3. Taifun Treffen

from 20. – 23. May 2004 in Oehna apart from the rain, nothing going on? On the contrary!
Though the bad weather squashed many plans and minimized the chances of a collective flight across Berlin area, but ...

Text (German): Gabriele Brönner-Garben
English translation: powerglidertaifun.de

Thursday, May 20th, about 20 flying teams met at Oehna. The vast majority of them of course with a Taifun 17E, 3 crews with another machine, because a Taifun was not available at the moment. Most of the participants looked forward to the event after last years meeting at Borkum. Just a small number of participants was present for their first time - among those also flyers from Belgium and Austria.

Approach of Oehna airfield (EDBO)

Special guest was Richard Perlia, pilot since 1926, now 99 years of age, with his two years earlier published book "Mal oben - mal unten" ("Sometimes up - sometimes down").

Richard Perlia signing his book

Not so easy for some, was the outward journey across the Mittelgebirge, but at Oehna you really could say it was „Ascensionday-weather“.
After being welcomed by this years organizers Manfred Garben and Henk Dumont, we took dinner at the airport tavern and exchanged first experiences and impressions.

At campfire we ended the day very cosy

Friday at 10.00 a.m. briefing was announced. All of us were divided by lottery-drawing into 4 seperate groups, each headed by an experienced "Berlin-flyer". At 11.00 a.m. we planned to go for a sightseeing flight across Berlin to Strausberg, afterwards across Potsdam to Heinsdorf and back to Oehna again.

Briefing

And then the rain started. It continued until late afternoon. We had to spend our time another way. There were plenty of conversation partners available, because Astrid and Rainer Korff and also Friedhelm Wilberg from the Limbach concern had joined us. Also miss Stemme jr. accompanied by a technician from the Stemme concern, which we originally planned to visit at Strausberg, flew in with a Stemme S10 to join us at an extensive lunch.

At 5.30 p.m. we finally did depart for a sightseeing flight across Berlin: at 2000 ft. across Whisky 1, TV-tower Alexanderplatz, passing Tempelhof Airport on the east side, along the Whisky -route towards Potsdam and then back to Oehna again.

Therefore there were two remaining appointements, made in advance: formationflight in 4 groups across Oehna airfield and after that a target landing. Both should be judged by the competent referees Monika and Rudi Hackl, our guest hosts at Oehna airfield! The formation flight turned out to be not that easy at all, and also hitting the marked target line was quite difficult. One group passed the crossing flight in a satisfactory way, according to the "Referees" and one team even hit the marked line sharply.

To close the day a dignified BBQ for all took place - outside for the sturdy ones, inside for the other dudes.

Saturday was a sunny day, blue skies and hardly any clouds visible at Oehna.

Just before briefing at 10 a.m. the weather was downloaded and the forecast of the German Weatherservices was printed. Prognoses for that Saturday were good - for Sunday on the other hand not! Unsettled weather, rainshowers and squalls from the Northwest with peaks up to 35 knots were predicted.

All pilots decided to fly homeward the same Saturday.

Before departing, all participants joined for one last winners-ceremony: First the best formation and the best landing was presented. Limbach and Fläming Air concerns had some beautiful prizes placed at our disposal. Winner of the formationflight was group B consisting of D-KLUW, D-KBLB, D-KSDF, D-KGOS. The best target landing had been made by D-KSDF.
Also we had prizes for the two oldest pilots, Hartwig Karras (81) and Guenther Osiander (79), and for our (up to now) only female pilot, Ursel Westphal. Because they took the longest journey to get i Oehna, the Austrian tema of OE-9313 was awarded a free 100-hours check up from the Korff concern.
At 12.30 p.m., after professional photographer Hans Blossy took a picture from each team, each glider and each participant, the first planes took off.

Group-photo