World Championships - Piedrahita spain

Here we are after 24hrs of relatively mellow travelling.  The team this year is Russel, Henry, Khobi and I with Martin, Cyril and Jan along as the management team.  The comp starts on Tuesday so lots of time to practice. 

We had a four hour day with the French team yesterday doing a 97km out and return to the west (el Barco) in relatively difficult conditions.  All the usual suspects are gathering in this wonderful town with reasonable expectations of flyable conditions.

We have good internet access so should be updating blog regularly.

Worldcup Roldanillo Colombia .. Task Six

and so the final day dawned with a higher base elevated the task committee to set a hundred kilometer triangular task.  The task briefings have been entertaining with Luc Armant taking it upon himself to share pearls of wisdom with Ozone pilots everyday.  The first lesson from the unlikely genius suggested that we should not use the brakes in the event of flying in rain until such time as the glider dried out.  another day we were told not to launch with knots in our lines and yesterday he suggested that we should not fly faster than our shadows.
World cup rules dictate that a mximum of six tasks are flown which makes the last day a rest day.... hence a big task.  The conditions were good so the first gaggle completed the task in three hours twenty.  Almost a hundred pilots in goal with the smiling Dane called Marcus Malmquist got in first on the same wing that Mads had in Pville.  Russel managed to hang onto the tail of the first wave securing a tenth place overall.  I got in shortly after and finishing in the top half which was small consolation but better than the threat of hundredth earlier in the week.
Renata won ahead of Elisa and Keiko and Michael Siegel took it from Russel Ogden and PeterN.
All in all a great week of easy flying in a mellow, modest and friendly place. I would recommend it to anyone looking for good consistent easy flying.

Paragliding World Cup Roldanillo Colombia - Task 2, 3, 4 & 5

We start really early, so not much opportunity to update the blog.  Sincere apologies to our thousands of blog disciples!  At least I have good news!  RusselA is hot, hot, hot and on fire staring at a top 10-15 place going into the last day.  Russel followed up on his solid start with a top ten finish on a six hour 120km marathon on day two with Pepe getting the furthest just 800m short.  Day three was a short affair of 55km which saw almost the entire field in goal in two and a half hours.  A couple of stragglers bunched the points severely giving the top hundred pilots at least 700 points.  Task four started fast and furious but was blocked by shadow and rain at the 90km point where the bulk of the field were condensed by the time they stopped the task.

 

Task five was set with two huge turn point cylinders at opposite ends of an out and return course giving pilots greater opportunity to choose a route.  Both Russel and Andre finished in the top ten. 

 

One day to go with Russel in the top fifteen and Andre clawing his way back into the top 50 (hopefully).

 

Last night was a festival involving St Sebastian in the catholic tradition.  We were entertained by two hours of fireworks and a brass band playing some funky Colombian carnival style music.

 

 

 

Paragliding World Cup Roldanillo Colombia - Task 1

The day dawned heavy and ominous, the sky pregnant and bereft of promise.  Or so it seemed to my jet lagged aching body rudely awakened while the entire field was ferried up the hill at an ungodly hour of 7:30. .. and then they set a 120km task (90km nett)!!  A couple of red bull shots delivered by a ‘bull babe’ and accompanied by a spanglish speech extolling the wing giving ability of the toxic brew woke me up and in the mood for flying as the day rapidly improved.  In summary if you were late earlier on you got spanked which punishment Andre received and Russel avoided pulling one out of the bag for team SA making goal with the 30 or so skygods.  They start the day early because the launch is essentially in the lee of the ever present Sea Breeze which is briefly held back by local thermal activity until about mid-day where-after you get flushed if you’re dumb enough to be anywhere near the ridge.  Provisional results Russel 29^th and Andre 46^th.  Our favourite Brit, Russel Ogden probably took it if Mickey doesn’t steal it with lead out points.  Nick, Josh, Pepe and a host of French along with some other usual suspects were all in. Then again I guess at these events almost all of the pilots could be considered ‘usual suspects’… such is the standard.   Stephan Drouin managed to survive a 40m drop after hitting power lines which destroyed his glider.  No other incidents as far as we know.

 

Russel’s experience:  ‘Messed up the start, fixed the middle and survived to the end. Scratching skills now honed’.

Andre’s experience: ‘Stuffed up the start, messed up the middle and died in the end.  Hiking skills now honed’.

 

All in all a wonderful day of flying with the rest of the week looking promising.

 

Quote of the (yester)day from Frankie Brown receiving massage from no less than FIVE pretty Colombian attendants: ‘I don’t think I can handle five, but I die trying’.

Paragliding World Cup Roldanillo Colombia

So Russel and I did the 36 hours with two big flights on the retro-fitted Iberian airline A340 (no personal tv on seat back) via Madrid to Perreira and finally Roldanillo arriving at 1 am local time totally broken. 

 

Roldanillo is rustic and rural with our accomdation best described as functional is somewhat noisy.  Nightclubs and street bars are the order the night, but at least Russel’s room has hot water (now that he knows that the little tap in the corner supplies the aforementioned).  The practice day was a delight in the sense that there was no stress with an abundance of mild thermals and we ended up flying around for some hours.  The landing field in town is a stadium of sorts.  Hundreds of locals cheered the free flying field on landing which is a novel experience in our cinderella sport. 

Super Final - Turkey - Day 10 task six

An 80km back and forward story was set. It started really well and then the majority picked up the discard at the halfway mark with only one pilot getting around the windy last turn point before rollicking on down wind to goal. Bottom line is that the other 99% of the field picked up the discard they were carrying before today and that has determined the ranking. In short the French champion, Stephan Drouin, has been the most consistent and is now leading from ValicA and Yann Martail. I am in 8th, Russel in the forties and Nevil in the seventies.

Many pilots are somewhat bitter that a system of discards designed to forgive the occasional landing associated with hardcore world cup racing has had the opposite effect of rewarding conservative consistency ala FAI Cat I style purely because of poor task setting. This was the third task set with nasty into-wind sections that have grounded the entire field prematurely. Whatever the case it's too late now to bemoan these things, but I suspect there will be some changes for the next super final. It's been a blast, let's see what tomorrow brings!

World cup super final - day 7 task six

Lenticular Valley

 So we got onto the bus early to go to another launch 2hrs from Denizili. Awesome place! 1700m launch above a flat valley ringed by low hills forming a classic racing amphitheatre .

Quote from Tamaga Sensei Nick Greece (see pic): 'the village has laid the red carpet out to gladitorial pilots of the world cup. It was difficult to utilise our ozone samurai swords as we were progessing at the pedestrian pace of 3km/h into the 'moderate' breeze. The thermals terminating in alien lenticular form.'





Tamaga Sensei (Egg Master)



The debate on the radio was comical at best with the discard seekers calling level one (safe as a house) and the sane people shouting 'what part of 50km/h wave and lenticulars plus carnage on launch are you not getting?'.  One meet director, who shall remain anonymous, was overheard saying 'it is just a strong cycle' on launch one minute before cancelling the task. The village has pulled out all the stops to show us a good time laying on a great meal and entertainment.  A highlight of the evening was the turkish and fire dancing performed by one of the Russian pilots.



 

 

Super Final - Turkey - Day six task Five

More wind after a very relaxing rest day spent touring the Cleopatra mineral pool, the ancient ruins and Travertine pools of Pamukale.

 After some debate the task was revised to the NE goal some 60km away. 

We used the lower launch which proved to be really messy and side-on requiring multiple launch attempts from many pilots with the customary hoist-off-your-feet and flapping bundles of glider on launch.  A capped speed run was the order of the day, but in the end it was a bit of a cluster with four pilots managing to punch through the 40km/h cross-wind to goal and the rest spread over the course line with 35 or so in the last 10km before goal.  A long retrieve saw us home before 8pm.  This task turned into a discard for most pilots.

Super Final - Turkey - Day four task four

Another day of 10 - 15kt predicted wind so the task committee decided to test the hang gliding metaphor by setting a 107km task with half the distance into the wind.  The resulting glide test saw a third of the field landing within a couple of km of one another at the 60km mark with Alex Hoffer winning the day.  SA team still looking good.

Super Final - Turkey - Day three task three

Another howling gale and then a task just before sunset.  63km crosswind task starting at 16H00 ande then 120 pilots flew to goal with the winner finising in 1hr 23min!  Today is the first of two discard days so it will be very interesting to see the leader board.  Russel got in top 5, Nev landed short and I was a minute behind the main group.  Lead-out points will be interesting..

Super Final - Turkey - Day two task two (Updated)

Sweet and Sour Turkey

A howling gale on launch had us all huddled around the chai pot muttering about how long before they would call it off.  Two hours later we launched and flew a 63km task in blistering pace of 41+km/h.  Freaky man!  I guess it was too much to ask given the luck of yesterday, but I was styling with 20km to go with a glide of 8 required and just when I was adding up the points I cascaded to a glide of 10 losing forty places (five minutes) on the lead nursing the glide through the last two turn points with absolutely no hope of a climb in the stable valley.  So here's the thing all ye Ozone owners... don't let go of the red things if you're goin' 60+ because the wing disappears and then tries to get rid of the rider when it re-appears. 

A massive cravat and two twists required three clumsy full stalls to eventually fix and unwind.  Another day which had almost one hundred pilots in goal with the first 50 separated by 6 minutes.  The strength of this field is absolutely mind boggling.  Any sub-optimal micro second of blunder is punished out of all proportion.  I am clinging onto 5th overall with a discard in hand should we get a third 1000 point task which is good news.  The whole discard thing is pretty cool because many of the pilots languishing in the eighties could be leading overnight if they can put a good task or two together in the coming days.

The day was won by Luc Armant on a dark blue Ozone proto which is reportedly stable @ 65+km/h.  Alex Hofer(Ozone) was in second with Taro Kobayashi(Gin) in third a few seconds behind.  Another 7 out ten 10 for Ozone with Gin looking strong and only the Valic brothers in the top 20 for Niviuk on the day.  The picture looks the same for the overall standings at the moment with a lot of flying to come! 

Superfinal Turkey taks 1 from broers philippe on Vimeo.

Super Final - Turkey - Day one task one (Updated)

The day dawned breezy and chaotic with the normal first day of organisors confusion amplified by over eager pilots. A 71km round-about RACE was set which saw the lead change once or twice. A personal blunder of laughable proportions after the start proved to be fortuitous at the crux which gave my lag gaggle of 5 chasing pilots an advantage shortly before the 15km final glide where we took a dusty to cloudbase and stuffed the bar into the stable valley and customary sea-breeze-into-wind finish. I took it by 12sec from NickG with the first 50 of 97 in goal within 10mins with Nev and Russel both in the top 60.. so a great day for the Africans! Still wonder if paragliding is a Game of chance sometimes. Whatever the case, I'll take it thank you.

Practice day..

All dressed up and no-where to fly. Sat on launch all day waiting for wind to come up the front. A few got off in the lee but did not look so good. A hand ful of test pilots were tying knots into their two line protos in the bushes which was comical. You can add axis and sol to the two line mix and we almost have a full compliment of 2 liners!
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Paragliding World Cup Super Final - Denizili - Unofficial Practice Day

The bus fetched us from our doorstep and took us to the top launch today which is around 1,500m+ ASL. The valley was heavily inverted far below. We eventually got off the gravel launch to climb to 3,000m+ which was where the second inversion ended. One or two guys reportedly got through that inversion to about 3,400mASL. With mellow thermals of around 2-3m/s everyone boated around until eventually going on an extended glide into the valley which was dead still. I have seldom flown in such laminar air so I took the opportunity to pull straps on the harness and figure out different trim/speed combinations. For those interested there is about 6-8km/h difference between trim extremes and the glider accelerates by 20-24 km/h at the ring stoppers with trims fully out. I never really believed it but now I see these ships really do get close to 70km/h flat out. More interesting was finding the best accelerated glide combinations which are not where I had assumed they were. The sink rate increases sharply beyond a certain point moving from -1.5m/s to -2.0m/s in an inch or two of travel on the speed bar or trimmer. All in all a great day of picturesque flying made all the better by landing behind the hotel and packing up on the marble tiles of a cavernous airconditioned anteroom.

Ozone vs the Protos

The mountain was abuzz with glider talk. Mac, Gin, Niviuk and Advance all have two-liners here in numbers and Torsten arrived with a Swing hot off the production line. Chirp of the day (heard on the bus ride up the hill): "Gin is making a better R10 than Niviuk". This raised a chuckle or two, but the truth is everyone is excited at the prospect of new and improved gliders being showcased at this event. No-one I spoke to really knows what wings Russel and Luc have brought to defend their title with. Consensus opinion seems to be that it will be pretty good whatever it is (doh!). Luc was walking around the launch handing out new UV protected AR1 & 2 lines to all Ozone pilots which I thought was pretty cool given that my main lines would probably have been up for renewal after this comp.

Paragliding World Cup Super Final - Denizili

Another Epic competition looms in the form of the super final. This is where every former world cup champion and all 'legends' get wild cards along with the top fifteen of each qualifying event during the year. There are three SA pilots attending: Nevil, Russel and I. Russel qualified in Brasil and Nevil got a wild card on account of his world record and I qualified in the US in August. Nevil has been here for a week where he flew in the Russian open finishing second. We will pick his brain when we catch up with him.

The travelling proved to be a little tedious but after 32hours (JHB-DUBAI-IST-DEN) we finally arrived at the grand hotel Sevgi which is in the town of Pamukkale which means "cotton castle" in Turkish and is situated at the base of the mountain which features two launch areas (low + high). The cotton castle is framed by an amphitheater of pure white calcium carbonate precipitated out of the thermal springs over the last 14,000 years at a rate of 1mm per year. The ancient city of Hieropolis was built on top of this 'white castle' which is a Unesco World Heritage site. The calcium deposits harden into the sedimetary rock known as Travertine. Huge open air baths hold the super saturated hot water which gushes out of the rock at around 30degC. The entire complex is lit up at night which accompanied by the exotic sounds of turkish music and nocturnal fauna provided a novel backdrop to our first evening meal of spicy donna kebab and Efes beer.

The pools of Pamukkale