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Our 2.5 month South Africa family holiday was a blast and it was a very cool experience for the kids and me to get to know Penny’s stomping ground.
Thanks again to everyone we met and from Penny’s very close family members and friends and flying friends, you all made this an unforgettable holiday.

In my previous post we posted already a lot of pictures of the safaris and more and here just a couple more flying videos from the Garden Route.

Here is a quick update of our South Africa Trip.
The trip has been absolutely amazing and we are constantly on the move going from one adventure to the next.
Here is a short “Hike & fly” video when we were at Pierre Carter’s (xAlps ZA) parents place at Champagne Castle – Drakensberg.
Thanks again for Pierre to arrange this and many thanks to his parents Bill and Denise for their great hospitality.

Follow the link below for more “Hike & Fly” pictures.
https://plus.google.com/photos/107366320201211493303/albums/6114194502722614609?authkey=CNP32-Hr9vG5PQ

Here are some more pictures of other activities in the Champagne Castle area
https://plus.google.com/photos/107366320201211493303/albums/6114717763162828433?authkey=CLb7ktemlbeCUA

Before that we traveled from Johannesburg to the Krueger Park and we have a whole load of pictures at
https://plus.google.com/photos/107366320201211493303/albums/6109674691637279617

We are now at the start of the “Garden route” and will add more pictures soon.

Erik, Katia, Penny and Max

Winter in Canada, for most paragliding pilots, means to either dream about flying or going south to find warm thermals.

In Invermere however, we are a bit different, as we are very lucky to have the great Panorama Mountain Resort, which offers downhill skiing, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, amongst other great activities, and also welcomes paragliding pilots.
January and February are super smooth months to fly due the cold dense air and it lets you enjoy the extra glide you are getting with it.
At the beginning of March, when the snow starts melting off the trees, you will see the beginning of the nice, wide and smooth thermals, and start doing your first XC flights of the year. The thermals are typically wider and smoother than in the spring and early summer months, as they generate from a bigger area (the trees), in comparison to generating from dry ground (the ski runs with no snow) and are great to work slowly into XC flying for the season.

For 17 years we have been flying at Panorama in the winters, but it seems that a lot of pilots avoid coming as they are probably thinking of the cold, harsh winters of Alberta. Sure, it can be cold here too, but remember, it is usually about 10 degrees warmer on this side of the Rockies.

About 6 weeks ago Mark Damm, from Cochrane, asked me if I would run a Ski-launch workshop at Panorama, as he and a couple of his buddies would love to learn. We scheduled the workshop for Friday Jan 9th evening, and 2 full days of flying on Jan 10th and 11th.
Pilots came all the way from Saskatchewan, spending 11 hours getting here, and the others were from Alberta and BC. The evening session on Friday was held at the Station Pub. Thank you for the private room and the excellent meals and service.

We discussed different launch techniques with skis and reviewed XC flight planning. Saturday and Sunday brought fantastic mid winter weather conditions, and pilots had up to 6 flights a day. All in all we flew lots, had a lot of fun throughout the weekend, and watched 15 pilots flying and landing with happy faces and we all made new friends and meet some great new people.

I would like to share some tips here in my blog to help others who are interested, and who were not able to be here for this weekend.

Panorama offers 2 launch sites:

• First choice. and most used launch site is 2/3 up the mountain at the top of Roller Coaster, below the outhouses. (870m vertical). This is where the Cappuccino Hut used to be for those who remember it! This is an easy, but shallow launch site and accommodates up to 5 gliders facing NW.
• Summit Launch “Roy’s Run” (1200m vertical) is a steep, wide open launch (up to 4 gliders, strategically layed out) facing W to SW. This launch is only for good skiers. It can be a tricky launch site to set up your wing as the slope is steep and the wing tends to slide down while you get into your harness. As well if the wind picks up at all, it will slide down too. Do not set up your wing at the very top of Roy’s run layed out on the “easy way road”. This will be conflicting with the ski traffic.

For the two different launch sites you need to adjust your launch techniques simply due to the nature which they are.

At the Summit takeoff, overall, the wing inflates very fast and will have a tendency to overshoot due the steep terrain. The summit take-off site does not allow you to make any mistakes as things happen very fast, and you can end up in the trees beside the run very easily if you do not work with the wing at the speed required.

If you are just getting used to winter flying, I do recommend to start 2/3 up the ski hill on the shallow launch. The tricky and unusual part at this launch is to lead the canopy for much longer than you are used to. Furthermore, you also need to be more patient and allow yourself and the wing to pick up speed for take-off. The takeoff process on skis at this launch site are way slower than you would do by foot. You should get into your harness as close as possible to the trailing edge and be a bit offset from the centre of the wing. This way as you turn downhill to start skiing you can ski (turn) into the position where you want to inflate the wing and be in the centre of your wing. If you start with tension on the lines, you might inflate the wing sideways as you stand sideways to the hill with your skis and might not have enough momentum to inflate the wing due to being sideways to the hill and with your skis on.

See the following 2 videos. One shows you when you do not guide the wing for long enough and not being able to get airborne, and the second video shows you how much you need to charge forward and patience you need to get airborne.

I want to thank Panorama Mountain Resort again for all their support to the pilots, for the sport, and allowing us to fly for so many years.
Please respect Panorama Mountain Resort’s basic rules so we can enjoy it for many more years.

• Novice Rating
• HPAC Liability Insurance
• NO Speedwing flying, Paragliding only
• All pilots to sign the 2014/2015 waiver
• Pilots are required to get in touch with Max Fanderl (max@flyingMax.com) to get the waiver forms

Please respect the following points:

• No flying over the bottom high-speed Chair (Mile 1 Quad) area at all.
• No landings at the village. Only land on designated landing site or on Golf course if it gets to windy.
• No launches after 3:00 pm
• Stay at least 150 feet above lifts and ski runs
• Pilots need to have skis or a snowboard to get a ride with the lift
• Contact RK Heliski before you head up the Mountain at 250 342-3889.
  This is just to let them know we are flying as they will inform their pilots of the activities.

More detailed and current information about of flying at Panorama Mountain Resort is at https://flyingmax.com/area/panorama/

More pictures about the ski launch workshop at
https://plus.google.com/photos/107366320201211493303/albums/6104683265941420513 

Here is a video of a flight from Panorama to Invermere

Happy New Year!
What a great way to start the new year!

A great family day, 2 awesome tandems with Katia and Erik and Penny had 2 superb flights as well.

Brent and Tanya had their first flights of Panorama Mountain Resort.… well done, it was a lot of fun!

The video is Penny flying with her Ion2.

A Merry Christmas and a happy new year from

Erik, Katia, Penny and Max.

“Time is like a flowing river, no water passes beneath your feet twice, much like the river, moments never pass you by again, so cherish every moment that life gives you and have a wonderful New Year.”

Late last fall we already installed the webcam and wind meter at Mt. Swansea. for a test run. Over the winter the battery got drained and froze up and the webcam and wind meter went into hibernation. A couple weeks ago I carried up a new car battery and the system woke up and is running fine since. Thanks to Jan, job well done. Also,

please see all the credits in how this project got established and funded at https://flyingmax.com/area/swansea-webcams/ We plan to have the webcam and wind meter running from mid April to mid November and shut it down over the winter. Besides the 2 webcams, we as pilots certainly enjoy the 2 wind meter links. One is to show the actual wind directions, speed and gusts and the 2nd with a 24 hour history to see what the overall wind development is. Jan is also working to create a page to view more historic data over the

month to come.  

• Current wind conditions
• 24 hour wind history

West view of Mt. Swansea

[cam_images folder=”cam1″ count=”5″]  

South view of Mt. Swansea

[cam_images folder=”cam2″ count=”5″]