Austrian Arena

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