www.FlyingMax.com – Paragliding

I used to hate paragliding “comps” (competitive events), but started to enjoy participating in them since I was at the”Serial Cup” last year in Slovenia.

The main reason why I did not like them is that you had to fly a hot glider and the guy with the biggest balls had the best chances. This statement can easily backed up with the accident statistics.

At the last years “Serial Cup” it was fun, safe and very educational as the tasks where designed for average pilots flying average wings.

Following are some questions which cover what I like and not like about competitions.

Why are we going to competitions?

I think to have fun, meet new people, measure your self (same category of wings, tasks and conditions), experience and share the same with your peers.

What do I not like about competitions?

Can easily push you flying in conditions you normally would not fly in. It also can make you use equipment you should  not be flying and can make you a nervous pilot.

I just came back from the Canadian Paragliding Nationals in Pemberton.

I only could join the event for a couple of days as I needed to head back to do my part for the upcoming www.LakesideEvent.com. Pemberton is a great site and has super nice people. Thanks again to everyone for your hospitality and kindness. I loved it and and I will be back again.

Now thinking about the Nationals a couple days after, the only part I did not like too much (and this has nothing to do with the site and organizers) is that the Nationals are advertised for everyone, but the tasks are designed that only by about 10-20% of the participants make goal. Less then a quarter of the pilots were using the high end “D” wings which do have a definite advantage to finish the tasks and a big part of the remaining pilots get discouraged. It was interesting to observe how many people measured themselves in what they fly and how a lot of others where not so proud to state they would “only” fly a “B” rated wing.

I think the overall concept of Paragliding competitions need to be evaluated.

Right now we do have a hand full of pilots training for competitions and using the best available equipment, then we have the “wana be” comp pilots flying wings they should not fly and then we have the average to good pilots flying “B” rated wings.

If I would compare this to the car racing world, this would mean our competitions are done by Formula 1 pilots, “wana be” Formula 1 pilots/wings, “standard sports car” wings and pilots.

Seeing it from this perspective, this does not make a lot of sense.

I am all for the “Formula 1” races (wings/pilots) and they should compete at the “Paragliding World Cup” series only and the rest should focus on the main group of people the organizers are advertising to.

With this statement, I like to stress that I am in full support of the organizers of the current Canadian Nationals in Pemberton, but I think we need to re-think to who we want to cater our only official Canadian Paragliding competition to, in the future. I think we have a lot of recreational Canadian pilots who like to go to a competitions to learn, have fun and maybe to evolve into the professional paragliding circuit.

from Mt. Swansea.

Click here for more pictures from BlueSky.at

boat racing. Penny Powers took home the trophy this year and she is the first female on the trophy. Well done Penny. The kids were not so happy with me as I did not land in the target with them tandem on our first flights. Thanks also to everyone who dressed up, and came with their costumes. Karen had the best costume and I forgot the name of the character who she was….again, see in the pictures below who she was. If anyone has some pictures they would like to share, please send them to me or contact me to give you access to this album.Thanks to Panorama Mountain Resort, Calin Comaneseu, Rick Cowley, Jason Chychal, Raul Sanchez, Brett Yeates, Dennie Shipley, Dannie Wolf, Sandor & Nikoletta, Stew Cabbledick, Andy Gamp, Dominic Hughes, Dave & Carrie Corbin, Janet Morris, Bob & Natalie Gardner, Karen Girouard, Chad Chudyk & Mary, Nathan Livingston, Mike Waddington and Sherie Kark, Chris and Kari Wilson, Frank & Tracye, Jeff Grieve, Jimmy, Max & Penny, all who helped raise $800 for our buddy Stewart Midwinter. Happy landings.

from Panorama Mountain Resort and once the road is open to Mt. Swansea (beginning to mid May), flying will be at its strongest season.To keep us up to date on Reserves and getting some reserve tossing practice in, we headed to Calgary last weekend and attended the “Reserve Clinic/Repack” with Muller Windsports. They had a great turn out and it was super to see people we have not seen for a long time. Something that came to mind when discussing what radio channels to use and how to react when someone comes down on a reserve, was my SPOT. I suggested to use a SPOT and to have the “Golden flying website” add a page where every pilot can register their public SPOT URL. With this system, pilots flying XC can be located and one can see where he/she is currently flying or hiking and their “OK” or “HELP calls. Strangley enough I received a very negative response to the SPOT, which left me a bit confused, as it seems to me, an obvious choice in locating pilots. At the completion of the clinic, Bruce Busby, who was one person who thought it was a great idea, discussed this option further with me. He is considering presenting it to the HPAC board to see if this could be implemented on the HPAC website. The SPOT is great to locate someone for a rescue, but how many times do we worry about others as to where they are and if they need help or not? Now if this gets implemented to the HPAC website, everyone could see where pilots are, if they are okay if they had to land way back in the mountains, or had to use their reserve, or simply need a retrieval after a long flight. Thanks again to Vincene for hosting this great event and thanks to Bernand for repacking both Penny’s and my reserve packs so quickly, in order for us to get back to Invermere so soon for another event!

October 25th 2011 at 20:00 Uhr
xAlps 2011 Presentation with Andy Froetscher (Italy) and Max & Penny (Canada) in Munich

For the Paragliding Club “Bodenlosen” in Munich we will do a presentation about the 2011 race together
More details at
http://www.bodenlos.de/aktiv/2011_10_25_Xalps.php 

Day 6:

Intro and briefing at www.BlueSky.at in Sillian in the morning. The German intro and weather forecast was very detailed and the guests were informed of details with a lot of graphs. The Canadian intro version was “Sunny and Hot” and watch out to not get blisters on your ass from flying too much.

With that, we headed to Monte Piano and set a task to fly from Monte Piano to the 3 Zinnen, via Cortina to Arabba and land right at the hotel Olympia. I think this is about a 40 km flight and right though the middle of the Dolomite’s. The conditions started weak and with a lot of east wind. 2 hours later, the thermals got stronger and blocked the wind. After launch, there were some nice, but not strong enough thermals to get over to the 3 Zinnen. Being patient, and on my second attempt to cross over, I reached the 3 Zinnen at half the summit height. To get higher, you needed to scratch close into the towers of the 3 Zinnen and I have to say it was very spectacular watching the rock climbers on the walls and slowly “thermalling” to pass them on the wall, and eventually reach the summits of the the “the 3 summits”. Once I was about 300 meters over the summit, I headed south and fueled up more height over various exposed summits before crossing over to Mount Christallo.

Mount Christallo worked very well and at 3300 meters I crossed over Cortina and scratched along the west side of Cortina but barely crossed a low ridge over to the foot of theTofane. I was very low and was close to landing at the gravel field below the massive 1100 meter rock face of the Tofane and literly at my landing approac
h my vario started to beep and I could do one figure eight along the gravel, gaining about 20 meters. From then on I kept scratching and slowly worked myself up this massive and never ending wall right to the summit. I have to say that this was my most rewarding flight I have ever done. Just amazing to soar so close in absolute gentle lift up to the summit along such a massive rock face. Once I got about 300 meters above the summit things got a bit rough with the east wind kicking in, but I continued my flight to Arabba and landed right at the hotel. After I landed, Frank called me on the radio to say he already had a couple beers ordered. He had the same experience as I had on the Tofane and agreed that this was the absolute highlight. The only part Frank missed was the 3 Zinnen as he was to eager to get the beer first. The rest of the group landed either at the regular landing site and 3 others landed in Cortina. Our 2 non-pilots had a great day hiking around the 3 Zinnen and Kari discovered the mountain named after her family name “Paterno”. Very cool as well.

Day 7: 

Sunny and hot. So we headed to Col Rodella and after watching some crazy take offs on the east side we started flying later on the SW side of the mountain. The conditions were superb and I had an amazing flight over the Lang Kofel, the Sella, the Marmolada, again along the Sella to the east and back to Arabba to the hotel again. Everyone had great and safe flights and the non-pilots were hiking on top of the Col Rodello.

Day 8: 

Sunny and hot again. The thermals were a bit weaker, but we flew the same route as the previous day. Our 2 non Pilots did a great hike from the top of Sass Pordoi.

Day 9:

Sunny and hot again. This time we decided to take the Gondola up to the Sass Pordoi to enjoy an amazing view of the Dolomite’s. After that we headed to Col Rodella again and once again we flew all over the place, including the Marmolada. Our 2 non-pilots headed for an overnight trip to Venice and had an amazing time.

Day 10: 

Guess what…. yes, Suny and hot again. This time we parked on top of the Passo Pordoi and hiked for about 45 minutes to the Belvedere. Most people flew to the landing site and then up again to the Col Rodella for further flights. I launched later from Belvedere and did my usual round over the Marmolada and back to the hotel.

Day 11:   

This was our last day. After checking out of the hotel, we drove back to Monte Piano to fly over the 3 Zinnen again. The conditions looked a bit weak, but we set the task to fly over the 3 Zinnen, over to Sexton and then to the www.BlueSky.at office in Sillian. The conditions turned from weak to amazing again and everyone flew over the 3 Zinnen. Most of the group landed in Sexten and Cyril, Wendelin and myself managed to get to Sillian.

What an amazing week in the Dolomite’s. Every day we were able to have incredible flights and flew all over the place! I even had a double bonus, as I was able to hike every morning to the Sella rock face, with Wendelin (best BlueSky guide), before we started the tour.  It was a great morning flight along the rock-face and we landed right at the hotel. The pictures below will tell more than my words.

Day 12:

Back in Germany and the weather was sunny and hot. We visited the “Free Flight” at Tegelberg. The “Free Flight” was not as good as we hoped for and a lot of manufactures did not attend. We still had a great time getting a couple more flights in, and enjoyed the beer tent. One thing I was very impressed with at the show was the Atos with all the different motorized versions.

Day 13:

Some morning flights from Buchenberg and then on our way to the Oktoberfest in Munich. The Oktoberfest is so huge and the grounds are massive. It was wild how many people were there, but we only managed to see the first 50 meters of the grounds as we got sidetracked with the partying and dancing in the Paulaner Beer tent.

Day 14: 

Sunny and hot and lots of traffic to the Munich airport.

Wow what a couple of weeks this was. Simply amazing and almost unreal for both pilots and non pilots. I think we will offer a package like that for next year again. Let us know who might be interested to join us next year.

Here is how it started:
Day 1:
I picked up Frank, Tracye, Mike, Dave, Chris and Karie at the airport in Munich. First we headed to Kempten to have coffee and Oma’s homemade Zwetschgen Datscahi with my Mom and Dad.
The weather was sunny and hot and we still had enough time to head to Tegelberg to fly over the Schloss Neuschwanstein. Everyone had a great flight and I did a tandem with Erik.
Tracye, Karie and Katia had a nice walk and found a hidden hut where we ended up for a beer after the flight.

Day 2:  
Winds were light and forecast was sunny & hot again. This time we headed to Breitenberg. Conditions were light but a couple of us managed to get up below cloud base over Ruine Eisenberg and flew down the ridge towards Fuessen and back crossing the valley across Pfronten and back to the landing site.
On the way to the Schloss Neuschwanstein to drop off Chris, Karie, Tracey and Dave for their castle tour, we stopped at a BBQ chicken and haxen trailer. We had spare rips and “Schweins Haxen”. Man that was good and a lot of food. After we dropped them off at the castle, Frank, Mike and I headed to Tegelberg for another flight. Mike and I hiked up via the “Gelbe Wand” which was not a good idea with a very full stomach. The flight was great and rewarding and we all met down at the hut for beer again.
Penny was flying with us at Breitenberg, but had to head home to get the kids from school. Thanks for the train network here in Europe, Penny could walk from the landing site to the train station to get back to Kempten.

Day 3:
The forecast was sunny and hot with a low

cloud base in Germany, so we drove 25 minutes to Hahnenkamm by Reutte. The thermals started week, but we got some great flights right (up to 2.5 hours) right to cloud base and into the Tanheimmer tal and back. After some good bratwurst, beer and schnaps we headed to the Neunerkoepfle im Tanheimer tal. The gondala was already clsoed and we headed via the Oberjoch pass to Sonthofen for Coffee and beer. After this we picked up Penny from Kempten and drove to the Sudhaus for dinner. The Sudhaus is a micro brewery with a rustic restaurant for local food. The evening went from a dinner to a singing party with another group. Too bad I did not video the songs everyone was singing.

Day 4:
All of us, as well as the  kids, started the day with a visit the Viehscheid in Heubach.

After the Viehscheid we drove to Neunerkoepfle for another great flight. There were a lot of pilots and almost  too busy, but the conditions were great and I did a 1.5 hour tandem with Katia.

After the flying, I dropped off the group in Fuessen where they had a great italian Dinner an we headed back to Kempten.

Day 5: 
There was a concert with 100 Alphorn’s on top of Breitenberg. After the concert I did a 1 hour tandem with Erik over Ruine Eisenberg and another tandem with Katia. The conditions were way better then we anticipated.
See the video Mike did of the Alphorns.

Later this afternoon we drove 3.5 hours to Sillian to get ready for the Dolomite tour.
Part 2 of the blog will be about the Dolomite’s