ponedeljek, 30. julij 2012

Flying for Simon festival

Such a great weekend spent in my home town. A group of very nice people organised an charity event in Tolmin where we where raising money for Simon a paraglider pilot who accidentally landed in the mine field last year. He was lucky to get out alive as the bomb exploded and he was left with out both legs. A strong persona as he is, made him go on with his life and is now raising funds to get a proper prosthesis for his legs so he can go on with his life in an easier way.

A huge group gathered to organise this event that was mostly held in Camp Gabrje from where every day, transportation was organised and pgs had their own competition while we hg pilots where there for fun flying with all the friends from both hg and pg world. Of course it was all spiced with nice concert on the Saturday evening.

Big congrats to Spela who was at her first comp and won the comp in women category. Great job by making the goal on her first task.

ponedeljek, 23. julij 2012

petek, 20. julij 2012

4th task Italia open

Yesterday we where back on the mountain above Gemona. They managed somehow to get an airspace to run the race even do we had listen to the fighter jets over our heads high all day. Even now at 7 am they have  a practice.

They set up a small 82 km task down to Cividale and out on the flats. Quite a hard one as there was not so much lift as there was two days before. A long leg out in the blue flats and back. I went away from the first group to take Cividale turn point and got back hoping for a nice thermal to get me over the stack. I managed and from there on the game was easier to play. Suan pulled out to the flats and got a thermal on the way. We rushed there and climbed a bit. I pulled out again and found another one just 1km before the turn point in blue sky. Flying back to the ridge I was with Suan, Manfred and Ploner. I choose to go more south to the ridge where we climbed before while others went straight to the ridge. I got a nice lift so from here on only me Manfred and Alex followed on the course.
The last kicking thermal we had I went a bit out to search for better lift where they passed me by 100m. Small mistake but enough to get me 6 minutes behind. I chose the ridge flying back while Alex and Manfred went straight out to the flat and got a better air.
As I saw no one behind I chose to get more height and make that goal. Strong wind valley just pushed me in to the goal so I could make it a lot faster but as there are rare landings around the landing, only river calls for an adventure.

Finally I sort it out a bit in this comp :)
Looks like today is the final day of the competition. Weather forecast is not so good, maybe something small. We will see.


četrtek, 19. julij 2012

3rd task Italia open

We had to go to Cercivento area to fly yesterday as it looked like that jet fighters wont care about Notam and will have their practice in these days right in our area. Really bad. I had a close encounter with an MX jet plane as it was making circles right when we flew cross the valley with a group of 5 pilots. I told Primoz we might get a thermal but as we got closer it went in to up and passed me in front by about 500 m. Interesting to see, but I did not felt quite safe. He saw us then and immediately left us. 
I expected some turbulence but it did not happened, I only smelled the kerosene from his exhaust.

So to the day. I rigged and found out my wing tip stick was missing and was waiting for me at the landing from the day before in Meduno. No flying for me yesterday. Since I did a huge mistake on the first day I already took the comp as a learning process and am just enjoying racing around and exploring the area. Good training for Turkey I would say, especially with every day briefing at 8:30 which is logical as we have to get many pilots quite far on to the mountains.


They set up a small task with big cylinders around the turn points. Cloud base was very low but it rised up for a normal day and a small task. Lots of pilots in goal. I was there as a kid that is not aloud to play in the kindergarten... Manfred won the day and is leading now with his proto wing. He is like machine in the air.
Suan was second on his home ridges and mountains.


Hope that today I can fly :D I retrieved the stick and am looking forward for another day in the air.

sreda, 18. julij 2012

2nd task Italia open

Nice triangle was set on take off, flying south on the small hills and then back to Meduno to the West with goal at Gemona. We where taking of late as we had jet fighters cruising over our heads with air space. So we took of a bit late for such a task. Most of the stack went down in Meduno with me as well. Manfred Roumer was the only one who made it in. I was with the first group all the way until we crossed the valley. I cam 200m lower and stayed there for quite long. Day died so flying over no landing area was quite a nerve play game.
Let is see what they have for us today

torek, 17. julij 2012

2nd day 1st task Italian open

They set up a nice 130 km task flying back to my valley to Slovenia and turning back to Gemona valley. The day looked great, high clouds, not too much wind from North and nice smooth strong thermals.
However I payed the price of having the knowledge of my home ridge which is usually a racing one, but not yesterday. I rushed low on the ridge while it was not working. North wind made the shade on the ridge and no wind just added up to equation that it did not worked as it usually does. Higher it was nice, big heights over the ridge and 50 km/h average to goal of Alex Ploner who was first before Primoz and Tom in third place.
I felt like a total beginner doing such a mistake but ok, lets go on and try to enjoy this new area. However this is the area with out landings, I got low and looked where to go, back to Italy or in to Slovenia to find the fields, I think I had no escape by being so low as I was. I found a nice spot a little bit outside and landed perfectly. Quite a nice field that I never saw before even do I flew over that many many times, but yes higher :)

Today looks like we will go North to Cercivento to fly Suans home yard. Looks like we might fly over to Austria. You can find our live tracking on the button top right to this page. Enjoy it :)

nedelja, 15. julij 2012

1st day of Italian open

I had quite an interesting evening, building up the caravan in rain but I managed to get the roof up and sleep in the dry place. In the night hailstone storms where coming trough so it was certain that today will be a no flying day.
Yesterday we had a long mandatory briefing where Suan explained all the specialities of the area. Everything looks well organised and I am really looking forward to see the progress of this comp. All the major names in European part of this sport are here so we are looking at a really strong comp.
The whole city is standing behind this projects with discounts everywhere for the pilots, you can see they are really trying to rise the name of Gemona to a sport city of Gemona.
When I woke up I went to the bar in the beautiful camping near the lake and found an old Moyes GT standing over the bar. It is actually build up like that that it holds the 5 shelf of alcohol with the speed bar on it. Pretty amazing set for the bar, definitely a kind of I would or maybe most of us would have :)

A bit of work today on computer and tomorrow a chance for the first race.

sobota, 14. julij 2012

Italian open, mandatory briefing

We have first mandatory briefing in rain here. Looks like no flying tomorrow but it looks very good for next days. It all looks well organised, we know Suan did hell of a job getting best pilots in Europe to fly this beautiful region. Let us see what comes out :)

--

Sent from my Nokia N9

sreda, 11. julij 2012

2nd task 92 km, Buzet


Sorry for lack of news from Buzet but I have to find Slovenian signal on take off to write blog from there. Nokia works perfect as a Wifi spot so I can have my own internet café in the middle of nowhere.
Yesterday they set up a bigger task with first turnpoint far out in Motovun, which was the hardest thing to make. Already on take off there was a struggle to get in to better position to fly over canyons towards Motovun. Airspace…. Hm… Don`t want to talk about that as it could turn around the scoring, but with 20 pilots here it is useless. In the end we where all together fighting from the same height, yesterday and the day before.

I landed at Motovun where I tried to climb the small Motovun hill and got in to a nice spin with my glider. Felt very easily to get it out and fun to do. I had to gave up scratching the hill as it was not making any progress.

Only Primoz made it around the course, and few where some 10 km close. We are still waiting for the scoring as they put it out yesterday but times where not set right not for the first day not for yesterday.

Today looks too windy for flying. We might get a ride down to the coast for some swimming. Lets hope tomorrow we get some more flying.

ponedeljek, 9. julij 2012

1. task Croatia open 76 km


We migrated to Croatia to have some decent flying this year after shitty one day races that we mostly had this year.

First day today we had a 76 km task with flying down the ridge, and then out in the flats. It was predicted that we will fly in the area with most development around Pazin but it all turned around today.
We took off and had a nice slow thermal up to the dark clouds above us. Slowly it all became a game to have the height, proper height for starting in the 1800m CTR where our first turn point was.
We found a nice spot right on the edge of cylinder where it was possible to stay at proper weight and play with the clouds. The race began and we where racing trough the strong thermals. Some had like 9 to 10 m/s today.

Easily back to the clouds that we had above take off where we had a strong thermal again. Uut from here was a race in to the blue. We where together with Balazs, Primoz and Franc. I raced a bit too much and got caught in Motovun valley. It took me quite some time to get back in to the game. I watched Primoz thermaling more in front so I knew that the game was not lost yet.
I flew alone all the way to the goal where only Franc was waiting for me. Very turbulent air to the goal, very turbulent landing. No one made it in after us.

We lost Frim on the way under the last cloud and it looks like he got sucked in and went up to 3500m where he deployed the chute. Don`t know much more what was happening but he and the glider is ok.

Quite crazy flying at some points but all manageable. Tomorrow, what we can say, Istria, we fly again.