Austrian Arena

September news from the Austrian Arena 2004

Well hello everyone for the last time this season and what a season it’s been. Firstly we’d like to thank everyone who visited us and hope you enjoyed your time here as much we’ve enjoyed flying with you.

This month has been very interesting, we organized an xc clinic where flying back from the hinterux glacier was the main aim but the weather didn’t play ball, unfortunately. We needed very calm conditions for this flight but we did manage a 27km out and return staying under a low base with the boys. Typically though the next week conditions were perfect for what we wanted to achieve!

10 pilots set out but only 6 made the full distance, funnily enough if you weren’t under a UP wing you didn’t make the cut!! I took around 70 photos enroute, some are already on the web site but mainly for a picture essay in Skywings magazine, should be out for next season.

Myself and Alex are now just waiting for the weather to clear from this huge low that has engulfed Europe the last week, although flyable from lower start places it was limited by the high level winds, sometimes gusting over 110kmh at 5000m!!

Once the winds drop a plan is in place to fly along the main ridge of the Alps into Italy for around 60km then drop back into Austria and then fly back home to the Zillertal. This flight is only possible maybe a handful of days a year. We’ll both be flying UPs’ Summit 2 as safety is paramount, I’ll post pictures of the flight on the web site when the day arrives. Fingers crossed!!

Comp news this month is dominated by the British Open that was held in Castejon de Sos on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. What an amazing place! Four good tasks were chosen by the cracks in the know. 46km, 66km, 49km & 56km. Although sometimes weak and fickle conditions put many big names on the deck early on the first days 46km down-wind-dash. Myself, altho fast around the course got caught out by a strong valley wind some 8km from goal. S**t!!

Flying conservatively the next tasks the plan was to make goal each day & play catch up which I did. And on the last task I could race my thin-lined Trango flat out and arrived in goal as first serial glider. Which got me back in the running, but too little too late!!

Overall winner of the Open was Bruce Goldsmith on his race-tuned weapon, Airwave Magic FR.

Serial class winner was Paul Penning, SA(UP Trango race) slightly in front of Frank Rennese, NLD(Omega 6)and myself in 3rd place,

(24th Overall & 8th Brit).

The field was very strong with the Polish, Czech, British and Spanish National squads there all vying for places in their respective National teams for the forth coming European championships in Greece next week. Although the comp was a huge success some pilots found conditions a little too strong at times, there were some tree landings and 4 reserve deployments. Two of which I witnessed first hand, but all pilots landed/crashed unharmed, luckily…

That brings us on to next year, we are still unsure of dates for our Cross Country courses in Spring. We are currently trying to arrange hosting a British Open here at the end of May. Once we have some dates in writing we’ll be posting them on the site. And we’ll also give you all a shout as places are limited as usual to 8 pilots and these courses are proving to be very popular.

Next season we’ll also be running some ‘Intro to XC’ courses where we’ll be setting challenging yet very achievable tasks in less booming conditions than Spring, check out our website for details.

Anyway that’s about it for this season We’re looking forward to a rest and watch the colours change slowly to Autumn yellow/red and enjoy the last bits of warmth before the snows start to arrive. So thanks again and We do hope you’ve had a good season flying wherever you were and hope to share the air with you in the future…

Fly safe and have fun…

Kelly, Alex and George

Summer 2004 news from the Austrian Arena

Hello Folks! It seems ages since we sent any news out to you guys, sorry for the slackness!

Well where to start really… The season started off to an awesome start all over Europe. There was a few weeks of not-so-perfect weather in June/July but apart from that it has been a terrific season for distance flying with records falling all over the place.

Big news in the Alps in June was Chirgel Maurer 323km flight from Switzerland to near Innsbruck (on the same glider that was in Aprils news letter). Amazing for a 21 year old guy, eh!

The days before and after were also good in the Zillertal. Our group that week managed to complete a 60+km cats craddle around the whole valley. We even managed to keep the whole group together pretty much the whole way round.Text book cross-country. Well done lads!

One of the guys was testing a new UP Kantega, needless to say he bought it!

On the competition side of things I was at the Veltins Cup a few weeks ago. Held from Schmittenhohe in the Pinzgau, this place is awesome and I’ll be running an xc course around this arena next July for sure. I’ll let you know when exactly in the near future.

The Gin Boomer 3 dominated the Open Class and… surprise, surprise… the UP Trango race won all 3 podium places in the Serial Class. First place going to local lad and UP constructor Stefan Steigler. Another win for UP!

I was very happy to place 5th in the serial class, very good training as I’ve never seen so many fast pilots in one place, the Brits have nothin’ on these guys. 67km in 2hr04min, that’s fast!!

The next weekend saw us travel to Lienz in Ost-Tirol for the Inter Club Championship of Austria, after some discussion with the comps panel about whether or not I was allowed to compete, being British! The less right-wing of them said that it would be ok!

The first day was cancelled due to rain and the second day was a very slow start due to low cloud. Our team captain, Stefan Steigler, breifed us on tactics for the short 24km speed run. Shortly after the start it began to rain and then continued to rain for the next hour. I gave up when my wet glider refused to do as it was told and rain formed puddles on my vario and was running down my lines. Altho spinning up at 4m/s thru rainbows was something I’ll not forget in a hurry!!

More recently PWC matador and World Champion, Alex Hofer, paid us a visit after flying 226km. He landed behind the Zillertal in the big mountains, he landed after the cloud base descended so crossing to the south side of the Alps was impossible. Landing at 17.30 he still could have had 3hrs of flying left, another 100km!

However the next day he started on our house mountain the Penken and flew almost to Villach. For the Paragliding Grand Prix this week, pretty cool to fly there instead have a 450+km drive… Hopefully he packed some clean clothes as well!

And who said the Alps become stable in the summer months

Also just to let you guys and girls know that there are a couple of places left for the very special xc course. We’re running it from the 21st to 28th August, this week we’ll be concentrating on flying back to Mayrhofen from the Hintertux Glacier, 3250m, only 20km in distance but all mountains are over 3000m. Pilots will need at least 50hrs and be able to go round in circles pretty well, sound like you!? Give us a shout..

Anyway thanks for reading as always and hope your having an awesome season…

Kelly, Alex & George

Mays News from the Austrian Arena

Well Folks Sping has shown us here how lucky we are to be able see nature from our unique perspective. Flying distances with using only the sun, wind and the ability to guide our wings to the next move in the 3-D playground. This month is a pretty special report from the Alps.

First off this month was the PWC in Abtenau, to the east of Austria. The weather didn’t really play ball. Strong winds with sometimes Foehn thrown in created headaches for the organisation. Only 2 tasks were flown, Bruce Goldsmith now leads the World Cup. Slightly ahead of German Achim Joos.

Most special this season has got to be Tom Walder’s epic crossing of nearly the whole of Austria. On the 18th of May Tom launched at 12.00 from our lowest start place, Perler(1180m). Crossed the Gerlos Pass to the east and just kept on going until he finally landed 9hrs later in St. Michel, Leoben. 254km free distance. He told me that he “never climbed out above 2400m because it was too cold up high.” With at ‘trim’ only speeds of over 65kmh even Tommy said it was sometimes rough, maybe only a handful of pilots could have pulled this one off. Well done Tom…

Mixed weather settled down and our group attempted and completed a 60km tour of our valley, never tire of that one. Well done to Pete Chalmers, who also a few days later completed a 78km free-distance over the Gerlos Pass to Bruck, just pass Zell am See.

With just 80-odd hrs not a bad achievement at all, nice one

The Club masters was settled last weekend with the first 3 places going to UP’s Trango race. Strasser Karli was 1st, Neuman Torsten 2nd & I, myself, came 3rd in the not yet official scores. 3 short, racey tasks decided it, 27km, 33km & 40km.

Last but not least, Local Hero Stefan Steiglair celebrated his serial class win of the Austrian Nationals at the Alpen Open. Flying his Trango race on “full speed and only stopping for 6+m/s climbs”. Stef ended up in 5th place overall, proving the performance of the Trango. Martin Brunn won 1st place on Boomerang III. Sounded like a superb run comp wth very fast tasks, a 77km route was completed in 2hr07min. Insanely fast!

I can vouch for how good that Sunday was as we got the group around a 75km cats craddle of the valley. Although it was a struggle in the beginning with an inversion blocking the climbs around launch. The more patient/skilled pilots got up to complete the task. Even the locals were surprised when we arrived in goal 4hrs 15min later!!

Well thanks for reading as always,

I’m so happy that the xc courses are working so well this year. Proving that gathering similarly motivated/experienced people together at the same time is a perfect way to fly cross country.

Have Fun and Stay safe…

Kelly & George

April news from the Austrian Arena

Hello again folks, we hope the season has well and truly kicked off where you are. Some of you out there have been reporting awesome conditions, as always it’s a long time coming but worth the wait.

First off this month was the PWC in Feltre/Bassano in Northern Italy. We arrived to find low bases and a not-too-great forecast. No tasks were planned but some of us did manage to free fly in afternoon when we could see the valley floor. Some flew before this!

It was very interesting watching veteran Hans Bollinger disappear into thick fog just 15m in front of launch. The day was so unstable that even with no sun on the ground, pilots were still seen shooting all over the place.

It was also interesting to see all the new wings out for the coming World Cup season, most striking was the new Advance proto. A massive flat aspect-ratio(rumored to be around 6.9) but extremely curved, it looks something not unlike a kite surfer. Not really surprising as it was designed by Oli Nef, who used to be in charge of the kite development at Advance.

Apparently this radical new wing design goes very well as on the last day in Bassano a 63km task was called and Advance took 1st and 2nd place with these strange looking wings. Congratulations to Christian Maurer & Steve Cox. Mid-week there was a 70km ridge run set but was understandably cancelled half way round due to threat of a building sky.

After a week of hanging around in Italy it was back to the Zillertal for some more para-waiting until the weather got itself sorted. Mid-April saw another cold front pass over the Alps but with a high pressure after it. Leaving very good conditions indeed but with the day ending kind of early at around 17.30/18.00 really big distances are still a little tricky. The coming months will be better…

However the days are well long enough for extended sightseeing tours of the Zillertal valley, 50km. One day this week base was only 2200m but high and lifty enough to make the crossings under wispy cloud streets. With so much snow still around different and interesting lines have to be taken.

On Tuesday 27th April I attempted a flight to Schladming, 147km away but earlier than expected over development forced me to land just after half way along the course. Very unstable airmass, 90%+ cloud cover with the sky still yielding huge 6-7m/s climbs.

75km, 3.5hrs in the air and 6.5hrs train journey home!

Where’s the retrieve when you really need it?!

Rumour on the UP grapevine is that Stefan has a Trango II prototype he’s happy with but he says it’s still too easy to fly, so maybe he can get a bit more performance out of it and still get it thru the DHV.

Anyway that’s it for another month we would like to thank you as always for reading.

We are all ready now for the coming season and really looking forward to some great flights and showing those pilots who are visiting us our beautiful valley.

bye for now

Kelly and George

March news from the Austrian Arena

Hello again folks! It seems like a long time since our last news letter, that doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening. On the contrary it’s been a very active time in more ways than one.

Mid March brought a taste of what is just around the corner, thermals on our local mountain, Penken Joch, topped out at around 2600m, with one local reporting climbs of 7.5m/s to a height of 2950m. Not bad for so early in the year…

However just when we thought the winter was gone for good, Mother Nature dumped another metre of fresh snow on the Alps, awesome skiing/boarding yet again this season. Which apparently has been the best season for snow in 22 years!

Once the front went thru conditions became very unstable and cold. The boys here this week(relatively inexperienced) have clocked up 10hrs airtime each, height gains of over 1200m and on Thursday we flew to Speiljoch, 22km down the valley. Only high cloud prevented us from making it back. The potential is getting bigger and bigger, day by day.

On the comp. scene here, we are busy training for the PWC next week in Bassano, Italy. And later in Abtenau, Austria. Local legends Tom Walder & Stefan Steiglair have been seen out everyday the last weeks testing and tweaking their wings for the coming season. UPs’ constructor and test pilot, Stefan, has been working hard on two new projects.

The Trango II (DHV2-3), the main visible difference is a reworked brake fan which shortens the trailing edge as well as pulling it down. Stef says the new Trango is a definite improvement but still needs a lot of work done on it. He’s also working on the new PWC open class weapon the Targa II.

Which I gotta say looks pretty hot.

We’re really looking forward to the coming/arrived season and hope to fly with you all at some time in the future til then fly safe and have fun…

As always thanks for reading.

Kelly and George.

February News from the Austrian Arena

Hello Folks! Not too much to write about the last 6 weeks or so. Pretty much snowed constantly and when it wasn’t dumping it was very cold, -10deg to -18deg. Brrrr!! Well, it is the middle of winter. Excellent skiing/tobogganing conditions however

Last Wednesday/Thursday were the first really nice days, a small taste of what’s coming soon. Warmer temp. in the valley, 1400m below, produced this years first real thermals. Which carried us up to 2400m, over 300m ato at 3m/s.

Personally I love this time of year, steadily improving conditions & lighter evenings. With the sun getting noticeably higher in the sky the potential is only getting bigger! Most of the pilots here are breaking out their toys for the coming season. UP has a huge presence in the valley now, as I counted no less than 8 UP wings on or above launch last week, most either the Summit 2 or Trango race . I was feeling a little out of place on my battle-weary Octane!

Some top-secret news is that the first prototype of the successor to  the Trango , UPs’ serial class dominator, was seen on launch for the first last week. Looks very similar and local lad Stefan Steiglair wasn’t giving too much away. However, I did witness an 12km glide test and the new prototype seemed to have a slight edge. Things are just in first stages of development so we have to see if it passes the DHV tests. Also the new DHV1 glider the Kuna  is almost ready to be put to the DHV.

Hope you guys are as stoked about the coming season as we all are!

Have fun and stay safe wherever you fly this year.

thanks for reading as always…

Kelly and George.

End of Summer news from the Austrian Arena 2005
Hi Guys, sorry about the lack of contact yet again back been real busy and not in front of my laptop enough to let you everyone know what’s been happening.

Well where did we leave off, early July saw two back to back comps in Piedrahita. Of the fourteen possible we tasked 8, 4 in the Dutch Open and 4 in the Brits. It gave me a chance to road test the Airwave Magic FR2 like for like against the other comp weapons out there. And I gotta say that I was impressed. It has a claimed top glide ratio of 11.3:1 and a top speed of 65kmh.
Pretty good performance for a plastic bag & strings!!

After the 4 tasks in the Dutch the FR2 helped me finish 3rd overall. Just behind polish pilot Marcin Tobewski and Adrian Thomas, also on an FR2. The came the 2nd leg of the British Open, it was hotly contested by the usual suspects. Most having made goal each day the last task shook everything up a little. Russell Ogden showed true form(Ozone Proto) to change gears and gaggles several times to cruise into goal on a tricky day. My most vivid memory was climing out of McDonalds car park in Avila with Bob Drury, Neil Roberts & Steve Etherington less than 100m over the tarmac. However that low save didn’t save the day. 40km later on saw all of us go down, only to see the 2nd gaggle come over head 40mins later under a better sky to make goal. DAMN!!!
Russell won the British Open again, extending his lead on all of us, we were all waiting to see what would happen in more fickle UK conditions in August.

After some mixed summer weather in the Alps it was time for the British Team to head off to Col de Bleyne for the Bleriot Cup. This comp has run for the last 26 years. This is a true team event, with team work imperative to success. The first 2days we were in St Andre for 58km and 75km tasks. An example of team work was that on the first day I waited for our 2nd pilot Craig Morgan just before the goal cylinder so we could cross together, therefore gaining max. points. We had enough time as the closest French pilot was one hour behind us!!
That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the week. Never have the French been beaten so convincingly on home territory.
After 5 tasks the final score was Great Britain 35000 : France 25000

On the local news front Our Team the Golden Eagles have finished 2nd in the Austrian XC League. One of the hardest and most contested leagues in the world. Congratulations to Thomas Walder, Stefan Steglair(ex-World Champion) & Bene Katzer. Nice one guys!!!

I’m also very happy to be able to say that after a lot of hard competition in the Nationals this year I found myself in 4th place overall. Therefore gaining a place on the British Paragliding Team and look set to go to Morzine in France next year for the Eurpoean Championships.
Should be great experience to go up against some of the best pilots in the World.
I’m very proud to be representing Britain and of course the Zillertal!!

So that’s pretty much it till next year as at the end of September we’re off on our jollys.
Hope you’ve had a great & safe season wherever you’ve been.
Plus we really hope to see you next year for some great flights around our area here.

Fly High, Fly Far and Stay Safe

Kelly, Alex & George

www.austrianarena.com

Spring news from the Austrian Arena
Hello again guys!! Sorry for the long lay off but been way too busy to put anything down on my laptop the last months. The office work also suffered so sorry if you were waiting a few days for a reply to anything.

Still no news is good news as they say…

This season, has up to now, been the most amazing and record breaking season I’ve ever seen in the Alps to date. I’ve never seen so many 100km days in a short time and even some 200+km days came around and showed us that you should never ever write off a day in Spring. Tommy Walder(as seen in Skywings), our local hero, nearly closed two 200km triangles but overdevelopment and being a little too slow on the other day saw him have to cut it short. This put him on the top of the Austrian XC league until last week Heimhofer Klaus flew three 200km+ FAI triangles on consecutive days!!!

We were blessed with the weather for the week of the British Open and the race training the week before. The race training week was everything I hoped it would be, BIG distances were cracked as I tried to cram in as many routes possible for the boys as I was scared that the weather would break. I must have done a good job of selling my soul as the weather just got better and better, then stayed that way for the Open too!! One task on the training week saw us complete a 102km cats cradle around the whole valley. No stone was left unturned. And on the last day after a 75km route I noticed a good street developing to the south and instead of racing to goal I changed the plan and after spinning up from low down we were all soon cruising at 3500m on our way to the border with Italy.

Check out the photo.

The whole of the spring has yielded so many good days I myself have flown in excess of 1300km, 30% more than the whole of last season and it’s not even mid June. Amazing…

So on to the British Open, well what can I say, it was very hotly contested with the same guys always finding themselves racing into goal in pretty much the same order. 6 tasks were flown over the 7days, ranging from 34km to 72km. The racing was some of the best I’ve ever had & was stoked to be flying a Boomerang 3, the last task flown 72km was completed by Russ in 1hr 40min, that is very, very fast.
Everyone was happy with the task setting and even on days where it looked to them that it was ‘mickey mouse’ we pulled out some fast down wind soaring tasks, the only grumbles I heard were about the into wind final glides which favoured the comp wings. Well what can I say except you can’t please everyone. However on the whole it was a comp without incident, only on the last day was the helicopter used to evacuate a pilot with a broken ankle from launch and was on the scene in under 8 minutes.
British team members Russell Ogden, Mark Watts & Adrian Thomas took podium places, followed by myself in 4th then the ‘PIMP master’ Neil Roberts in 5th . My heart goes out to new guy Jamie Messenger, UP Targa, he was fast, very fast but burnt out on the last two tasks and slipped from 1st place to 7th . This comp definitely required consistent racing. Congratulations also to Mike Cavanagh, Ozone Mantra, John Ellison & Nick Roberts, both on the Omega 6. For the serial class, nice one lads.

There was some pay back I suppose from all my weather brownie points being cashed at once, but it wasn’t a problem as after a couple of gloomy days I suggested that we go to Bassano for a few days. After the North Foehn died down at little we were reward with high bases and beautiful views over the WWI Memorial. Plus it was a good excuse for me to wind down after a very busy schedule, ummm pizza & pasta!!! A cracking alternative for bad weather in the Northern Alps.

Check out this picture at altitude looking towards the Dolomites.

Anyway hope you guys are having fun this season flying and hope to see you in the future in a beautiful part of the world wherever it maybe.

Fly High, Fly Far & Fly Safe

Kelly, Alex & George

Winter news from the Austrian arena
Hi Guys! Been very busy and a little lazy to write recently so I thought I’d let everyone know what was going on in one news letter…

February started with some of THE most insane conditions for winter I’ve ever seen, 6m/s thermals that didn’t stop until you were at 3200m. Small clouds showed the route to take to the mouth of the valley, testing the new Targa 2 I flew the Zillertal tour in just under 1.5hrs. Only climbing and ¾ speed glides, airspeed of around 58-59kmh. Very FAST! And extremely cold, at base my vario recorded a temp of -15deg, with windchill at 55kmh that worked out to be around -45deg. Hard to talk after landing with a frozen chin!! However some of the most amazing snow covered alpine views I’ve ever seen, amazing for so early in the year!! Click here to see picture…

After that week the weather crapped out for a while with it snowing ever 3-4days and staying a little cloudy, during the breaks in the weather a film crew were here shooting for a new action movie called ‘Last Holiday’.

This $80million picture features rap queen turned actress Queen Latifah & Gerard Deperdeau. The plot is about a girl who has been given 3 months to live so instead of becoming depressed she decides to learn to BASE jump! You get the idea… Was pretty interesting watching the helicopters fly around and film the skydiving scenes over town. I’m told it’s from the same director as ‘XXX’ and the ‘Bourne Identity’ so should be pretty good.

Anyway back to the flying… We had a group come and stay with us for the last two weeks of March, the weather was good with all pilots breaking their personal bests in height gain(3000m+) and some attempted their first real xc flights. Congratulations to Adrian Chalkley who after some gentle ‘encouragement’ followed me on a small 22km out and return, we only turned back because of the cold. Otherwise it was the first 100km day of the year. Nice one lads and hope to see you again next year for more of the same… March has always good potential as the valley floor is warm, the air cold and the valley winds light so ideal environment for lower airtimers to practice their skills.

Most pilots here have taken delivery of their new wings for the coming season now and I’d say that the Trango 2 from UP, Gradients Aspen and Gin Zoom race will be dominating the sky from the look of things. I’m still yet to test them but the T2 looks really good. Unfortunately it won’t pass DHV with the comp lines.

This brings us to this last week, it’s been a hazy week to say the least as Mayrhofen has just turned into a TOTAL party town with ‘Snow bombing’ bringing 1500 party mad boarders. I gotta say the event rocks and altho I don’t normally like dance music I have been spending far too much time than is good for me in the normally euro-cheesy disco. When not boozing the last 2 days I managed to fly a 73km and a 90km cats craddle around Tux and Zillertal valleys. Got a few days off as the foehn is here, so we can party hard without the voice saying ‘tomorrow is a 100k’er what are you doing, man?’ ; )

One last thing is that everything is sorted about the British Open coming to town in 2 months. The BEST time in the Alps for racing, hope the weather plays ball. At the moment there are very few places left on the XC courses, so if you haven’t booked and are keen try to let us know asap.

So thanks again for reading and we hope you are stoked with the coming season, bye for now and fly safe…

Kelly, Alex & George
www.austrianarena.com

End of Season news from the Austrian Arena (there may be some dead links here, due to website change, sorry, it’s old news anyway)

Well Guys that’s it for another year. Our 5th helping pilots get the most out of their time here & coming up to my 12th year living in the Zillertal. A long time. I’m looking forward to a short break, so we can come back fresh and motivated for next season, seems a long way away at the moment but I’m sure it’ll come as fast as this season went. Before I let you know what’s been happening the last month or so I’d jut like to give a BIG Thank You to everyone for their support over the years. Without you what we do here would not be possible. I hope that you’ve learnt heaps flying here with us and that you feel your flying has stepped up a few gears, plus together with your level of Alpine understanding. WE APPRECIATE IT, Cheers

So anyway, what’s been happening since I sent out a news letter, well you can check the previous entries under this one. As I’ve been writing them but not mailing ‘em.

Firstly, I’ve just got back from another trip to the Dolomites in Northern Italy and I got to say that this place impresses me more each time I go there. We found great conditions there, 3700m blue thermals but it was a little bit chilly to spend 2hrs above 3000m. This place is one of the free flying Wonders of the World. Next year for sure(with enough interest) I’ll be runnning an XC Sightseeing tour there for a week in October, click here to view page about the area, once we get back from Àger would be a good time.

While I was there I shot a short 2.5min video and you can see it here and there is also a gallery of photos I took, click here to see gallery.

Secondly, I’ve some great news about the ‘Glacier and Big mountain Course’ I ran at the beginning of September. The conditions were perfect on the Penken which allowed half the group to fly to the Hintertuxer Glacier, base was around 3800m on the first flight. But cold, so instead of top landing on top of the mountain, 3250m I decided to warm up in the valley and wait for the other guys so we could attempt the flight back to Mayrhofen together.

19€ and 3 cable cars later we were standing at 3250m at 3.30pm with no wind and a blazing sun. After the briefing we got under way and flew round the first corner towards the Rifler, 3400m. We all connected with a 4m/s climb which didn’t stop until we reached 4300m! The briefing about not getting low in the gullies was irrelevant after that so we just cruised the 20km to the Tristner.

Where we then connected with another climb on the sunny side to 3600m, the air was completely dry and the visibility was amazing. The dolomites were clearly visible to the South and the Karwendel over Innsbruck looked super close. Unfortunately as we launched a little late the west side of the Ahorn was now getting weak and our plan to do all the major peaks in one day would have to be put on hold, until the next time.

I’m stoked that we finally got to do that flight, September is for sure the best time to attempt it and I’ll be holding another ‘Glacier’ week next year, so keep checking the site for dates if you’re interested.

Onto the last competition of the season. The British Open was based in Àger for the last leg of the tour. Having placed 5th in Portugal I was keen to try to make up some points for the overall championship. Steve Ham went in leading with Adrian Thomas a close 2nd, Ade went on the be consistent enough on his new FR3 to win the overalls by a huge margin. Nice one Adrian

However the pilot to watch was Craig Morgan on his new rocket ship, the Aircross U3. He won 3 out of the 5 tasks and came 2nd on another day. A bad bomb on day 4 crucified him in the points and cost him the comp. Look out for him next year, I think he’ll be taking my place to Australia as I didn’t have a great comp in Spain. I bombed on day 3 and could only get back up to 19th place. But I loved the flying there and that’s the main thing.

This place is pretty special, as just like the Alps it was a huge crumple zone when the continental plates collided 100’s of millions of year ago.

The area has very different rock formations to most other flying areas. Looking something out of a Western movie. Multi coloured rock, spires & mountains are everywhere, from a dark red to almost white marble.

Closer to home local Matador, Stefan Steigler has taken the Austrian OLC title with 3 massive flights around our area. One of which nearly equalled the World Record for an FAI triangle, 237km. Thomas Walder, another local legend was second. Our club the Golden Eagles lies 2nd and 9th overall the European ranking, mainly due to Stef only doing 4 xc flights this year in total. Well done lads.

All the dates to next years courses including Bassano,
Àger and our new Intro to xc location, the Stubai valley, will be posted on the site as soon as I have the new dates for the British comps next year. So far it looks like the Long Mynd, St. Andre in France and Piedrahita in Spain. Sounds all good…

Now on to some not so great news, unfortunately due to the political situation in Thailand at the moment together with the lack of response the Thailand trip will be put back to 2008, mid next season we’ll put it back on the site and see if some more pilots are keen to fly in this wonderful country, never sold as an XC mecca this will just be for Guys wanting to mix some gentle flying in with some great culture. We’ll see if we can make it happen next year.

Bassano however will be going ahead I’m 95% certain and the date will be confirmed soon, around the end of March looks like a good bet. I’ll be writing up a ‘Foreign Shores’ about it for Skywings soon, look out for it. Or just check out the website, photo gallery and turnpoint map are on there. This will be a great course and I’m looking forward to flying there yet again. Tell your mates as this’ll be great. Check the page out.

Also next year myself and Mark Leavesley, Leavesley Aviation, will be organising an easy XC course mid to late September in Àger, Northern Spain. The conditions would’ve mellowed out from the some what rough time we had there in August yet still lively enough to make some great distance flights around the area. Lots of wide open places to land it’s a mix of mountain and flatland flying that was extremely reliable whenever we’ve been there.

Check the page for more details.

Thanks for taking the time to read this as always & hope to see you safe and sound next season.

Kelly, Alex, George & Alban

www.austrianarena.com

July news from the Austrian Arena

After a huge season with some great flights the big event of the year approached, the 9th European Paragliding Championships, held every two years. This year it was to be held in Morzine - Les Gets - Avoriaz, in the Haute Savioe in the French Alps. The pilot list read like the who’s who of paragliding for the last 10 years. Many manufacturers used this as a testing ground for their new prototypes. It was great to see the two camps going off in their different directions, one flat high aspect like the U3 & the FR2 and the more higher arc Boomerang 5 protos & Advances new hot ship.

5 tasks were held with another 3 being stopped enroute due to strong winds and Cbs. The British team was strongly represented with Bruce Goldsmith, Russell Ogden, Adrian Thomas, Mark Watts & myself. Loopy Lou Burnham was our female team member. The area is very similar to flying in the Zillertal with easy areas to soar up and obvious lee side areas to avoid. However the cracks in the lead gaggle seemed to just fly full chat into where was on course and low, irrelevant if it was ‘safe’ or not! Due to being conservative, unlucky and out-classed I came a very poor 106th. However had my new XC trainer not let me down on the last task I’d have finished in 82nd place, still very disappointing though.

Summed up the comp was like playing ‘Super Mario Kart’ on Expert setting! The winner was the Italian Luca ‘the dark horse’ Donini, Gradient SR7, winner of the World Championship in 2001. As a team we came in a mediocre 8th place just ahead of the Germans, haha!

Once I licked my wounds I returned to the Zillertal a humbler man and found superb conditions, although a little stable and technical down low once thru the inversion it was easy to spin up to well over 3000m with very light winds. Classic XC weather really if you could stay above the inversion that could slow you down. A local hang glider pilot flew a 260km & a 290km FAI triangles on consecutive days. Proving again that summer in the Zillertal Alps can still yield huge distances.

With a lot of low airtime pilots out that week I couldn’t really set huge tasks for the lads, however, I have never had so many pilots over the Ahorn Spitz. Even one guy still had his red ribbon attached and doubled his hours in the week. Check out the new Skywings story for next year about ‘how to attack the Ahorn Spitz’ or see it on-line here.

You can also check out the short 2 minute movie that I made about it. Click here to see the clip.

After a great week back in the valley it was off to Montalegre in Portugal for the British Open. 3 tasks were flown 44km, 60km & 30km. The place was nice to fly with some impressive low save potential but the infra structure for getting the pilots home from the goal field was something of a joke. On the first day, a 44km task gave us a 4 hour wait in the goal field followed by a 3.5hr retrive getting us back home at 1.30am, Ulric Jessop was scoring until 4am, not ideal really. The other days were better and some nice fast tasks were flown, I ended up as top Brit and 5th overall with Ramon Morillas taking the title. After getting my iPod stolen on the way home I then had to wait 5 days for my kit to join my back in the valley. A very stressful time as it’s pretty much all I own in the world!

Happy to say to turned up just before I drove to Switzerland for the PWC, this is where I wrote the above waiting for the rain to stop. As it was the comp was a wash out with only one task that only 4 pilots made minimum distance. Another was cancelled in the air after some pretty rough climbs and very strong valley winds, 50+kmh. I drove home after this task as competing should be fun and not life threatening, there were a lot of incidents on this questionable day.

Watch out for Craig Morgan, man this boy is cooking at the moment, came thru me like I was standing still. The U3 looks like the right glider for him. Watch out National pilots in Spain next week as Craig will be the guy to beat I think. Anyway I’m sure Fiesch is a lovely valley to fly and will go back in the future but maybe in September.

This week has been pretty windy with the foehn rattling the Zillertal, however we’ve been flying out in the Brixental and had some great conditions. Amazing really as this place is only 40km away from here and it’s a perfectly flyable by all but the strong foehn storms…

Next week is the last leg of the British Open in Ager, Spain. Hopefully it’s fun and incident free. Hope you’re all having a great season wherever you’re flying and hope to fly with you in the future.

Thanks for taking the time to read this as always.

Kelly, Alex, George & Alban

www.austrianarena.com

Spring news from the Austrian Arena

Hello everyone again, hope the XC season has been a good one so far. Have we got some news for you over the last few months…

Firstly I’d like to congratulate Sam Cullingworth of Surface to Air Merchandise for flying an 87km FAI triangle with us on Friday 12th May, cloudbase was at around 3700m. Amazing in its self but more amazing is that he was flying a DHV 1! Just proving that you don’t need a hot ship to fly big distances here. He also managed to fix his speed system that had broken mid flight, also worth mentioning is that Sam nearly went down on the Zillertal crossing from east to west sides. A cloud of pollen releasing from the trees got him out from 800m, a good low save that got him back to base in no time again.

Well done Sam, I take my hat off to you mate!! A short video of his flight will be available on our site as soon as it’s ready.

There was a brief period of bad weather mid-May so instead of watch the snow falling (unbelievable in May) we headed to Bassano, Italy. I’m starting to love this place as it’s almost becoming a second home for me now. Great potential for flying if a little crowded plus awesome food, sometimes even I need a break sometimes from sausages and schnitzels. While there we flew some nice 40km FAI triangles along the main ridge then out to the flats when they started working. We’ll be running some courses over there next season for sure as some of you have already expressed interest. We’ll be running the course with local guy ’Luigi’ helping us with the logistic side of things.

Check out www.austrianarena.com/bassano.html for details.

On to the BIG news the local boys have been at it again. Former-World Champion , Stefan Steigler, flew 2 huge FAI triangles on his Targa3. The first was insane as the wind was strong North wind in the high level, however he managed to push out from the Hintertuxer Glacier out on to the Innsbruck ridge, fully leeside until he crossed to Oetztal and over the main ridge to Sudtirol then unfortunately he landed just short of his goal, 220km. Stefan told me that it was some of the sportiest conditions he’s flown in ever. He’s a PWC veteran so I can imagine that this was well above the limit of most pilots.

Two days later he was back again at Hintertux glacier, this time the wind was lighter. Attempting the same fligt but this time he made it all the way around, 237km, at 16.00 a huge area of cirrus came over head and forced him to cut it a little short as it slowed the thermals down. He said that if this high cloud had not come through 270km would have been possible. Amazing. The 3 huge flights he’s made this season puts him in 1st place in the Austrian OLC. Well Done mate, I’m interested in this glider as it looks so safe.

This same day I managed to fly just short of a 180km flat triangle, with the one pilot I had with me this day going down early and conditions getting a little beyond his limits I decided to go XC flying for myself, for the first time this season. I started on the Penken a lot later than I’d liked, well after midday, I knew I’d have to fly fast to make it home. First turnpoint was in the Tuxertal, then out to the end of the valley to Spieljoch then it was off down the Pinzgau to Zell am See. Then a frantic race against time back to the Zillertal. The cirrus that cut Stef’s flight short in the west of Austria ended up killing the day and I took a sled ride from 3800m to 2100m where I got stuck soaring a weakening valley breeze until the day died completely. Landing 15km short of goal and 7.5hrs in the air. Nice to see that the FR2 can go long XC as well as short racey tasks!

Staying with the performance of our local matadors we move on to Tom Walder who has now stopped XC flying this season to start work flying tandem again. However with the 6 flights he’s made this year,(as reported in the last news). He is now 3rd in the World OLC. And to top it he was flying a production Boom Sport.

Also on a personal note I’m happy to be able to let you guys know that as of 1st June my World Ranking has risen to 22nd now. A fact I put down to the quality of conditions I train in and the quality of local pilots who I’m able to train with. So a huge Thanks to you guys and I hope I’ll do well when I represent Britain and the Zillertal in the European Championships this July.
More news on that when I have it.

Anyway thanks for reading as always and the next news will be coming very shortly.

Kelly, George, Alban & Alex

www.austrianarena.com

April News from the Austrian Arena

Greetings again from the Zillertal. We hope that the season finds you all well and that you are taking advantage of the great conditions that the season so far has given us. The valley here is coming to life with new colours and at the moment the whole valley floor is awash with yellow. The snow has receeded to just under 2000m. First good news is that the Hohenstrasse/Melchboden launch site is open for business and on the first days the flights made from there proved that it is one of the best cross country start places in Europe, more on that later.

Big news this month is that we have a new launch site opening very soon, those who have visited in the past may have flown with us from the Weisenalm and soared on the north-facing ridge above Zell am Ziller. Well this new launch faces directly into the valley flow at the top of the ridge. We can now reach it by road and chair-lift. It’s about a 5 minute walk from the top station and is at around 1400m. I’m very excited about this new launch as it gives us a perfect alternative to Penken for afternoon/evening soaring flights. This is about a good an option as I’ve seen in the valley. Photos and info coming soon to the site.

On the glider front I’ve seen some new wings from UP, the first prototype of the Trango 3 is here and ready for tweaking. Also the Targa 3 is ready to go into production. Looks really good, even though I’m an Airwave fan now. The aspect is higher than the Targa 2 at 6.6 and a little more arc-ed. Stefan says that the handling & safety are unbelievable but he would say that wouldn’t he! Although I can believe it as in the InterClub champs at the beginning of the month I saw Stef overtake 2 Boom4’s on the last 5km, as the Boom pilots couldn’t push as hard in the turbulence as the new T3. I’m impressed but Stefan was World Champion back in 1995. Before most of us knew what a paraglider was.

Sticking with news about Stefan Steiglair, being a busy man with designing, constructing and testing you see him on launch on only the BIGGEST days. And on the 3rd May he flew a huge 220km FAI triangle using his new baby the T3, taking just over 9hrs. Even more amazing was our local hero, Tom Walder, flying his Boom Sport(DHV2-3) just under 240km over a flat-triangle course. It took him 9hrs exactly, I asked him what he thought was possible on a comp wing that day he calmly replied ‘maybe 280-290km’. I can tell you that all the xc pilots from the club cheered his arrival back at the Bruggerstube.

That day was a great day for our club, the Golden Eagles, as between 6 pilots we collectively flew over 1000km. That’s why we are the most sucessful and active club in Europe. And that is no Bulls**t…

Tommy also flew a 104km FAI triangle plus a 219km flat-triangle a few days before. Pushing him well up on the international OLC(online contest)league. We are all very proud of the clubs performance. Not content with this Tommy was first off launch the next day on yet another oddessey. When I called him asking what he’d done he replied ‘not too far just 140km FAI’. As he had the wind in his face the whole day. This guy is a machine… Good luck for the rest of the season mate

On to the 3rd round of the club masters, Walder decided not to fly as the day looked so good he went hunting points for the OLC. The conditions were that good that the biggest task in the club’s history was set. Zell am See and back, 140km. Had Hannes Huber lost his mind? No, conditions were that good. Most pilots attempted to cross towards Pinzgau by different routes but all reported strong lee-side activity. I personally have to say that some climbs were on my limit of comfortable. After I saw the first snow storms and clouds OD’ing to the east I turned for home. Prefering to spend the cash on beer and not a train fare from Pinzgau should I be forced to land out. Hannes Huber(Magus 4)and Stefan Gruber(Magic 4)fought it out for 5.5hrs in the lee and snow to get back to the Zillertal. Only 2 in goal and the scoring programme awarded very little points for such a massive effort. Well done to get home boys!!!

Next round soon…

And on to what we done as a group, the week was slow to start with just simple out and returns of the valley then on big wednesday I set a 90km FAI task around the Tux, Ziller and Gerlos valleys. Conditions were great and there was practically no wind even up at 3400m. 50% of the group made it most of the way when fatigue and strong conditions forced the others to bail out before the last turnpoint. I carried on the last 30km alone and just bounced under a cloudstreeet to the Konigsleiten cable-car station and back to Bruggerstube without turning. No surprise really that Tommy made 240km. I landed at 15.30 and the day was still working till gone 19.00hrs. Click here for a photo enroute.

Well done lads, am glad I got to show you around pretty much the whole of the local area.

There are still some limited places left for the XC courses this spring so if you’re thinking about flying distance in the Alps this season give us a shout.

Click here to see dates available.

Lastly we are very happy to announce that the Thailand trip has the green light, click here to check out more details. Other trips are in the pipeline but this is going to be so good that I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t become a regular trip. Aimed at guys who want to do something different next winter in a fantastic & amazing place.

Anyway as always thanks for taking the time to read this.

Hope to see you at cloudbase or in a goal field somewhere soon, til then fly safe and have fun wherever you are.

Kelly, Alex & George

www.austrianarena.com

March news from the Austrian Arena.

Well hello again everyone! First of all is I hope everyone out there is enjoying the lighter evenings and some are maybe getting a little late soaring midweek. The snow is now gone from the valley floor and it’s warming up nicely at last.

The first big days are just round the corner, we have already had a few good days after a strong winter. The middle of march saw the first valley out and returns. Karl Strasser and myself were race training around the valley. It wasn’t too cold and smooth, easy thermals(3-5m/s) teleported us the mouth of the valley in 25mins, a blistering pace. Got stuck under low inversion on way back and that slowed things down a little. Otherwise could have maybe done it in under an hour! These new comp gliders make the world a smaller place.

Some of you may have noticed changes to our website, it’s still not quite finished yet the booking system will go on over the summer. We hope it’s more user friendly and not so technocolored. My favorite feature is the new gallery, mostly new pictures but able to view as a slide show, great to look at with your favorite toons playing! Hope you like it too…

Most of the guys have now picked up there comp weapons for the coming season and are seen (but not for long!) high over launch then racing off up the valley, maybe to try and beat the 1hr15mins from this earlier last month. And I gotta say for an overall package the Mac Magus 4 is looking awesome. Excellent glide and stable, but I’ll stick with my trusty Magic FR2 for the Europeans in July.

Local Hero Thomas Walder has switched to Gin again this year, now flying a serial Boomerang Sport. Looks good too, it’ll be interesting to see how he goes against current serial & open class dominator, Stefan Steiglair on a Trango 2.1 in this years Austrian Liga. Tom is also trying to push the Austrian distance record to 300km+ from Otztal to near Graz out in the flats to the east. We wish him luck, a huge acheivment on a serial glider if he does it.

Last weekend(1+2.04.06) we held the firsts two tasks of the Club Championship here, to read the short run report please click here, a few photos coming soon.

The weekend just past was the Inter-Club Championship of Austria. So many big names there felt like a round of the PWC, Walder, Steiglair, Schalber, Frauenshuh, Eder, Untermoser to name just a few. The conditions for the first day were very good, pilots climbed out at 3-5m/s to 2700m. The fastest pilots flew the 60km in just under 2hours, Frauenshuh, Schalber & Steiglair raced to goal within a minute of each other, 4th was myself gaining a surprising advantage with early-bird points. This was enough to secure victory for the Golden Eagles in the team event, Abtenau were 2nd with Golden Eagles2 in third place. It was an incident free comp and the party went on til late as the next day was a little too windy to task, but ok to free fly locally for the really keen,

On a slightly different note, there is a big possibility that we’ll be running trips to other parts of World, including Brazil(GV), India(Bir) & Thailand. We are in the progress of making a page on the site about these. If sufficient pilots subscribe the course will go to the next phase of planning. Also different locations in Europe are on the cards too. Zell am See(Pinzgau, July), Canazei(Dolomites, October), Bassano(Italy, March) & the XC Eldorado of Griefenburg(Kaernten, April). Nothing is fixed yet, however with enough interest the courses should go ahead.

Anyway thanks for reading as always and hope you have fun wherever you fly this season. Places on the XC courses are filling up with some weeks now full, so if you are thinking about distance Flying in the Alpsis year give us a shout. Check out the site for available dates.

Fly High, Fly Far, Fly Safe.

Kelly, Alex & George

www.austrianarena.com

Winter News from the Austrian Arena

Hi Guys, hope all is good with you out there and that you are looking forward to the coming season. Which is just round the corner by the way. As I write this it’s snowing here in Mayrhofen, hence the time to sit in front of my computer again!

The last few weeks though have been cloudless and lack of snow on the trees has produced some interesting conditions, thermal strength of around 1-2m/s have carried us to around 2400m. Surprisingly not cold at all for this time of year.

Check out a photo.

Some coming news… We(The Golden Eagles)are holding the Austrian Inter Club Championship sometime in April, our club is putting up around 3-4 teams. Word on the grape vine is that the other clubs are putting up some formidable teams, with the likes of Schalber, Tamegger and Eicholzer included. The Austrian National Team basically!

Our A-team will have of course Stefan Steiglair(ex-World Champ) and Tom Walder, who most of you would have met when you’ve been here. The next two places will be awarded to the best pilots competing in the our own Club Masters the first weekend of April. This is going to be hotly contested by myself and the local cracks.

Most of the boys here are also moving up to Open Class wings, the Magus 4, Magic FR2.1, Targa 3 and Boom 4 seem to be the favorites. Some have got hold of the brand new Airwave Magic 4, looks really nice too. I think the Club Masters this year will be like a round of the PWC. Longer, racey tasks and a very high level of pilots.

Talking of the PWC there is a round on the south side of Austria, should be good and word is is that due to the success of the British Open here last May the comps panel are looking to come back in 2007. More km’s were flown and more pilots in goal than any other British Comp in history. A fact we put down to the ease of conditions here and the knowledgable tasks setting commitee. Knowing what is possible by looking at the conditions is over half of the battle.

I’m really looking forward to blowing the dust of my comp kit and getting some training in for the British Champs this year, Wales, Portugal and Spain. Should be interesting with 2 new venues. Plus the European Championships in France, July will be some of the fastest flying I think there is on the Planet this year, with so many BIG names there.

Anyway hope to see some of you again this year on our XC courses, pushing for some BIG distances this year. Places are filling up now with 2 weeks full so don’t wait too long to drop us a line if you’re keen.

British Airways are flying direct to Innsbruck this year, prices differ around when you want to fly. Worth to check out maybe, www.ba.com .

Have a whole lot of Fun wherever you fly this season and remember to stay safe.

Kelly, Alex & George

www.austrianarena.com

Early Winter news from the Austrian Arena, I know it’s a lot so take your time

Firstly I just want to mention that for 2007, we are offering a 5% discount on our courses here in Austria to BHPA members and pilots who have already been here in the past. Just subtract the discount from the price for the week you’d want. Simple.

Well as I write this so far the season has been pretty snow free, a slight downer for the people who’ve paid a lot to come and ski here. Luckily the resort over the past years have invested in snow cannons everywhere. So a least they can ski even if the off-piste is green.

However it’s not all bad news, for us the conditions are working well. Even on one of the shortest days of the year I managed to easily climb out to 300m above launch. Insane for a time that is normally cold glides down. This is because there was no snow in the valley or on the trees. Thermals are free to form and on this day the average climbs were 2-3m/s. And 4 weeks there have been quite a few days like this and I was having a good time even if things were getting desperate for the skiiers. Then as if by magic it snowed for 3 days solid, transforming the whole valley white. Actually looks quite nice now…

This is how desperate it was, the annual downhill race is Kitzbuhel was on the brink of being cancelled, as a last ditch effort they got 50 or so HGVs to bring snow down from the Gross Glockner glacier. They then used helicopters to spread the snow all over the piste. All at a cost 350,000€. The Slalom races went ahead even though it rained again on the lower pistes after that massive effort…

A few things about our re-vamped website, we hope you like it and when you get a chance have a look around it. One major thing is we got rid of the squint vision text. Some new features are the monthly updated wallpapers, just click on the picture you want and install it on you desktop at home or work. There is also a new ‘latest news’ section on the right of the home page, if you see blue icon next to topic then you haven’t seen it yet. Red means already visited. Also I’ve made all the previous skywings articles from over the years available to view online. This could be interesting for visiting pilots who want an insiders view on how the valley works here.

Some stuff a little further away from home. Congratulations to the Valic brothers from Slovenia, who both on the 7th December broke the World Record for free distance, 426km, and declared goal flights, 368km. These records were broken in De Aar in South Africa, both aboard the new Magus 5 protos. I don’t think it will be much longer before the WR is pushed to 500km but the bigger question is where it will take place. Zapata, Texas or De Aar, S.A. have to be the favorites, although with enough pilots there over the next few weeks maybe even Australia has a good chance. Especially now with some comp protos claiming glides of close to 13:1. I suppose we’ll see over the next few months if these outrageous claims have any worth.

Anyway I hope that everyone out there is looking forward to the coming season in the northern-hemisphere as it’s literally just round the corner. The courses in early April are now close to full and the Bassano trip is going ahead as planned, looking forward to that one. I really love this time of year as all the local guys are training with their new toys in the weak conditions and some days it feels like a PWC competition as everyone is fighting to gain that little bit more and test their new machine’s performance.

Some new weapons over launch the last days have been the MacPara Magus5, Nova’s new DHV2 the Ra, which looks fantastic with only 2 main suspension lines. A few guys are testing the new Trango 3, also the new comp weapon for the World’s from UP has made it’s debut in the Z.V. aptly named the “Bonzer”, A.R. of 7.5 and looks good although Stefan Steigler has said that it’s not the replacement for the Targa 3 but just a research avenue that he may or may not pursue.

I have the new Magic FR3 from Airwave. Haven’t had a chance to do any real comparisions yet but feels absolutely amazing in the air, aspect ratio 8 and extremely curved. I’ll post some photo’s on the gallery very soon if anyones keen to see it. Reckon it’ll be able to do some amazing things in this years comps and this year I’m hoping to fly at least one flight of over 200km+, the prep’s been done so just need the right day. Some time in May or June would be perfect as I’ll need a lot of daylight for this one…

The first big comp this year is the Worlds in Manilla, Australia. I’ve not been picked to fly this time round as places are limited to just 5 pilots, Bruce, Adrian, Steve, Russell & Mark will represent Britain this time around. Will be interesting to see who wins in the flatlands. Also which gliders will do well, as most manufacturers have new weapons for this comp. Advance’s O8 proto, Boom5, new U3, Magus5 and FR3 are my favorites. Wonder if Luca Donini can pull of another amazing performance or will Chrigel Maurer show his true form to gain the only title that has eluded him so far. Anyway I’ll be watching the results and run reports like a hawk….

Just a few words about this coming season and the courses which are available with us.

First I’d like to let you all know about the two new launch sites that will be coming this year. The first will be on the Penken, this will be halfway between the usual north launch and the south launch at Penkenjoch. It is at 2080m and will face south. This will be ideal for those days that the valley wind is not strong enough to over come the thermals on the south side or when the wind is from the south.

The other launch is even more interesting as it will enable us to leave it later before getting up the hill for the last flight of the day, sometimes a little close as the cut off is relatively early at 1600hrs for the Penken chairlift. The new site is directly next to he new gondola station on the Ahorn, 2000m. This extra hour gives us the option to see what’s happening better and will make the afternoon flying even more flexible. I’m excited about this one. Photos of both launch sites will come on the site when I have them.

New for 2007 I’ve made around 10 movies so far, what makes a good day, how valley winds are created, what are lee-sides to other subjects like the foehn, how thermals form and how to put it all into practice. I used Google Earth images and real photos with arrows depicting the flows and affects the topography has on the air around us.

Quick Overview of this year’s Itiniery…

Now onto this years courses, all details of courses are found on this website.

First off will be Bassano in Northern Italy, this place is such a nice place to fly, if a little busy sometimes. We are teaming up with local guy Luigi who will be helping with the logisitical sides of things.

Then I’ll be running the usual and extremely popular XC courses around the Zillertal for May and half of June.

One of these weeks, not 100% sure which as yet, will be put aside as a ‘just FLY’ week. Over the years I’ve always offered courses to pilots wanting to better their understanding of the mountains. So instead of the usual theory and route planning, this week will be pretty much “let’s just get up the hill, brief and fly”.

Aimed at pilots who don’t want a technical course but feel that they just need somewhere cheap to stay, good weather/site briefing and then just cruise about where they like. This week due to it’s simplicty is offered at only 330€ and there will be no limit on numbers. I’ll still be on hand to answer any questions but with much less hands on contact then is usual.

In July I’ll be running the usual thermalling courses but this year with a twist as I’m combining it with a ‘how to assault the Ahorn Spitz, 2968m’. This peak is towers directly over Mayrhofen and with my guidence I’ll be helping pilots fly the small XC flight to get to the summit. Last year was amazing with never so many pilots over the top, ever. Check March’s Skywings article for more info.

Later on in the season there will be another chance for pilots to fly to and from the Hintertux Glacier on our BIG mountain course. Last year’s surpassed all expectations as I guided 3 pilots the whole way there and back reaching 4300m. Everyone was stoked after we completed a tour of all the 2800m+ peaks in the immediate area.

Also new for 2007 I’ll be running together with Alban the intro to XC courses. This year they’ll be held in Stubai. This valley works well throughout the summer months and has a spring like quality to the thermals. We’ll be setting very achievable tasks around the local area, with the aim to get to launch in the late afternoon for evening soaring on the Elfer. Very similar to the Ahorn.

Then I’ve teamed up with Mark Leavesley from Leavesley Aviation to do a guided XC trip to Àger, in Spainish Pyrennes. This will be a great course and is filling up so don’t hang about if you want to fly somewhere completely different. After seeing this place for the first time last Autumn, Mark & I saw huge potential to run a guided trip there. We have local support from the flying school there and long time resident and British team member, Nicky Moss.

Then last but by no means least will be an XC ramble thru the Dolomites in October. This place has to be seen to be believed. One of the greatest places on earth to fly a paraglider. Again places are limited to 8 and has nearly been filled already. If due to demand they may be another chance in the season to go there, possibly the week earlier too.

So it looks like a very busy year for us here, not to mention the upcoming competitions, Nordic and British Opens in Spain, British Open in UK and the last round of Brits in St.Andre, one of my favorite places to race paragliders on the planet.

I’ll be in the UK for some time during August. So I’ll be available to give some XC seminars with movies and pictures for your local club. Please email me if you think your club would benefit from this and I’ll for sure try me hardest to help you guys out.

Anyway have fun wherever you fly this coming season and I hope to see you somewhere over the coming months.

When I have more news on flying around Europe I’ll write about it, so keeping checking the site when you get a chance as it’ll be a busy season.

fly high, fly far, fly safe

Kelly, Alban, Mark and George.