Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i Cross Country

Serial Class Austria’s Alois Resinger won the Serial class, which includes 22,587 pilots and wings up to and including EN D, with six big triangles (239km to 289.99km) flown from the Alpine meccas of Defereggen and Antholz. Wing: Ozone Zeno 2 (EN D). Total points: 2,530 Sport and Standard Italy’s Manuele Dondi topped both Sport (up to EN C, 20,365 pilots) and Standard (up to EN B, 15,352 pilots) class with triangles (219km-263km) from the Italian and Slovenian Alps. Wing: Advance Iota DLS (EN B). Points: 2,174 Women Germany’s Brigitte Kurbel flew six triangles (167km to 245km) from Speikboden and Antholz to win the Women’s category (1,764 pilots). Wing: Ozone Zeno 2. Total points: 1,863 Tandem It was straight downwind for Raul Evaristo who won the tandem category (1,161 pilots).…

Lumdo Kolola By Nicolas Alliot, Jean-Yves Fredriksen Overall winner and Public’s Choice On a 2016 vol-biv trip through the Himalaya Jean-Yves Fredriksen came across a house in remote Nepal where four children lived without their parents. He learned that the mother was in hospital and the father was taking care of her, leaving the kids to their own resources. His film about this journey, Blutch, won the first prize at the Coupe Icare film festival in 2018. In this new film, Jean-Yves and Nico Alliot return to find the children. They travel, hike and fly deep into Nepal. With humour, reflection and a genuine care for the country and its inhabitants the film documents their search and their contribution to the local community. The Lumdo Kolola association connected to this…

25 YEARS AGO XC53 (October 1997): The first FAI World Air Games were held in Turkey across eight sites in September 1997, an event that took “a decade to launch”. The Turkish made “a huge investment”, even issuing a special stamp for the occasion which saw multiple air sports compete for medals over two weeks. “Free flyers outnumbered all other disciplines,” wrote Sherry Thevenot, “with 141 HG pilots and 158 PG pilots", all using the same sites. Problems abounded, accidents too: “One pilot died when his wing inexplicably collapsed, Kari Castle sprained her ankle, Kaz Harland limped to victory after a take-off mishap and Pete Brinkeby was hospitalised.” One “21-year-old Hugh Miller” won the paragliding gold, “by winning the first and longest task, a 69km race to goal.” Acro legend…

“My back hurts!” We have all heard or said that many times. Back pain comes in many forms and for many reasons. Stiff neck, sciatica, poor range of motion, pain radiating to your extremities, and angry nerves are just some of the issues people face. Back pain has many causes but most generally can be traced to a few issues. Pain can manifest from past traumatic injuries including impact injuries (car crash, drunken fall, paragliding crash) or poor form while lifting or moving heavy objects. Others may experience back pain from being badly out of shape, living a sedentary lifestyle or simply from spending too much time in a chair while working, commuting or at night in front of the television. Back pain can cripple your season, making it hard…

KARISMA II Apco say the Karisma II, their new lightweight EN-A, has top-level safety and inspires confidence. It’s a school wing which Apco say will take new pilots on their first XCs. They add it’s “by far” their bestthermalling EN-A ever and has very good, usable performance on bar. It is made from siliconised zero-porosity ripstop nylon, which is double-siliconised for the top surface. It has sheathed lines and stainless steel karabiners and line attachment loops, and is still 20% lighter than the original, at 4.5kg in M. Five sizes are planned. It will be certified for paramotoring too. apcoaviation.com AD EAZY 3 AirDesign’s updated EN-A is ready. They say the Eazy 3 is as easy as ever, but now with a bit more performance. It’s made for fledgling pilots…

Till Gottbrath has worked in the adventure travel world as an editor, writer, photographer and publicist for more than 30 years. A veteran of numerous adventure races and “various marathons” he has visited more than 100 countries, many with his wing. His latest trip was to Iran, p48 Liz Dengler didn’t mean to write such a long article on the benefits of all-women chat groups in paragliding, but once she started she found there was a lot to say. A geologist turned paraglider pilot and writer she is editor of USHPA’s Pilot magazine in the USA. See p90 ‘LEARN TO LOWER YOUR CENTRE OF GRAVITY. IF IT’S STRONG, LOWER YOUR HIPS CLOSER TO THE GROUND’Théo de Blic, p38 Antoine Girard is well known as a former Red Bull X-Alps pilot and an adventure…

Tic Tac Base By Romain Assie-Rio. Two base-jumpers get into baselining: slacklining with a parachute. The spectacular images of their projects, including the Verdon Gorge, are paired with a good insight into their characters, which gives the film a nice depth. Watch the teaser at bit.ly/tic-tack-slack Fly Monarca Benjamin Jordan and Lindsay Nicole embark on a vol-biv journey to follow the route of the Monarch butterfly migration from Mexico to Canada – a record traverse of the US. The sweltering heat, cactus needles and lack of good flying weather make us laugh and cry. Watch at flymonarca.com The Nepal Traverse Diary By Martin Cray. Steve ‘Tosh’ Mackintosh traverses Nepal west to east, alone, with a paraglider and an action cam. Everything about the trip is new and a challenge. Tosh…

Dust devils occur when a thermal lifts off in superadiabatic conditions. Superadiabatic conditions mean when the lapse rate of the day is greater than the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Or to put it another way, when the temperature decreases with height at a rate greater than 10C per kilometre (1C per 100m). This usually only happens in hot, desert-like conditions, which is why dust devils are common in the flatlands of Australia or South Africa but less so in say, Annecy in the northern French Alps. The air rushing in to fill the area below the thermal usually has some turning motion. When this air comes together its spin is exaggerated, just as a skater spins faster when his or her arms are brought in. This spinning air would soon…

When I started flying in Colorado, I was one of only about 10 active female pilots in the whole state. In the USA women make up less than 11% of total pilots – one in 10. Though numbers vary by location, the general trend is there are far fewer women than men in free flight. As the only woman pilot on launch almost every day, I often faced certain assumptions about my skills or competency. Men at launch, who didn’t know me, often assumed I was new and ignored my site intro to ask a student pilot, or routinely offered unsolicited and not applicable flying advice. For years, I’ve watched the way men planned tasks or trips together, seemingly blind to my existence. It was heart-breaking to ask for help…

paraCyclage paraCyclage have a new shop in Interlaken where they upcycle old gliders into unique new items, like this windproof jacket. Not in Interlaken? They also have an online shop at: paracyclage.com PPG Calendar 2023 Paramotor Germany’s 2023 A3 wall calendar features 12 beautiful landscape and paramotoring photos by Bene Bös. Printed on 250g glossy paper, it will ship in time for Christmas. (Pictured sample pages from 2019.) paramotorgermany.shop SeeYou Airspace With the latest version of SeeYou (Beta 2.7.0 as we go to print, but to be in a release version soon) it will be possible to upload custom airspace files – very handy for competitions. naviter.com Garmin inReach Messenger The Garmin inReach Messenger is a rugged, waterproof satellite communication device offering global coverage. It works with Garmin’s Messenger app…

When we reviewed the Supair Delight 3 in XC196 (Dec 2018) we found a lightweight allround pod we didn’t hesitate to recommend, especially to pilots new to a pod. Lots of pilots clearly agreed – Supair’s Clément Latour told us the Delight 3 is their “bestselling harness ever.” The obvious thing missing from the Delight 3 though was a fairing, but of course not everyone wants one. So, when it came time for an upgrade Supair decided to make two versions of the Delight 4: one with a fairing (Delight 4 Sport), and one without (Delight 4). I got to fly both variations. Weight and materials The harness is billed as a light everyday cross-country harness. Materials used throughout are robust. Both versions weigh the same. We queried that as…

“What is wrong with you?” I asked the cat. It was sitting in its garden chair half asleep. “A couple of years ago you would have chased that squirrel out of the garden and up a tree.” The squirrel was busy eating its way through the sunflower seeds while the cat sat and looked on through half-shut eyes. “I’m tired this morning,” the cat replied, surprising me. “How about you? I bet you’re disappointed after yesterday.” “Don’t talk to me about yesterday,” I said. “It was a disaster. I was at the wrong site, it was boiling hot and I was on that hill for four hours, bottomlanded twice, top-landed once and the highest I got was 60m above launch all day.” “Brutal,” purred the cat, who knows nothing about…

I started flying in Kharkov in my early 20s. I made my first wing out of nylon clothing material and sailing cord. It was a copy of a Flight Design B3, and weighed 12kg. When it collapsed, it didn’t re-inflate. You just had to fly it down to the bottom and walk back up! As you can probably tell, paragliding wasn’t really for me at the time. I was more into sailing, diving, climbing. There were no paragliding schools in Eastern Ukraine – just one guy who thought he understood it. But he basically just taught me to groundhandle for three months. He had no idea beyond that. I fell in love with flying in Crimea. I hooked up with a guy in the Crimean mountains who helped me learn to…

Dimitris Kolliakos became the first pilot to complete a true paramotor loop on the axis in September, a move he then introduced to the public at the Parabatix show at the Coupe Icare. In aerobatics a loop on the axis is a completely straight vertical loop, not tilted to one side. He called it the Rocket Loop. Incredible to see, we asked Dimitris what it’s like to fly. Dimitris, tell us about the rocket loop It’s a clean loop on the axis under canopy. I fly with a paramotor and it’s something that has never been done before. It’s been very difficult to make a clean loop with a paraglider because of the length of the lines and the equipment. We had the idea two years ago and we started…