, surprising every time how soon the competitors are back from the task, setting up the results show at café, photographing the finishes, then a little bit of free time (perhaps a beer-time even), then dinner, then “developing” the last pictures and publishing them, and updating the daily winners on the website, reading and answering the emails and feedback on facebook. When you do this four days in a row, the caravan looks like after bombing and you forget which day it is.

Except that on Tuesday we got only to the grid. Weather forecast looked like we would have a weather window for 2,5 hour AAT task, but first towings were repeatedly postponed, and then rain showers were developing too fast and so the day had to be cancelled at 13:45.

At this point I anyway started feeling that because of the rain and preparations, I haven’t seen people as much as I hoped. I hope this situation will change before the competition.

Wednesday 25th June – finally some action!

Finally we got a day when we can do what we came to do here, to have a gliding competition. Weather was good enough, we got a grid on runway 30 again, which is quite great as there you can walk between grids. I mean we have two parallel grids, and on runway 30 the towplanes are landing to other runway and not between the grids like on runway 26 or 08.

At briefing our "met-man" Jarkko told us about the tricky weather. It seems that weather was good east from Räyskälä but unstable and easily overdeveloping, and clouds quite thick at Räyskälä area and thermals would be weaker here. Because the weather was more stable at Räyskälä area, tasks were set north and south from Räyskälä. It was 2,5 AAT task, and that meant quite short gap between the last launch and first finishers.

Cloud base was about 950 m and sniffer reported weak thermals. When British guys heard this, they commented with happy faces: “so the weather is like home, let’s go”. And some others (Australian) were “oh sh*t, that’s bad”. Weather was clearly a bit tricky, as quite many landed out, especially in Club class.

Anyway it became valid competition day easily, we had Live Wednesday (=music, food and drinks) at the Hangar I, but I felt a bit tired and had a barbecue with friends.

Thursday 26th June – good weather, finally

Third flying day and I almost forgot which day it was, as routines as repeating when it’s flying day, only times vary. Today was quite good day, few outlandings and early finishes.

Aa, I almost forgot to tell: we have sniffer flying before the towings, as usual in gliding competitions. Last Friday (Midsummer Eve) we had a bit “bigger” sniffer, as my friend Hannu – who is working as captain at Blue1 – flew Boeing 717 over Räyskälä at high altitude and reported on Räyskälä frequency what kind of clouds he can see around us.

Friday 27th June – third flying day

Third flying day and I almost forgot which day it was, as routines as repeating when it’s flying day, only times vary. Today was quite good day, few outlandings and early finishes.

Aa, I almost forgot to tell: we have sniffer flying before the towings, as usual in gliding competitions. Last Friday (Midsummer Eve) we had a bit “bigger” sniffer, as my friend Hannu – who is working as captain at Blue1 – flew Boeing 717 over Räyskälä at high altitude and reported on Räyskälä frequency what kind of clouds he can see around us.

Saturday 28th June – beautiful day, valid competition

The weather was really nice already in the morning, I would say that it was traditional gliding weather. It looked like that anyway.

Matthew Gage (flying ES), had some problems with his gear when he landed back right after towing, even the gear was out and locked, it collapsed somehow back inside, and so there was a long white stripe on the runway and it was clear that he wouldn’t fly anymore today and there would be some repairing to do.

We had quite a lot of spectators here, about 200-300 people, which was perfect as we had nice weather and some action. Also reporter from Häme newspaper was here and I took her to meet Antti Lehto and Nikke Luukkanen as they were second on total results at that point, also she met the Jones brothers who were leading the 20 m Multi-seat class by winning the day three times in a row. This Saturday would be the fourth, but we didn’t know that at that point. Both Antti ja Jones were quite happy of today’s flight, but Janne Nord, Swedish pilot who was leading the Standard class results told that this day wasn’t good for him and he knows it already.

Well, we have now four flying days, that means that the championships is valid!

In the evening was time to have one of the gliding competition traditions; the international evening. Before the competition some of the members of the organization which never had been in international competitions asked what the international evening is all about. I told them this: teams would go to the briefing hangar, take the tables, arrange them as they please, put up the food and drinks, then people would walk around and eat this and that and drink several different colored hard liquor and they would go behind the hangar and feel sick.

This is exactly what happened, except that due to the alcohol license laws in Finland we had to take the tables outside from the hangar, since that is under Cafe26 licenses. But being outside didn’t actually matter at all, just the opposite. The evening was most beautiful summer evening what you could hope for after having this terrible weather for so long.

The food again was familiar specialties, herring from Sweden, sandwich (smörgås) from Denmark, Parma ham and parmigiano from Italy, Australian red wine, potato pancakes from Czhech rep., maultaschen, sausages and beer from Germany, hot dogs made by USA, weird looking cake from Lithuania (Šakotis), lard with rye bread and pelmeni with sour cream from Russia, pastis, wines and pate from France, vodka’s from Slovakia, Romania and Poland, cucumber sandwiches and Pimm’s from UK, honey biscuits and orange liquor form Netherlands, caipirinha from Brazil, red wine drink from Argentina. Sorry that I can’t remember everything, as some of the vodka erased my memory.

Or perhaps it wasn’t vodka, but the red wine instead :-)

In the evening we heard hits from 2014 to year 1976 (the year we had World Gliding Championships here last time). Hits were played by DJ Repe, the master of costumes and styles. We all were hoping that we would be able to take it easy (on the alcohol), but when it was clear that it didn’t happen, the secret hope was that tomorrow wouldn’t be flying day. Of course you shouldn’t hope for that when the weather has been so bad.

Sunday 29th June – rainy resting day

To be honest with you, my head this morning felt as I assumed it would feel. Had too many Borovicka, Slivovica, and other vodka’s mixed with some excellent Australian, Chilean and French (hmm..should I reveal this all…) and some Argentinian red wine drink, not to forget the Dutch orange stuff, I think I got what I had ordered last night, the condition of my head I mean.

DC 3 came before the briefing and I had a talk with Petteri Tarma, the chairman of FAA. We had a planning meeting about the communications here, since it looks like all of the media has concentrated mostly in World Football Championships, not gliding. But I am glad that we have few names to help Visa and me, and today was the time to use those names.

The weather was really bad, so there wasn’t even task for today, and it was declared as official resting day. The weather got even worse during the day, and DC 3 took off towards Helsinki in rainy, chilly and grey weather.

In the evening we had Finnish pancakes which were made at the barbecue (open fire). Some whipped cream and strawberry jam, it was perfect evening dessert.

Monday 30th June – foggy day and pizza

No grid, briefing at 10, so the situation was quite clear. This wouldn’t be a flying day. I sent SMS to Kimmo and Jari if they would like to see something else than Räyskälä today. Jari was going home, but Kimmo had same thoughts as I did. We asked Riku and Satu to come with us, and we decided to go to Forssa and have a pizza and some grocery shopping.

It was too early for pizza right after briefing. Riku had to go “downstairs”, as we call the maintenance garage at motel basement, Riku was helping to repair ES, Matthew Gage’s glider after his “belly landing”.

Since it’s good to wash your car at least twice a year, I took my car downstairs as well and vacuumed it thoroughly from inside, now it only needs wash on the outside. It’s weird that the constant rain doesn’t wash it for me.

Gerrard “G” Dale was downstairs as well and we had a good laugh as he was painting some part with black primer and waiting for the paint to dry. What can you do when it’s not a flying day? Watch paint to dry?

Pizza at Martina was perfect, but the trip to Forssa took surprisingly long time and it was almost time for sauna and barbecue when we came back. My stomach was still full, but had a small piece of that nice pizza which I saved just to have it in the evening.

Tuesday 1st July – cancelled day

There isn’t much to say. The weather is awful. Anyway we have to try, as there was good weather west of us. There the cloudbase was about 1,5 km with some cumulus clouds under a high cloud, which would be quite good for us, I mean it would be better than rain.

Somehow the word “weather window” has been said quite often this year, first at Pribina Cup Nitra, then Vesis Open in May, at Finnish Gliding Nationals and now here. How can this be like this? So you do know the story, you wait and wait and wait for the weather window to come, and either it comes or it comes when it’s too late…or like today’s situation, it didn’t come. The day was cancelled after 13 o’clock.

Still it was a quite good day for gliding in general, as YLE Häme spent quite a lot of time here, from early morning until late lunch time. Hopefully they got good material, anyway they told us that the material will be used in several places. Let’s see.

I didn’t manage to leave from the office container earlier than normal office hour, which is pretty weird since the day was cancelled.

Our steward Patrick and field marshal Wille share a same birthday, 1st July. We had Patrick’s birthday cocktails at Hangar bar and then I had roasted salmon at barbecue with new potatoes and salad with Jari and Kimmo. Good Finnish summer food :-)

It seems that the nature is reacting on this weather: there are mushrooms already in the forest, but strawberries are not ripe yet. There is a strawberry field close to the airfield and I was hoping that all these international people would have a chance to taste Finnish strawberries. I am hoping that because someone didn’t believe that it would be possible to grow strawberries outside in Finland, he thought it would be possible in green house, but not outside. It is, and as they are growing quite slowly, the taste is really sweet.

Wednesday 2nd July - cold and windy cancelled day

This morning when I left from my caravan, it was so dark that you could see the driving lights. Driving lights are mandatory in Finland even during the day. During a bright day you don’t really see them that well. I took an umbrella and sunglasses with me, as it looked like I would need both of them at some point, and you never know when you have time to go to the caravan again.

Before towings I spent time in the container updating the facebook and this blog. Container was nice and warm, windy and rainy weather outside didn’t really invite me to go there. Deputy director Kaj saw from Pirkkala webcamera that the weather there was looking super good. We are at wrong airfield as usual when the weather is bad.

Towings were postponed repeatedly, Heikki and Janne (this week’s meteorologist) followed the rain showers from the big screen and hoped for the weather window again. I understood that someone asked from Heikki (with smile on his face) why we do have a grid today at all, because all the forecasts are telling that weather is…well exactly what it was outside. Someone asked me that same question when I went to the grid.

You might have heard me telling about Axel, the JWGC11 competition director in Musbach, and that I thought Axel was using “happy pills” as he always saw nice weather coming, which never came. I think that those “happy pills” are here now, and Heikki and met-man are using them as well. Or perhaps those pills come with the package which FAI sends to the organizer, or perhaps there is some manual “how to stay positive when weather is a disaster”. That’s a joke, of course!

I went to the grid despite of the weather, and found out that people had either escaped of the bad weather to café or were sitting in their cars. I had a walk around the grid and then we had a talk with – almost frozen – stewards before I saw competition directors and met-man with their heads together. After that only thing I could heard was…”ok, that’s a decision, you make the announcement”. Then Heikki said to the radio “Day cancelled for all classes, sauna recommended for anti-freeze”. I think that was great as Heikki was able to use some (local) humor at bad situation.

In the evening there was “Live Wednesday” in the Hangar. Teemu and Kimmo put my pictures on the screen and I had a wine with nice company. Since I had food in my fridge, I decided to leave and have a barbecue with my (Finnish) friends. Hmm..it seems to be too late to visit some of the teams barbecue, how sad is that.

To be honest with you, I forgot all about the “Live Wednesday” after eating. Reason for that is that Heikki found positive news from YLE pages of our competition (and my name and comment mentioned :-D ). I had to go to my caravan to share it to you, I couldn’t do it with my iPhone. When I was getting some drinking water from sauna, I saw Silva, our Jury Member who came with a smile on his face and told me that they’ve dance all possible Latin American dances and it had been great. I love to dance and at this point I realized I lost a possibility to enjoy dancing and that I had a normal barbecue as well. How sad is that. I can have a barbecue on following weeks as many times as I want, but don’t have that many possibilities to dance. Stupid of me.

Thursday 3rd July - strong winds

Janne (met-man) told in the briefing that there would be good chance for cloud streets today. 2 hours after club class start line opened, first outlanding report came to the office. The wind was really strong at the airfield at that point and competition director was thinking with deputy director if the task setting was good after all.

I am getting somewhat frustrated with some of the elements on the website, I mean that there are so many elements which are not under my control (entries list, tasks, results, soaring spot, outlanding map, webcameras, live scoring, tracking, streaming) and some of them are showing only blank screen. Of course I will get feedback from people “why this isn’t working, why aren’t you doing anything about it”, and only thing I can do is either remove the blank element from the website or ask the provider why things aren’t working. What else could I do? If the webcamera is off and I don’t have access to the computer which runs the webcams, there’s nothing I can do. Or if I don’t have credentials to update the entries list, there’s as well quite little for me to do. I could explain this further and further, but I won’t.

Flying day was really challenging, winds were much stronger than what was seen on the weather chart. Even the day was quite sunny, it wasn’t that anymore during the landings. Soon it was clear that most of the pilots would either have to land out or come back from the task. In club class 7 managed to fly the task, in Standard class only 3 and but all in 20 m class did use their engine (I assume all of them do have an engine, as all glider types are with XLT’s, M’s or T’s)

I went to see Marke, Jukka and Vesa at the “finish line”, where they keep a record of all gliders which have landed to the airfield. They are also using “walkie-talkie” to communicate with competition office as office receives all outlanding reports. This way they keep track of the contestants. When we had only 5 “missing” (meaning: we are waiting for) gliders, and Jukka went to put more clothes on because he was freezing, I left Marke - who was quite frozen as well - in the van and went to the competition office. I felt like I could use some action, also I wanted to help these poor people who were waiting for few “missing sheep”.

The end result was that one of the gliders we waited for had landed out hours ago and its outlanding report was in the pile of the other reports, then I made three phone calls to Team Captains and all of them answered “Oh, sorry, he has landed out quite long time ago, everything is ok”. Then I got to use the “walkie-talkie” and could say that “xxxx gliders have landed out, all gliders are counted”. When all gliders are counted, it means that safety team can leave the airfield, people who are securing the roads during the landings can go, the “finish line” can go and also competition directors can go. So the outlanding report is not only nice-to-know-information, it also gives lots of information for keeping track where the contestants are.

During the evening I was glad to hear one “joke-a-like” comment: Contest directors were talking in the warmth of the container that perhaps it’s better for them if they stayed away from the sauna today and took only a quick shower instead. The weather was really bad and contest directors were hoping that they would have changed the task from racing to AAT.

Friday 4th July – nice weather, my mom visited

I woke up at 6:15 and had a look of the weather forecasts from the internet as usual (while lying in bed), also I looked out from the window – which we “iDevice” users sometimes forget to do. Weather looked gray outside, but all forecasts were saying that this would be a nice day. I tried to have a short nap before I had to get up, as I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier every morning (night), even I don’t consider myself more stressed than I should at this point. Perhaps I’ve waited for someone (competition directors) asking me to do something more, as even my days were full, still I was asking in my mind should I do something more or should I change my way to work. But hey, worker won’t ask that from the boss, even the boss is your friend. I know that I might have learned some not-common ways to work, since I have my own company and I am my own boss. For example; I don’t want to build a cubical where to work during my free time, table and chair and some space on my left and right is enough.

In the morning we noticed that one of the gliding competition traditions had happened. The FAI flag was stolen during the night. Before that the organization was almost 100% sure that this would be first competition where the flag wouldn’t be stolen. I told them that they have to either take the flag down every evening, or it will be stolen. Others thought that they would be cleverer than the “Flag Stealers”. The flag was attached up with certain ring which is used in HVAC-installations, and the pole was coated with clear Vaseline, and one of the bolts was welded so the flagpole can’t be taken down. This was a good plan, but the welding wasn’t strong enough. The flag stealers didn't remember that according to Annex Z, stealing the FAI flag is allowed only 24 hours prior the prize giving ceremony.  

My mom came to see me and the towings, I was proud to introduce her to as many people as possible. My mom started gliding at Räyskälä before I was born, but she and my dad didn’t have time for flying before 1987 when they decided to come here again. It was anyway great when Mr. Widmer – who was flying here in 1976 – asked if my mom was here then. Nope, no she wasn’t, as she was busy taking care of me and working and studying :-)

I climbed on roof of the fire truck before the towings started and got some photos of the grid from the different angle. This was great, but at some point of the competition I should have climbed on a tow plane parked in front of the grid. As my “should have”-statements are coming, we should have taken the photo of us all, I mean organization, crew and pilots. That could have taken either from the fire truck or the tower, or the crane they used to fix the wi-fi antennas.

The weather appeared to be good and the task setting quite successful since there wasn’t any outlandings. And I almost forgot: I got a ride with Kimmo on Wille’s ATV. We should have done that earlier, it was just great to have a ride to the lake Särkijärvi and back. It was a feeling of a freedom for 10 minutes, like there wouldn’t be any competition (website) to take care of.

Saturday 5th July – last day, farewell party

So this is the last day of the competition. I was wondering; why the competition feels in the beginning like you have a lot of time to do this and that and meet new people - and then suddenly you notice that you have only 2 mornings left. That happened to me. I was counting mornings on practice week, forgot about that on second week when we had four flying days in a row and the routines overtook me, then it was raining on the beginning of last week and suddenly the end of the competition was there.

Quite many people were saying to me today “so, this is the last working day”. I replied “yes it is” and then realized that “actually it isn’t, as we have to wake up early tomorrow morning for the prize giving ceremony and then clean the place up”. They were looking at me like I would have poured bucketful of cold water on them, hmmm…perhaps I was being too realistic and should have smiled instead.

Something overwhelming happened in the briefing. It was normal briefing, but in the end Heikki said that this was the last briefing and said his “thank you”s to all. He got a loud round of applause from everybody, and I mean loud and long, people were standing and applauding. If this would have been a play, he would be back at stage 5 times or so. I am glad I was standing outside, otherwise I would have bursted into tears. Do you know if this has happened before in the competition?

The flying day was again really nice, it was great that the weather was showing what Finnish summer can be like and that we don’t have continuous winter and rain.

I am sorry that I haven’t told you much about the results or how everybody flew, since I think that you can find that out from the results. And being Finn, I couldn’t follow the results objectively, because Antti and Nikke were on the second position on the 20 m multi-seat class. So we all had our fingers crossed for them, of course they couldn’t win, as the Jones brothers were doing history by being daily winners every day (except on the last day). I am glad that Jones brothers are so nice, I think they deserve to win :-P

The farewell party was quite well organized, but it was a shame that they couldn’t have more than 400 people inside due to the safety regulations. Of course the doors were open for everybody later when we were dancing. Oops, sorry, they were dancing. I still don’t understand what happened to me, as I really enjoy dancing, but I wasn’t at the dance floor and I was looking for someone to talk with instead. I mean just someone to chat with, no-one particular.

It was too late when I realized that this was The Farewell Party of our competition and I didn’t go dancing. How sad is that. I found a person to chat with, someone who had heard one thing from somebody who had heard it from somebody who had heard me saying something day before, of course the story had changed “a bit” and the end result had hurt his feelings. It was like a “broken telephone”-game, hopefully you know what I mean. And I had to explain what I had said. We also talked more about why he had hurt his feelings. His feelings were coming from deeper than from my altered comments.

This was also the first farewell party when we didn’t go to sauna, stay up too late or I didn’t have hangover next day. But I have to admit that I hurt my feelings as I saw this guy being hurt from what I’ve said, I mean what he thought what I had said. Sounds like soap opera, doesn’t it.

Sunday 6th July – farewell party, few goodbyes

It was really weird to wake up after decent hours of sleep, which is quite unusual after farewell parties. Also it is quite unusual to have enough of sleep before the prize giving ceremony, which is always held too early on Sunday morning. I would like to suggest that the ceremonies would be arranged on Saturday evening, but hey, what can you do if Saturday is a competition day. Oo, I hoped it would have rained on Saturday, but it didn’t.

Anyway, the prize giving ceremony was arranged with almost same plan as the opening ceremony, some speeches, but not too long or too many of them, concentrating on the reason why we are here; which is contestants.

I didn’t have any other obligation during the prize giving and closing ceremony than taking pictures. I asked Visa to take pictures of the winners, since I always – and I mean always – seem to fail taking those. So I was concentrating on the audience instead. I just hope I would have chosen other lens on my camera. Now I was able to take pictures from distance, but I had to stay close to the audience so the angles weren’t what I hoped for. Like I said, I usually fail taking photos at prize giving ceremony.

Prizes were given and I waited for my tears to come. You might know that usually I am crying at the time of the farewells, but this time the music and speeches weren’t too touching and I am glad of that.

But…you know, after the couple of years preparing, planning, training week and the actual competition, there is just something in there when the President of the Jury says “I declare these 33rd FAI World Gliding Championships over”, you know that you come to the point when you can say “That’s it, we’re done”. Also Kirsti did something which touched my heart. I’ll tell you what that was, but first I have to tell you some background: During the competition we had a person on the radio telling the wind information at the time of the finishes, and several people asked “whose sound is that”. That sound belongs to Kirsti. Her English, pronunciation and voice is really radio-perfect.  At the closing ceremony she was the announcer, so she didn’t really have that much of freedom saying her own goodbyes.  Also I have to tell that we didn’t have any big-budget airshow after the ceremonies even we would have liked to have that. We had something as great instead, I think. A Hornet (F-18) flyby. I just love the sound of such fighters, when I am in the airshow, and these powerful fighters are doing their routine, my heart almost bursts with joy and I have to hold my tears and stop my lower lip shaking. It doesn’t matter if they are doing either just a flyby or even a tight formation like Frecce Tricolori or Midnight Hawks. The sounds of the engines are overwhelming, at least to me they are.

So what Kirsti did? This woman with a nice tone of voice, not a hint of uncertainty in her voice, said the last words of the closing ceremony: “Finnish Air Force F-18 Hornet from the Karelian air command will arrive. Please look to the west and please cover the ears of children. Wind 120 degrees 5 knots.” Still now, when I am reading that, brings me back to the moment, this nice and calm sunny morning, and the last official words of the competition followed by fast low flyby of a Hornet.

I think that was really ingenious way from Kirsti to bring some personality to her announcements, and remind people of what they’ve heard on flying days. Her voice took people back on the competition, like this would be another evening of finishes.

After that I hid in the container, but still Patrick and Terry found me for goodbyes. Also soon after that it was time to “undo” all the furnishing and setting of the containers. I was surprised how quickly that happened, since preparations took good few days, and we were ready in couple of hours.

This blog needs an ending, and it’s coming next. I want to tell you about the Aussies and few warm days when quite many teams stayed in Räyskälä. Rest of this blog is coming sooon!

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