Innholdsfortegnelse for January / February 2024 i Cross Country

Adventure is the key word in this issue, even more so than usual. From towing in the flatlands of Argentina to vol-bivouac in the Alps to exploring new sites and skills close to home. Jake Holland sets the bar high with his shots of Horacio Llorens and Tom de Dorlodot thermalling high above Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God, in Tanzania. It doesn’t really get more out-there than this: climbing out, flying XC and top-landing a live volcano. What, I asked Jake when we spoke, was the key thing he’d taken away from this trip, what was the lasting memory? He thought for a moment. “The Maasai, the people,” he said. As so often happens, while the adventure of the flying, with its highs and lows, frustrations and exultations,…

THE BRIGHT OPEN Australia’s best and boldest head to Mystic in February to battle it out for the title of Australian national champion. A legendary competition venue Mystic, north of Melbourne, offers huge potential with reliable thermals and valley winds. 10-16 February, airtribune.com CORRYONG OPEN 2024 “The mighty Mt Elliot” hosts the Pre-PWC Corryong Open. Just a few glides away from Australia’s highest mountain, Kosciuszko, the comp is aimed at experienced XC pilots and overseas pilots are welcome. 18-24 February, airtribune.com EL PEÑON CLASSIC January is the classic time to fly Valle de Bravo, one of the world’s best and most consistent sites. The Classic is aimed at hang glider pilots who want to improve by flying alongside some worldclass names. Overseas pilots can rent a hang glider to take…

Espen Åshammer, 37, won Norway’s new Run-and-Fly league at the end of last year. Organised for the first time in 2022 by local pilot and trail runner Vasilis Besikiotis, the idea was to help inspire pilots to get out there and get some exercise. “The main goal was to motivate experienced pilots to go out and move, even if only for a sled ride, and the new pilots to keep on working on their take-off and landing techniques,” Vasilis said. “In both cases the result is pilots exercise and stay current. We were thrilled with the positive vibe we received from the local community and the engagement of the pilots.” Espen, who came second in 2022 with a total of 76,069m of hiked ascent (behind 2022 winner Klemet Store, 78,266m),…

25 YEARS AGO XC61: The competition paragliding world was in “chaos” as “pilots struggled to make head or tail of the year’s chaotic calendar.” The problem was the introduction of Serial Class (certified wings) in the Paragliding World Cup alongside Open Class (protos). The new rules stated pilots could not switch wings mid-season, but lots of pilots hadn’t had time to get a new Serial glider, so they were “stuck” flying Open Class. There was a lot of support among pilots for Serial Class, but a “shake up” in the paragliding industry with design teams switching and new companies being formed was also causing problems. Most manufacturers, including Nova, UP and Advance were still making Open Class comp wings; only Apco and a new company called Ozone had committed to…

Gordon Boettger writes: “The plan was to try and do 3,500km. The wave was [forecast] to work for almost two days, so it was a hard decision on when to take off. We decided that Sunday morning would be good and the plan was to fly all night and into the next day. “Very short climb into wave. Turned north for 170km to Susanville to start the long legs north and south. Mostly blue wave with a few spectacular clouds. Got ATC clearance. “Had to climb and stay high on the southern part of the legs as the lift was weak. The Owens Valley was not too strong. The moisture became an issue on the north end of the legs as expected. Days were now short so we spent about…

The idea to create a tandem pilot harness for vol-bivouac arose a long time ago. This harness is not as simple as it seems. It took our team a lot of effort to implement this idea. The goal was also to combine three qualities in one product: low weight, durability, and comfort for long flights. These are the first tandem harnesses designed specifically for vol-bivouac. The total volume of pockets is more than 50L! Pilot harness full weight: 1.5 kg Passenger harness full weight: 1.3 kg Both from Oxford 320D durable fabric Both have inflatable protectors‚ M 160-175cm L 175-183cm XL 183-190cm First big flying testing from Bogdan: “I did our first serious test by going on a three-day tandem bivouac to the mountains of Spain. First we the climbed…

For five minutes the wind had been steadily dropping with the sun. Horacio on his 15m2 acro wing was no longer able to soar and was forced to land 2,000m below. Packing my camera away, the huge African sun was falling below the horizon and the last rays of gold dimmed. Then, the wind turned off as if by a switch. It was just me and Ol Doinyo Lengai: “The Mountain of God”. Taking off from the crater’s rim without wind was a frantic, futile battle. The side of the volcano was so steep it was not even possible to stand, let alone to lay out a glider. The edge of the rim was just one metre wide before it dropped back down into the subsidiary crater. It was like…

The Fly Topo series of how-to video guides about vol-bivouac flight is produced by Supair, who are based near Annecy in France. Each episode details a route in the French Alps and describes all the stages of the vol-biv – hiking, flying, bivouac, weather conditions – allowing pilots to get out there and do it themselves. At just 12 years old, Félix Deplace joined a small team of pilots who were planning to make the classic flight described in the first episode. Presented by Supair’s Clément Latour the two-day trip takes pilots into the Aravis Range in the French Alps. It’s Supair’s – and Clément’s – back garden, but seen through the eyes of a child it’s a whole new world. Félix, nicknamed Féfé, has always been involved in free…

Task Eight in the 2023 world paragliding championships, and it’s all falling apart for France. Team leader Julien Garcia is waiting anxiously in the goal field. The trackers aren’t working, but through his telescope, he sees first-placed Maxime Pinot and teammates Honorin Hamard, Pierre Rémy and Méryl Delferrière in the lead group. They are super low. Too low to make the goal field. Then they disappear from view, and Julien’s dreams of team gold are shattered. “I really had the feeling that we’d blown it, and it was a fact too – we really would have lost it. I’d done the maths,” he recalls. “I couldn’t call them on the radio as I had to let them focus but I really wanted to know what was happening. “There were lots…

In May, Gin’s Genie Race 5 prototypes got pilots salivating at the FAI Paragliding World Championships in France. We had to wait until September to see a fully-inflated, out and proud pre-serial model at the Coupe Icare. Finally, in November 2023, production commenced and Gin released the Genie Race 5 to the world. It’s a sleek, dark grey bullet of a design with an external instrument cockpit that solves many of the piloting adaptations that need to be made flying an Ozone Submarine – and I was delighted to sit down with chief designer Gin Seok Song and his colleague Yeray Gonzales to learn more. Before we dive into the conversation – I am a total convert to inflated-envelope harnesses. From learning to fly sailplanes this year, I have come…

Maeva Giacometti is a photographer/filmmaker who has been flying since 1996. She lives in the French Alps, close to Annecy, where she works for Supair. For this issue she interviewed 12-year-old Félix Deplace and shepherded the photographers into place for Welcome to the Garden, p58 Jorge Atramiz is back in these pages with a series of fantastic portraits of Mathew Fiddes, shot on location in Bir in India. A pilot since 1999 Jorge has been living the flying life ever since and now lives in Hawaii where he surfs in the morning and flies in the afternoon. See p76 Jake Holland has been busy this year, flying, photographing and filming on expeditions in Pakistan and now Tanzania. This issue he tells us of his personal adventure with the magnificent Ol Doinyo…

Manilla XC Camp 20-27 January 2024 A classic week of XC flying with scores of like-minded pilots who simply want to fly as far as they can in Australia. No pressure, lots of airtime, and no fee – just sign up and fly. flymanilla.com Kenya Paragliding Open 21-27 January 2024 The first FAI Cat 2 competition to be held in Kenya, this promises to be an early season competition highlight. The venue is Naivasha, 100km NW of Nairobi. Chances of meeting a giraffe when you land: high. civlcomps.org New Zealand HG Open 25 Jan to 3 Feb A legendary hang gliding competition now in its 46th year. Mt Murchison’s 360-degree launch site sits right between the west and east coasts and has a history of good weather. Airtribune.com British Winter…

Steve Ham’s illustrations are well known throughout the freeflight world, both on posters for competitions everywhere, and in the pages of this magazine. His calendar this year features 12 of his favourite illustrations from recent times, and also comes with three bonus posters, including this one of the Pied Piper of Hamelin paramotoring through the sky. It’s a tribute to a Spanish pilot and friend who passed away in 2023. Steve has been flying since 1981, first hang gliders and then paragliding since 1991. A well-known guide at his base in Piedrahita in Spain he also travels widely, often as a meet director for competitions. He is the perfect person then to observe and record the beautiful, sometime strange, world of our sports. His calendar costs €20, including worldwide shipping,…

In the autumn of 2022 my trusty van (Hustla) died on me. I don’t mean the starter or the sparkplugs went bad – I mean, the engine broke. To be fair, there were 243,000 miles (over 370,000 kilometres) on the thing; she owed me nothing. Still, I lived in a van for over three years, but even after my partner bought a house, I still spent an inordinate amount of time cruising around in my tiny wheeled home. I was heartbroken, so I made the difficult choice to spend the money to replace her heart; but, thanks to production and shipping delays, it was months before she was running again. So, I tucked in, ready to tackle a winter without wheels in my partner’s house at 10,200 feet (3,110m). I…

As paraglider pilots and free flyers we are exempt from quite a number of rules and regulations that apply to larger and motorised aircraft. A lot of our sport is self-regulated, which is part of what makes it such a beautiful and free sport. We can find an example of this self-regulation in the certification process of paragliders and their maintenance. For example, you might think that all the norms, checks, inspections and repairs done to paragliders must comply with laws, rules and regulations, but you would be disappointed. However, the lack of a legal framework to cover glider servicing does not mean these things aren’t important. It just means we can’t hide behind the law and instead have to take responsibility ourselves. What follows is broadly true worldwide, although…

• Is it approved by your glider manufacturer? Check the manufacturer’s website and your glider manual • How long has it been in operation? • Does it have a large workshop where they can spread out a glider for airing and visual inspection? • Does it follow and supply a standard check protocol? • Did the inspector of your glider get training from your manufacturer and when? • Does the centre offer a full repair service with the correct materials? • Can it do what you want in the time-frame you need it? • Does it have a price list? • Can it offer testimonials from other pilots? • Does it have a good reputation? Ask your club, school, free-flight centre and other pilots for recommendations…

Advance Omega ULS | Advance Weightless XC Tracer Maxx II and Garmin inReach Mini Tom, you first visited this aread over a decade ago. What made you want to go back to Tanzania? We discovered this spot when we crossed Africa from north to south with the Search Projects in 2012. When we arrived we were blown away by the flying potential of the area and the beauty of this active volcano. We made a wonderful connection with a Maasai tribe and made a promise to ourselves to come back one day. And why the Mountain of God? It’s the Maasai’s sacred mountain. Ol Doyno Lengai means the Mountain of the Gods. This place has something special. The flying is far from ideal as the winds are a bit too…

FLYING WITH THE PHARAOHS So far, some but not many paramotor pilots have had the chance to fly around the majestic Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Not normally open for free flight, it’s a unique adventure that you can only undertake with an organised tour. Fly over the huge 4,500-year-old structures in the soft morning air and wonder how they were built or how we as humans are now able to fly so close over them. As if flying over and along the great pyramids is not enough, a tour may also take in the historical sites of Luxor and Aswan as well. Permits to fly the pyramids are only issued a few times each year. There are a few companies able to get the permits and it’s easiest to…

OZONE GEO 7 Ozone have released the Geo 7, an intermediate EN-B and the lightweight version of the Buzz Z7. They say it is now even lighter, but retains its “category-leading” performance and agility. It is aimed at pilots who fly 30-50 hours a year who want a lightweight wing for travel, hike-and-fly and XC with plenty of passive safety. It has no winglets, but Ozone say the new planform with increased wing sweep has improved roll stability. Made from Dominico N20D / N10D, it weighs 3.5kg in MS, 1.4kg lighter than the Buzz Z7. Sizes XS to L fit all-up weights from 55kg to 115kg. flyozone.com UP KIBO X UP’s new “low-to-mid B”, the Kibo X, is a 2.5-liner. Designer Franta Pavlousek said: “The hybrid 2.5-liner concept has shown…

What is your earliest flying memory? We learned on the sand dunes in Mexico. I’ll never forget the first time my feet left the ground. For the rest of my life, I’ve felt free of gravity. How and when did you get into flying? I was a skydiver at Elsinore, CA with my husband at the time, Bob Skinner. Bob had been competing and needed a break. A friend of ours, Ted Webster, took us for a sample flight on a hang glider – we were hooked. And we liked the idea of not having to pay for the plane ride. It was the very beginning of the sport, 1972. Bob quit his job and we started Flight Realities in San Diego, the first hang gliding school in the world…

Davide Sassudelli was leading the XContest at the end of the year, having racked up six 400km flights in Brazil in October. The Italian mountain guide logged 18 flights while towing, with the six best being 411km, 436km, 439km, 465km 479km and 483km. He was flying an Ozone Zeno 2. His consistency put him 175 points ahead of France’s Timo Leonetti who, despite his two headline-grabbing 500km flights, was sitting in second place. In the Women’s category Switzerland’s Serena Ronchi was in pole position, having racked up five flights between 300km and 416km in one week in October. She was flying an Ozone Photon (EN C). Brazil’s Elisa Eisenlohr (UP Meru) was in second, with flights from 205km to 368km. Several pilots, including France’s Clément Latour, headed to South Africa…

I’m Fatemeh Eftekhari, one of the most well-known pilots in Iran. I’m one of the owners of Xagros Clouds air sports club in Iran. I am an active XC and competition pilot. My best flight so far was 241km on a Skywalk Chili 5 in 2022. But my goal is to bring more ladies to the women’s sport community. I grew up in Isfahan in the nineties where my family has an automotive and steel manufacturing business. We also lived in Tehran for a while. One day we went climbing in the mountains north of the city and I saw an orange thing calmly floating in the sky high above my head. I was completely into it. Years later when I was 18, I came across an ad from a…

If you want something more photographic, Chamonix-based photographer Jake Holland has also produced a calendar this year. It focuses on paragliding in the mountains, from his Alpine backyard to the Greater Ranges. Jake’s work has been featured a lot in Cross Country this year, including in this issue – he was with Tom de Dorlodot and Horacio Llorens in Tanzania (see p46). Jake’s calendars cost €22 and are printed on demand locally in the USA and EU for easy shipping. jakeholland.co.uk/shop…

At 2.30am on the night of 19 June 2023, Gordon Boettger and his friend Bruce Campbell took off in a tricked-out, high-performance, self-launching sailplane. They launched out of Minden, Nevada into the night sky wearing heavy down suits and night vision goggles. Using a fully retractable jet engine they connected with wave after climbing just 1,100m. They then started flying laps up and down the Sierra Nevada mountains in the western US. By the time they landed, 17 hours and 25 minutes later, they had flown 3,058 kilometres via five turnpoints. Four and a half months later, on 5 November 2023, they launched at 9.03am and flew for 18 hours and 30 minutes landing in the dark at 3.30am. With an early sunset, most of this flight was flown at…

When you take your glider for its annual inspection this is a list of items you can expect your service centre to check: Fabric porosity which should be better than a limit set by the manufacturer. A porosimeter measures the amount of time it takes for a volume of air to go through the fabric. It is measured in seconds: the higher the number the better. Fabric tear resistance is measured by pushing a needle through the cloth and putting pressure on the needle sideways, as if to tear the fabric. To pass, the cloth should not tear up to at least 600g of force. Line strength is established by taking out one or more lines (usually a main inner A or B line, but sometimes a C-line as well)…

We’ve all seen the insanity called: Landing in Ölüdeniz. People in trees, in restaurants, crashing into each other, in trees again. I filmed so many that one of the trees was called “Tree de Théo” and eventually got cut down because it was way too popular with pilots. The piloting mistakes I see on a daily basis are so easy to avoid. So here are my top 10 tips to nail your landings every time. 1. Don’t look at the tree, otherwise you are going into the tree It’s the classic piece of advice and the one least followed by pilots. It’s not just for trees: it works well with rocks, cliffs, goats, pedestrians, cars… everything pilots love to crash into. When you look at something, you will fly right…

Ozone Zeolite 2 | Ozone Ozium 2 Syride Sys Nav XL and Garmin inReach Mini Horacio, what made you want to go back to Tanzania? It was in my memory for so many years. We only touched the surface of the place when we were there for just three days back in 2012. Back then we discovered this huge landscape. Flying near Ol Doyno Lengai, top-landing next to the crater, spending the night on top, meeting the Maasai people. It was such a memorable trip but as the rain was approaching, we had to keep on going south. Famously you spent a night out alone on the summit of the mountain last time. Can you briefly describe that adventure and what happened? The Maasai people have a huge connection with…

Pinning down Mathew Fides to talk is not easy, but once he found time between flights, and signal between travels, we were able to e-meet for the first time. With an uneasy smile behind his beard at first, it was clear Mathew felt awkward talking about himself, but only because he is an extremely humble pilot – despite his achievements. “I was hiking in Chamonix,” he said about the moment he discovered flying. “I didn’t know paragliding existed and I saw this guy running off the hill. Then I saw the parachute come up and I was like ‘that looks fun’,” he said. “A month later I enrolled in the course and qualified as a pilot at the end of 2018 through a BHPA [British] school in Spain.” Mathew, now…

Back in 2017 I reviewed the Epsilon 8 for Cross Country magazine (XC177). I expected solidity and predictability but not a great deal of enthusiasm or character. But I was really surprised at its playful nature, especially the way it turned. I also loved the Iota 2 – the high-B from Advance – and while I flew a 136km triangle on that wing, and loved it overall, the Iota was much more demanding. What I’ve learned is that Advance design their wings for certain pilot levels. The Epsilon DLS fits between the Alpha 7 (EN A) and the high-B Iota DLS. It is worth noting that the glider is also registered for paramotoring and can be fitted with paramotor risers, however we only flew the free-flight version. What’s new? Firstly,…