World cup - Chelan

The world cup circus is in town! The morning looked like it was totally blown out. We were watching the kite-boarding wondering if we could hire a sailboat for the day on the lake.
In the end we flew the fast and furious 94km task in just under two hours and five thermals. Russel and I were in with the lead group with Theuns in a while later. A fair start to the comp for the Sud Afrique contingent. No word from Chrissi yet.

US Nationals - Chelan Final Day

The final day dawned with many pilots feeling the effects of the epic triangle the day before. Some flew for more than six hours and many were recovered late (around 10pm).

Clear skies and the sight of dust devils kicking off in the distance early on made for high expectations of a great task.

A 60 km cross-down leg race was set, but the BIG problem was getting across the valley to the start. It was mayhem! Two thirds landed at minimum distance and the remaining few at goal. I managed to get in an hour after the leaders which would have spelt disaster for my podium hopes had it not been for the low validation. In the end Russel Ogden won convincingly from Jack Brown. Another 1-2-3 for Ozone as the dominance continues.

A good result all round for the South Africans with Chrissi finishing 3^rd in the women, Marinus 3^rd in the serial, yours truly 3rd in the Open Class and the honorary American camping with us 2^nd in the serial class.

Two days rest and then some serious racing in the world cup….

US Nationals - Chelan Task 4

Another awesome day! Less wind gave us the opportunity to do a 104km triangle. With a lower base and variable local winds, it took a couple of gritty climbs in a dust devil or two to get to goal on time. All the same faces at goal with one exception in Josh who landed short.

US nationals Chelan

Day three - the day dawned frigid and breezy, before settling down with cu's popping horizon to horizon. They managed to set a 104km task despite the day looking like a 'hundred miler'. It would appear that people are concerned about the cost of recovery which blows my mind given that we had a rest day yesterday and the next few days should be suitable for triangles. Whatever the case, we lost the opportunity and subsequently creamed the course in just a couple of hours. Close to 50km/hr which should give you some idea of the epic conditions. All the usual suspects in goal first. I had a stressful day taking the start late and low on account of a launch line-over delay. Had to give it all to eventually catch the leaders at the 70km mark. Me thinks the lead-out points will hurt a little. All in all a freezing cold but great day's flying albeit tainted by the goal crash of a US pilot who took a pendulum and slammed in from 20m after a collapse of sorts. This was the same pilot who arrived short of goal under reserve on the first day. I suspect 30 or more made it in.

Chelan USA - US Nationals

So we got onto this big-ass airplane called an A380 which takes hours to load because there were almost 800 passengers. I am not sure how the thing actually gets airborne, but it did and then we were offered Poullet or Bouef which is somehow tastier than the Chicken or Beef option on other airlines. I guess it had something to do with the french accent and flashing false eye-lashes.

I was wondering how you get this 600 ton monster back on the ground when the pilot attempted to destroy the runway by arriving a little too hot. I happened to be watching my half of the 80m wing thinking "that's fast" and felt the desperate pull back and subsequent impact with the wing-tips flexing at least ten meters virtually scraping the runway. Even the french crew were showing huge white eyeballs which told me this was not normal operating procedure.

After visiting the local Wall-Mart for tents, camp cots, camp chairs and goose down pillows at bargain prices, we settled into the (strict) campsite next to lake Chelan with it's perfectly manicured lawns. We fell like squatters with our tiny little tents among the towering RV city. I have never seen such huge camping vehicles!

Practice Day

Any body interested in 6 up thermals marked by dusties and a 4000m cloudbase? Bring it on!!

What lovely introduction to flying in the US: A whole bunch of friendly twangy english speaking pilots and superb conditions for paragliding.

First Day - First Task

An 89km dog-leg-down-wind dash was set to the ENE. Fast, Fast, Fast with an average of 46km/h for our gaggle leading into goal in 1hr45mins. This task was a crowd pleaser if ever I saw one which was a good thing because:

Task 2 - was not a sensible affair with a similar 75km dog-leg with an extra double-back sting in the tail at the end which meant flying the last 12km into wind... sadly the wind was fierce in the 40km/h variety and it took an eight meter per second climb spawned by a whirly convention in a dusty wheat field to get three of us to cloudbase. With a glide of 2.4 required to make goal, we barely made it in flying at full speed barely making 15km/h ground speed. The task scored better than expected with Josh Cohn four points ahead of me with Jack Brown in about ten minutes later. Russel Ogden would have felt robbed as he had almost an hour on the rest of us but came up less than 1km short. I think this will place Josh, Russel, Jack and I close up in front with a small cushion over the rest of the field.

Today is blown-out and the tomorrow may be the same.

Chelan USA

Here we come America! Off to the states for the US nationals and World Cup back2back.

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil: Task 6 & 7

In an act of comic desperation a group of us that included most of the world cup committee decided to woo the thermal gods by staging a roof-top garbage and trash party the night before the second last day. It was agreed that if we succeeded we would be awarded special bonus points. It was a noisy affair of at least four thousand mili-watts supplied by a mouse sized speaker compliments of Pepe Malecki and amplified atop a rubish bin and driven by 'DJ Red' Russel and his iPhone (we got trashed on the rooftop to sounds amplified by a garbage bin.... hence a garbage and trash party for those of you too slow to get it).

It turns out that at the bonus points were not needed by at least one of our club as Russel smoked the field and won the task the next day!!

Russel managed to follow up that performance on the final day to end up second on the podium. Not bad for a first time world cup attempt I'd say. Finally someone new has come through from SA and delivered a convincing result at the highest level.

My own flying was a sad affair of no launch on the first task and a comedy of errors on the second. I will just have to go to Greece, Spain, Italy, USA and/or Portugal to make amends I suppose. Rough life of a world cup pilot :-)

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil: Task 5 Cancelled

The rush up the hill was a little muted this morning with updated predictions indicating stronger winds than yesterday.
The task was cancelled after we began the inevitable foot-vote which is so often the result of the mortal battle between transcendental reality and blind optimism.

I guess I should say a little about Pocos de Caldas which is a mid-size city in the Minas Gerais province. If you're really interested about the stats go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A7os_de_Caldas.

It is 'nice' enough, but it is hard to be positively subjective when there has been no flying.

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil: Glider Talk

The talk of new gliders and technology here seems to revolve around: the duration of Ozones' current advantage; and the protos from Gin, Niviuk & Mac. The casual consensus seems to be that Ozone is a minimum of 6 months ahead of any other manufacturer putting a production version of something competitive on the market (the failed PMA recommendation is widely interpreted as a confession by various players that they have no answer for the R10.2). After equilibrium is restored among the manufacturers the expectation is that the performance improvements will once again be minutely incremental as has been the case over the last 5 years with Aircross being the possible exception (again). Comp results around the world are confirming what we already know about Ozone, but the rest of the protos are all unknown given the absence of any objective data or opinions.

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil: Silly buggers

Watch the first few seconds of this video clip to see the crazy Belgian doing a Benny Hill style 'thing'

Untitled http://vimeo.com/channels/paraglidingworldcup#10769139

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil: Task 1 - 4

Did I mention it rains during the monsoon season?

The first three days were cancelled and the fourth dawned frigid and relatively dry. We finally went up the mountain in the howling gale and low base with great excitement and enthusiasm. A 55km downwind dash was set and cancelled after 40 or so pilots were pasted all over the sky like skinny post-it notes facing into the wind in perfect alignment at cloud-base.

Picture courtesy of Arnold Pansi

Several anxious calls of level three conditions along with the imminent probability of one or two luckless individuals getting blown over the back low prompted the decision to halt the proceedings. A little too hasty in my opinion, but maybe for the best. It was quite comical to see the new Ozone gliders ripping several individuals off of their feet. It seems new ground handling techniques are being developed with each attempt. Wind guru predicts lighter southerly winds for the rest of the week. Thankfully no rain has been predicted.

We live in hope!

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil: Practice Day

Humid and overcast as Brasil always seems to be we arrived after an epic 24hrs of travelling.

It is great to have so many compatriots at a world cup after flying 'solo' for so many years. It feels like a world championship without any of the bother.

The hotel has broadband! We managed to catch the Dam-style cable car up to launch which in typical Brazilian style has a lush green carpet of freshly cut lawn defining the launch strip. Cloudy with drizzle and 25km/h wind up the vertical face.

Pictures courtesy of Arnold Pansi

The new glider is fast, flat and smoooth with a vicious launch that snatches you off your feet in strong wind. 2hrs 40mins of boating around in the light and windy conditions. Can't wait to try this machine in the comp.

It has been raining all day....

World Cup 2010: Pocos de Caldas - Brazil

Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my R10.2L from Ozone in time for Pocos. It's a pity we couldn't get them for the local comp starting Sunday, but as long as it arrives for Brazil, I don't really mind.

There certainly has been a huge buzz of anticipation about this new machine. I have no doubt Brazil will reveal all things interesting.

SA Winelands Open 2009 - Porterville - last two tasks

It is not easy going into the last two days with such a slim lead. The third day saw the lead gaggle of Francois, Andrew, Nevil and I miss the climb on the way to bumpy peak while the lag gaggle scored a fantastic corner elevator at teenage-tit which whisked them up and away carrying them halfway over the back en-route to the second turn point in the back valley. Wim was in this group and they chose to fly the foothills for the valley run. Feeling some pressure I applied liberal doses of the speed system and a more direct line under a fortuitous cloud street which negated the massive advantage the leaders had as we managed to reel them in before the last 15km glide from Cuitrusdal. Only one cheeky upstart (in the form of Damian Sykes) within this group went the valley route alone and was handsomely rewarded with a task win. This was probably the best flying day I have seen in PVille ever.

The last day was a messy affair with the task comm setting a risky front valley foray early on that saw several top pilots landing and had just about the entire fleet grovelling and desperate at some point. I managed to find a crew to fly with and the second half of the task was tedious as we were in front with my competition stuck behind which means you have to fly a little more conservatively which is a horrible way to fly. Anton took the aggressive racing stance and I had to reel in my neck and bite my knuckles wistfully while letting him go screaming off into the back valley on a solo effort that had a half chance of securing a task win. It all ended well ... Anton got his task win and I got my comp win.

All in all a great comp and a job well done by Cathy, Waldo and Mike. I sincerely hope they will do it again next year.

In my opinion the up and coming pilots to watch out for in the next three seasons are RusselA, FourieG & DamianS (in no particular order). One could include RyanM, ChrisVN & TheunsK in that list, but they are a little more unpredictable so I'm inclined to wait and see if they can get/repeat results.
It was good to have FrancoisDV, JacquesB and KarelK back and racing as fast (albeit rusty) as ever too. Anton is back and looking good. Nevil and Henry were solid as they always are.
Andrew somehow pulled all the bad luck landing in front on two occasions and Joe was dissapointing after his great performance in Barbs earlier in the year.
Another one to watch is Khobi who walked away with all the female prizes and very nearly took the sports class too. Lastly there is StefJ who is an awesome pilot in all respects. It is a great pity he does not fly comps more seriously.

SA Winelands Open 2009 - Porterville - Day 5 Task 2

After four sublime practice days we had three blown out comp days. No-one can remember when last there were so many un-flyable days in PVille.

The first task was a quick affair which saw all the regulars with a total of 42 pilots in goal. I managed to squeeze in less than a minute ahead of Wim verHoewe from Belgium. Scoring turned out to be an un-mitigated disaster with the new software unable to download tracklogs. We finally reverted to Ulf's trusty old TP which saved the day. The second task was in stark contrast to the first with a tedious 30km into wind fight which saw half the leaders go down shortly after the start in some serious sink. The second wave got through and two hours later I managed to sneak a win by a few seconds from Wim and Nevil. Ten in goal.

Today looks like a typical PVille day with a Southerly predicted.

Sebastian is having a ball, Pascale is delightful and Fernanda relaxed and smiling.