Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Cross Country

New glider, second flight, early evening thermic soaring on a windy day. We’d spent the day out on the coast being blown about. The forecast was for it to drop, so it was a waiting game and we’d come down to the foreshore to hike along the beach and low hills. By 5pm we were on our way back to the site and we could see gliders in the air. “It’s on!” someone said, much as pilots, surfers, skiers, climbers have said a million times before. Conditions were coming good, we were in the right place at the right time and with the right people. None of that is easy to align! On the ground it was lighter than it felt it should be, although launch was simple enough. In…

Thomas Walder topped the XContest table on what was the best day of the Alpine season to date on 22 May with a huge 314.19km FAI triangle around the Austrian Alps. Flying a Skywalk Poison he was in the air for 11 hours, with 6m/s climbs to 3,700m. Also flying 300k FAI triangles in the Zillertal on the same route were Stephan Gruber (Skywalk, 312.74km FAI) and Christopher Manzl (Skywalk Poison, 310.72km). Six other pilots also broke the magic 300km flat triangle mark, including Loris Graf (Flow Fusion, 301.93km) and Dominik Wiki (Ozone Photon, 300.62km) who were both flying EN-C gliders. They had launched from further east, from Riederalp in Switzerland, as had Roger Aescbacher (Ozone Enzo 3) who flew a 327.92km flat triangle from Riederalp to west of Mont…

I can’t lie, I really don’t think I’m so good with technology! But I do like to have good instruments. For daily flying I mainly my XC Tracer Maxx. It has all necessary information, it’s super light and the vario is precise. It’s versatile too, which is what I like most. The only downside is it would be good to be able to see airspace more clearly, but of course it’s difficult with a small (120g) device like this. When I make competition hike-and-fly, it gives me all the information I need: altitude, AGL (above ground) altitude, vario, thermal assistant, wind speed and direction, time to goal, glide ratio, orientation and speed. I also have a Naviter Oudie N. For competition I have one page with all the information I…

Allen Weynberg is a school guidance counsellor currently in Brisbane, Australia. At weekends he spends most of his time trying to keep up with the talented pilots of Canungra in southeast Queensland A dozen or so pilots stand on launch, some cradling hot coffees, breath visible in the cool evening air. The café, much quieter recently, has turned the sign round to closed, as the owner sweeps under the tables. The last of the sea breeze still wafts up the hill and pilots mutter about a late soar. Nobody takes off, there’s no longer anywhere to land. In the valley below, a small cow paddock begins to collect the evening dew. The sign above it has been turned round to closed. Doctors, teachers, conspiracy theorists, trustafarians, vagrants, that bloke who…

Nick Neynens has flown paragliders in New Zealand since 2007, and has competed in four Red Bull X-Alps (2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021). He’s lived and worked in Australia as an engineer and aviation meteorologist. Got a weather-related question for him? Email him via editor@xcmag.com We learn so much by doing in this sport, and so much of our weather knowledge comes from experiencing it first hand. And there is nothing steeper than a new pilot’s learning curve. This is a story about one of the first times I encountered a hillside turning katabatic – when the air starts to flow downhill. I’d had a cracker first season in New Zealand, flying off the sides of various hills around mum’s place (hills could be a bit of Kiwi understatement here)…

Location: Chablais, Samoëns, southeast France Date and time: 13 July 2022, 5-8pm Conditions: 3,300m base on the Dents Blanches It was a hot summer day. One of those days when it had already reached 40°C at the bottom of the valley by 2pm. Hell on Earth. Rare cumulus clouds blinked here and there at a dizzying altitude. They showed the convection of the lower layers, from which rare cyclical thermals escaped occasionally, until they formed an ephemeral cloud. To fly in these moments, you need a good technical level, strong motivation, patience – and faith! I knew what was driving me to fly. I recognised the conditions as ones that would suit my motivation, my mind and my know-how. My flying is no longer based on a logic of progression…

The Sports-class Racing Series got off to a flying start in May. The new competition series for high-EN B and EN C gliders attracted a full house of 110 pilots to Krushevo in North Macedonia for a week of racing in the second week of May. The competition saw three tasks – 73.9km, 38.5km and 40km. A long first task was won by Martin Jovanoski (MK, Gin Bonanza 3) and Monika Takáts (AT, Ozone Photon) winning the women’s. Unfortunately poor weather affected the competition mid-week, but after two more tasks through a very green Krushevo landscape Martin ended up walking away with the first trophy of the SRS season. He won the Overall standings flying his new Gin Bonanza 3 (EN C). Igor Todevski (MK, Advance Sigma 11) was second,…

Pedal-powered planes and powered paragliders are joining forces in the UK at the end of June, for five days of competition flying. The British Open Paramotor Championships and the British Human Powered Flying Club’s annual Icarus Cup will take place at the same venue at the same time at the end of June. The paramotorists will fly and compete for the title of British Paramotor Champion, while the human-powered pilots will compete for their Icarus Cup. Current British Paramotor Champion Daniel Jones will be defending his title among a field of around 50 pilots. Joining him will be some of the UK’s finest as well as pilots from Qatar, Belgium, Germany and South Africa. A “Discovery Challenge” class will help pilots new to competition find their feet. Alongside, but separate,…

After six years of flying, I tried my first paragliding competition in November last year at the North American Paragliding Nationals in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. It was a full-circle moment for me, since Valle de Bravo is where I learned to fly with Marko Hrgetic. I live in Talloires right under Planfait take-off, and I’ve had the chance to fly in both Americas, mostly hike-and-fly trips to high-altitude summits. Competing, however, was an entirely new experience. I made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of fun, and learned a lot of lessons. These are my top six take-aways I would share with any other newbie preparing for their first paragliding competition. 1. Fly your own race I’d never flown in a gaggle before and flying with 100 other…

Luke de Weert is a pro pilot from the Netherlands. He started flying when he was 14 at the beach near his home in Alkmaar and was Acro World Tour Synchro Champion with Lukas Neu in 2021. Find him at instagram.com/lukedeweert On 9 August last year a storm blew up in Organya, Spain, the training place of many pro acro pilots. Three of my friends and I got caught up in wind gusts of up to 80km/h (50mph). While my friends landed with minor injuries, I was unlucky and made a hard impact on the ground where I broke my back in two places (L1 and T12) and needed immediate surgery. One year later I have returned to flying already and am competing in this year’s Acro World Tour. I would…

Little Cloud rucksack Little Cloud’s new rucksack has a fastpack-style drawstring closure with a zip to keep everything together. The back struts are inflatable and give good rigidity, with the advantage that they can be deflated for compact packing. It is made from robust fabrics and weighs around 900g with bladders. Available in 65l and 75l versions, €275. littlecloud.fr Up Glider T-shirts UP’s Glider T-shirts are available in Lime for men and Sky for women. The women’s version is longer and has a shaped waist. Made from 80% cotton and 20% polyester they are soft to touch and easy to wash. up-paragliders.com Crofix V2 Fed up with Brummel hooks coming undone? This little plastic widget could be the answer. Released last May and now updated and patented, they are easy…

When we caught up with Supair designer Pierre-Yves Alloix at the Stubai Cup in March he told us this third incarnation of Supair’s low-B wing has “better equilibrium, is more intuitive for the target pilot and is more balanced.” I got to fly one of the first wings off the production line, taking it soaring and cross-country in the southern Alps to find a out a bit more about its character and performance. Design and build Looking at the specs, there have been few obvious changes. It retains the cell count of 49 and has seen a very small increase in aspect ratio up to 5.35. However, there have been changes in the leading edge structure and the curve of the wing, which has been reduced to improve roll stability.…

Competition Season This month is peak season for competitions across Europe and further afield with scores of events. CIVL’s new competition calendar is live and working well at civlcomps.org/event US Paragliding Open The US Paragliding Open is in the wide open sky of Chelan. Expect awe-inspiring conditions, very high base and long-distance tasks across the flatlands. 25 June to 1 July, airtribune.com Nova Grand Prix The second round of the Nova Paragliding Grand Prix for EN-C wings and below is in Levico Terme in the beautiful Italian Alps. “With good conditions it’s fairly easy to fly to Mt Dolada and back – a 100km out and return.” 9-14 July, paraglidinggp.org Nordic Paragliding Open The spirit of the Nordic nations is alive and well at this much-loved competition, which is open…

Gavin McClurg is a 4 x Red Bull X-Alps pilot, and National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. He hosts the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast at cloudbasemayhem.com Those of you who have read my column over the years will notice the title has changed this month from “The Skipper” to “The Long Game.” I was coming up fast on 50 in my last Red Bull X-Alps in 2021 and Cross Country suggested the name change to reflect my long experience in this sport. The column will still be my own personal rants on all things free-flight, but I’ll be giving some special attention to how we can all play the long game in this journey we all love. Ageing is an interesting thing. I’ve been pretty hard on my body over the years,…

The red dirt enhanced the sun’s glare as we began to unload the car at the Overlander Roadhouse. It was refreshing to finally be free of those four wheels after a tedious eight-day drive across the continent. Yes, we’re flying 5,000km across a continent on what some people describe as a backpack fan! As we continued to assemble the paramotors the challenge we had undertaken was beginning to sink in. We were based 180km from the most westerly point of Australia while we got ready to take on this world record challenge, unsupported. Six months of preparation (mainly by Scott Ryan) to land us here and we were naively confident it would take around five weeks to complete. The start eventually rolled around and we began our return flight to…

The Photon was probably the worst-kept secret in our sport. As soon as the rules for folding lines were changed, allowing the creation of two-line wings in the EN-C class, the forums exploded with chat on what Ozone would bring to market. As creators of the whole two-line revolution with the Baby HPP back in 2009, and lots of experience making such wings, people were excited to see what they would bring to the market. Ozone announced the release of the Photon at the Stubai Cup in March and I flew it there for a brief test flight. A month later a full production model arrived. Unwrapping The production wing was delivered in Ozone’s lightweight concertina bag and inside it was wrapped around an inflatable pillow and two cardboard tubes.…

During the 2021 Coupe Icare, Mike Kremer took me to the back of the AirDesign stand to show me something he’d been working on. It was a trail running vest you can carry a paraglider in, and something as a runner and UFO owner, I needed in my life. It was a prototype, hand stitched with bits of tape here and there, but I took it outside and had a little run up the glide-contest field with it and back around. He asked what I thought – yes, it was good! At the time, there was nothing else like it, and I had genuinely been trying out different (non-flying) rucksacks at home to find something to run with the UFO. Fast-forward a few months, and after some polishing and…