sites around zillertal
Penken - 2000m
All start directions & one of our main sites
Top to Bottom - 20min
Site record: 160km flat triangle
Reached in 20 min by cable car directly to launch.
Also the start place for getting to the Filzen for evening soaring Perfect for XC, thermal practice and top landings - a very fun and friendly site.
Melchboden - 2000m Launch site for the British Open 2005
Start direction: East, South & West
One of the most reliable XC launches in Austria.
Top to Bottom: Roughly same as Penken.
Site Record: 254km (Austrian Record)
Excellent for XC and easy to get up and away from - very friendly.
When launching here we often fly a long way.
Filzen - 2140m Start direction: North (into valley wind)
A great place for evening soaring and attempts on Ahorn Spitz.
Top to Bottom: rarely happens.
Dynamic soaring using the valley breeze often until sundown.
7min by cable car and a short walk to this wide, grassy take off with the best views of the Zillertal.
A Highlight of the Zillertal valley
Haizenberg - 1400m. Start direction: NE - NW (into valley wind)
An Awesome alternative to Penken for evening soaring.
Dynamic soaring using the valley breeze, flatland-thermals trigger on this north facing ridge. From this launch it's easy to fly back to Mayrhofen using the bouyant valley winds.
Once high here getting up to the Stein Wand behind and later on to the Ahorn ridge are short but fun XC possibilities(15km).
Hintertux Glacier - 3250m The highest official launch site in Austria.
State of the art cable cars take us stratuspheric. Then as a group we'll fly the 20km or so back to Mayrhofen. All mountains enroute are over 3000m with cloudbases regularly reaching over 4000m.
Typically the climbs are wide & smooth. As usual there are landing places all the way back too.
After making it back we can land on the Filzen for some evening soaring.
A favourite of mine.
Weisenalm - 1400m
start direction: West
Private launch site:
Please ask us before using.
We're very excited about being allowed to use this start place again this year, usually just for local pilots.
An Excellent alternative to the Penken for starting our evening soaring flights. Only 20mins in the bus and we're on this very friendly, exclusive start place.
This west-facing site cops the afternoon sun. This makes it ideal for afternoon/early-evening thermalling practice & also when the valley wind is strong enough to soar in Mayrhofen we can start here and fly the 14km back to town. Just by soaring up on each ridge then going down wind to the next until we reach goal.
One of the launches we used for the British Open in May 2005
Cross-country at its simplest...
landing areas in mayrhofen
The Zillertal is full of safe potential landing fields, here are some of Mayrhofen's large Official landing sites:
Hotel Edenlehen. One of the largest fields in Mayrhofen.
Here the wind generally blows from bottom to top of the picture.
The hotel, above my left boot, is a good place to unwind and debrief at the end of the day.
From Edenlehen it is under a 10 minute walk to the cable car, passing your accommodation on the way, unless of course you are staying here.
This field is used by the Zillertal flying school as it's HUGE and very pilot friendly.
Bruggerstube
This is the local club's, the Golden Eagles, Official landing field, very long and easy to get into. I've even seen sail planes land here. We usually try to use this LZ as goal on most of our xc flights.
Some of the best traditional food in town with a perfect LZ. Little wonder the club has made the Bruggerstube its home.
The wind normally comes from bottom-left to top-right on a good day.
