Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i Cross Country

We have to trust in the basics before we can progress anywhere, was one of the key messages from our recent online masterclass with SIV instructor Malin Lobb, who is also the subject of our regular Naked Pilot slot this issue. For him that starts with the harness. “Adjust it properly, lean back into it, let it support you,” he said. If we have even a one-centimetre gap between our back and the harness, then as paraglider pilots we’re not allowing the harness to do its job. Instead, we’ll be leaning a little bit forward, tensing our stomach muscles to pull ourselves up, perching nervously – whether we know it or not. The result is we won’t be able to fly as long as we’d like, we’ll get tired more…

I’m a PWC comp pilot and SIV instructor based in Annecy where I’ve been for the last five years. I also do some commercial tandems in the summer. My name comes from Malin Head, the most northerly point in Ireland. My dad was a sailing instructor a long time ago and he heard it on the radio, on the BBC’s shipping forecast. It goes, “Dogger, Bay of Biscay, Malin Head…” I always dreamt of flying. I got a two-seater ride in a plane for my 18th birthday. I just thought I had to own a plane to fly. And then I was at Glastonbury Festival and a paramotor flew in low. (He subsequently got done). I went on YouTube, saw people flying above the clouds and thought, I can afford…

The FAI has ratified a huge triangle flown by French glider pilot Baptiste Innocent as a new FAI European gliding record. Flown last year on 5 August 2021 Baptiste, 37, set a new European FAI triangle record with a 1,178.8km epic. What made it truly unique was his route. Having launched from Fayence, in the hills west of Cannes in southern France, he used wave to fly over the Mediterranean to Corsica before continuing across the Med to northwestern Italy before landing back where he started. A first officer with Air France and a former French Junior Champion and French team member, he said he had long dreamed of flying over the sea to Corsica, but had been put off by the idea of the retrieve. He explained: “I heard…

Following the theme of the Red Bull X-Alps, this hike-and-fly race runs along the mountainous border between Spain and France. Athletes must supply their own supporter(s) and van, and the way they work as a team is critical to their success. Athletes travel fast with ultralight gear, navigating hiking trails at breathless speed to reach random launch spots on ridge tops, fly over intimidating tracts of forest, land in the gaps, and fall into their support van when tired and hungry. If they can find it. The X-Pyr has a special friendly atmosphere. Run on a small budget it relies on volunteers and fans to keep the organisation rolling. Despite this it punches way above its weight on the media front, with daily live updates and interviews, and a big…

When to go: Madeira can be flown all year round. Depending on the conditions, hours of soaring flights along the coast are possible. From May to July you can also expect strong thermals, which can then be used to penetrate inland. If you can leave it until late notice it’s worth watching the weather so you can pick your moment. Getting there: Fly to Funchal (FNC), direct from many international airports or connect through Lisbon, Portugal. Getting around: The best way to travel around the island is by rental car. Take care after heavy weather – the local roads can become slick with rain. 1. Arco da Calheta, 440m AMSL: One hour from Funchal airport Arco da Calheta is an ideal acro, tandem, XC and training area. Home of Madeira Paragliding…

The Sak K40 (left) is Kortel’s 40-litre lightweight mountain rucksack. The K27 and K17 are smaller packs with running-vest style closures. They keep the load very stable and are designed for trail running, in collaboration with French trail star Laetitia Roux. Pictured middle is the K27 (27l), and right is the K17 (17l). They are packed with a BGD Kiss and AirDesign UFO respectively, plus string harnesses, jacket and water. They both have inbuilt concertina-packing bags. Review coming soon.  korteldesign.com…

In search of a light but sturdy reversible seat-plate harness, Skywalk told me, "We have something better," and showed me the brand new Cruise. The Cruise is a “compact comfort harness” say Skywalk, aimed at beginners and sports pilots preferring a seat harness instead of a pod. While not reversible, it is compact and light enough to tick the boxes. The S size is 3.5kg while the look and feel is strong and high quality. First impressions The main feature of the Cruise is the Permair 2.0 airbag protector. It needs to be inflated before flight, which sounds like a hassle but in fact takes less than a minute. The harness packs very compactly indeed and fits easily in a small to medium backpack with a standard glider, leaving space…

Between lockdowns in 2020 I managed to attend a vol-biv course in Chamonix with Antoine Girard and Martin Beaujouan-Berger. During our group conversations it was agreed that the only true vol-biv harness on the market was the Kortel Kolibri, with all the other lightweight pods focussed more on hike-and-fly competitions. However, Antoine said he’d been working with Ozone harness designer Sam Jobard on something new aimed specifically at the vol-biv market. Roll forward nearly two years and I finally got my hands on the finished product: the BV1. Although, at the time of the review, some BV1s had been seen in the wild flown by Ozone sponsored pilots, the harness I had was the final production-ready prototype. Design and materials Ozone say this harness is “designed for the toughest vol-biv…

The Acro World Tour is being expanded to include two divisions: the highest level Acro World Tour (AWT) and the new Acro World Qualifier (AWQ). The AWT will feature 9-13 of the best acro pilots competing for the title of Acro World Tour Champion. Pilots will be selected at the start of the season from their previous season’s results. At the end of the season the pilots at the bottom of the standings will drop down into the Acro World Qualifier. The Qualifier meanwhile will be open to any pilot who wants to compete in a World Cup. Each AWQ event will have its own podium and at the end of the season the best pilots will be offered a place on the next season’s Acro World Tour. Both competitions…

Question: How can you be ‘free flying’ if you have a motor on your wing? Answer: When you fly a Class 2 hang glider. Class 2 hang gliders, such as the Swift-Light and the Archaeopteryx typically have a wingspan of 12.7m and 13.6m respectively, and weigh about 50 to 70kg without the pilot. Maximum speed is 120km/h and the stall speed is roughly 34km/h. After a delay due to the pandemic, the 21st FAI World Hang Gliding Class 2 Championships will now take place in July at Aspres, in the southern French Alps. This is the same place as the last World Championships took place in 2017, with just nine pilots. The major difference this time around is that Class 2 gliders with a small auxiliary electric motor, used solely…

Remember from your aerodynamics lessons: when the angle of attack is too high, the airflow breaks away from the aerofoil and the wing stalls. Why do you need to find your stall point? Because falling out of the air is bad! Through this low-level training method you can learn how to feel the approach of stall point and avoid it. Developing this skill also gives you slow landing options and greatly improved launch control. Watch out! If you cause a full stall a bit higher than directed in this article, you can crash. Because of this, practising the stall point is not normally taught in paragliding schools and might even be frowned on by pilots in your club, who don’t see the benefits or haven’t been taught the technique of…

SIV courses have been a huge part of my life. They were where I learnt my first tricks and fell in love with flying Acro. They also paid for the first part of my career – from age 13 to 16 I was a cameraman for SIV courses and that is how I paid for my first trips to Organya and training. It holds such a high place in my heart that in 2020 Jack Pimblett and I created our SIV/Acro school, Rise Paragliding. Over the years I feel that our collective approach to SIV has changed a bit. When I was a kid it was important to do SIV but it was done out of duty. Nowadays, pilots look forward to doing it and it’s turned into a kind…

Well, a version of this story was published in Cross Country magazine before, but from a different pilot who was not in the cloud. For some reason I’ve decided to tell what happened to me. So the flying place is named Kuray. It’s a Russian wilderness and when you turn off the one main road you realise you are in the middle of nowhere. On the map you’ll see the region is close to the borders of four countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. At that time there was no infrastructure in place. To compete you had to bring everything for camping and decide on how many competitions you were going to stay for. Usually we had three comps in a row. It was 26 July 2014, and the fourth…

The Genie X Lite is Gin’s lightest pod harness. For XC and vol-bivouac, Gin say it combines aerodynamic efficiency with comfort and safety. It has stowage space for bivouac kit and fits into an 80l rucksack. The rear fairing is a narrow-profile Aerocone and the Neo Koroyd underseat protector is just 7cm deep. Gin say it offers excellent protection, is EN/LTF certified and doubles up as the seat plate. The harness Anti Balance System (ABS) can be adjusted in flight. Four sizes weigh between 3kg and 3.5kg. gingliders.com…

Gin’s new tandem paramotor and trike wing is based on the Fuse tandem. Made to carry heavy loads, its new profile produces a good amount of lift at low airspeeds, and a flatter arc has reduced roll. These factors make for an easy launch. Gin say it’s fun to fly and climbs efficiently even at high wing loadings, with good glide throughout the speed range. It is available in 37 and 41m² sizes and DGAC approved for 110-430kg and 130-472.5kg all-up weights. Gin say the Myungjin 40 fabric it is made from is very strong and durable: during load tests it did not break even at 635kg (5.25G).  gingliders.com…

Racer’s E-Glove 4 Urban are midweight gloves with a three-level battery heating option. They could be just what Raynaud’s sufferers need for summer flying. Bluetooth connectivity between the gloves mean one button switches both gloves on, and sets the heating level for both gloves. They are made from softshell and leather, and have a waterproof Polymax® membrane. The heating wires extend to the fingers for full hand-warming, and they have a long cuff with a zip for easy access. racer1927.com…

“It was a bit like Quixadá but at home,” said Greg Blondeau (Enzo 3) about his 347km flatland flight southwest from near Strasbourg on 8 May. He topped the XContest table for the day. Maxime Pinot (Enzo 3), Baptiste Lambert (Enzo 3) and Jonathan Marin (Icepeak X-One) meanwhile flew a 304km FAI triangle together on 17 May in the northern French Alps. Michael Küffer (Enzo 3, pictured) flew a 314km FAI the next day in the Swiss Alps. Stateside, Cody Mittanck (Zeno) flew a huge line through the Rockies on 21 May, pushing 360km south to north over 10 hours with climbs peaking at nearly 9m/s. Also in the USA, Jay Drescher (Rush 6) flew 271km in 6h30m from Albuquerque for one of the longest EN-B flights of the month.…

France’s biggest flying festival will be back in St Hilaire du Touvet this September. It’s going to be another six-day extravaganza, running from Tuesday 20 to Sunday 25 September. After last year’s reduced-size event, organisers hope this year it will be back to its full crazy self with 90,000 visitors expected. This year is the 49th edition and, significantly, there is a new team at the top. After 48 years in charge, Coupe Icare president Daniel Raibon-Pernoud has retired to be replaced by a team of three people. Having co-founded the festival in 1974 he stepped down at the end of March. He will remain a member of the executive committee and involved in the running of the expo. He was granted the title of Honorary President of the Coupe…

Unlike a traditional cross-country competition, a hike-and-fly adventure race demands a high level of physical fitness as well as a different set of flying skills. It’s not enough to simply show up the night before and expect to do ok – you need to get organised, and fitter, well ahead of time. Flying-wise, you should be confident top-landing, slope-landing and setting down in tight spots in the valley, as well as taking off from improvised launches. Route planning and decision making, and the mental agility to change those routes and plans, are also key. Here’s what I think you need to know before your first race. 1. Your supporter is everything (really) Anthony Green and I worked together in a paragliding company for 20 months before I competed in my…

ANVIL TOPS A cluster of supercell thunderstorms raged across the Great Plains on 15 May. They delivered hail, extreme lightning, gusty winds, and downpours to parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas: a line of strong storms stretched from eastern Kansas to Little Rock, Arkansas. The weather front included multiple storm cells with features including overshooting tops and above-anvil cirrus plumes, key signs of particularly severe storms. These cloud top features can rise past the tropopause and the anvil portion of a thunderstorm cloud, sometimes punching into the lower stratosphere. TREES OF THE WORLD A new map of the world was released in May. It shows the heights of the world’s forests, from small saplings to 50m giants. It reveals some patterns you might expect, such as taller forests hugging the…

Strictly speaking, Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of Africa is an archipelago, made up of the main island of Madeira, the neighbouring island of Porto Santo and two other uninhabited islands. A year-round spring-like climate, coupled with fertile volcanic soils, has given the islands their unique subtropical flora, which is why the island has earned its nickname, Garden of Eden. Almost two-thirds of the island is a protected natural park and the lush laurel forest on the north coast, the Laurissilva, is a Unesco World Heritage Site. The changeable weather is one of the reasons for the subtropical garden feel, but more on that later. The plane touched down in Funchal, from where it took about 50 minutes to drive to our accommodation near Arco da…

Galen Kirkpatrick is the new Pan-American Women’s Paragliding Champion. In fact, she’s the first one – previous Pan-American PG Championships (this was the fourth) have never had enough women to make a valid women’s class. This year there were 10 women competing, in a field of 122 pilots at Governador Valadares. Galen, flying for Team USA, only started flying five years ago and was 10th overall, coming first women in three out of the six tasks, and winning Task 3 overall. Posting on her Instagram afterwards she wrote, “I went into this comp with the goal and a belief that I could win it. A tiny voice in the back of my head had complete trust and confidence in who I am and how I can fly. It might seem…

Curiosity, anticipation, confusion, skepticism. The launch of the Flare Moustache created quite a stir in the free flying community. What is it? Who needs it? And how does it fly? We found out from the designers and then took the Moustache to the test. Flare is a new brand from the same company as Skywalk. In March they released their one and only new wing, the Moustache. They call it a parakite, and it’s designed for having fun in strong winds on the dunes or at soaring sites. It looks like a paraglider but Flare don't call it that, and it’s not made for thermal flying. Beni Kälin, paragliding and speedflying instructor and part of the Flare development team says: "It’s a kite made to fly." Who is it for?…

Back in issue 219 I tested the Air3 7.2, an Android tablet specifically built for free flight with built-in high quality barometric sensor and large battery so it would run all day. Since then Air3 have updated their instrument to the 7.3 version. We tried their top-of-the-range model the 7.3+ to see what’s new. Out of the box The first thing to notice is the detachable Fanet aerial on one side. Inside the well-known SkyTraxx Fanet+ module has been added to the device, giving Fanet and Flarm transmit functionality. The other thing you will notice is six buttons (including power) on the front, unlike the original that had buttons on the side which were tricky to use. Five of the buttons can be configured for different functionality in apps both…