I just received a new helmet and a pair of ski goggles from Swedish company POC Sports. The products were supplied by swiss distributor Airtool. Thanks a lot!
POC Sports specializes in ski helmets and protective gear. In their own words they aim to “do everything we can to possibly save lives and to reduce consequences of accidents, for gravity sports athletes, by developing and renewing what personal protection is all about”.
They have a cool website so check out their products using the link above.

I am exited to see how their products do with airsports. The helmet I could already use today while tandemflying. The goggles have to wait until next time I go speedflying.

My blogs file uploader is still not working so the pictures are here

The last week Interlaken has been covered in a thick layer of fog. No sun and not possible to fly. So what better to do than going on cool ski-touring trips with friends. If you don’t mind walking a bit there is great untouched powdersnow to be found…

At the moment unable to upload photos, until I find out why you can view them here:

Photos Wildgärst

Final results (PDF)

Results link

A long title but the results are now final. A big thanks to the organisation for an amazing job during this week. We all had a great time. The final results are now online (see links above):

1. Xevi Bonet, Spain

2. Anders Baerheim, Norway

3. Jean-Marc Malhonda, FRA

Female

1. Regula Strasser, Switzerland

Edit: The results are out, unofficial yet so stay tuned.

Today we woke up to rain and nobody believed we would be flying at all today. However it cleared and the flying conditions became nice. Then as we were on the way to the fifth waypoint it rained so much we had to turn around. The task stopped after 29 min. of flying, but will be scored. There is a lot of confusion about the results from Task 1, and somebody has even made a protest. That meas we have to wait until tonight with seeing the overall results.

As today looked a bit better than yesterday, but not great, we waited until 11.30 before going up. The prediction was 50/50 as the winds on the other side were still 20knots. However it was the rain which stopped us today. A few pilots managed to get off early, and shortly after us cloudbase came down and nobody could take off until 10-15 minutes had passed. That meant we could play with the cloudbase, find weak lift, and then wingovering down when we got too close to the clouds. A little later it started to rain, only a local drizzle, but over a quite large area. At first it seemed to be stopping, but then it kept raining so they cancelled the task 15 minutes before that start.  Later after mayny pilots landed it cleared, the flying conditions became nice and smooth, and it probably would have been possible to fly the task. Shame, but the weather is hard to predict…

Todays was cancelled at 13.15pm due to strong winds. People driving 1h South of here reported gusts of more than 70km/h. Here are some more photos from yesterday.

Another nice and sunny day here in Puerto Naos. Already from the morning we could the North wind which was stronger than the other days, but according to local weather expert Roger Frey the conditions looked good. The organsation is getting even better and we were a bit earlier launch today than yesterday. On launch we were given a task of 27km. The goal was to do as many rounds as possible within 2.5h. Despite the strong winds the flying conditions were really nice at the beginning of the task. However as we approached the 3. turnpoint the North wind came in and made it really turbulent and dangerous at certain spots. I was almost being sucked into a convergence like cloud and had to fly far out over the see to find sink….quite interesting. That meant that the task was stopped after around 40 mins. of flying. If today is scored we will see later, but we have all given our gps’s for download. Now we just had a nice swim in the ocean (only 21. degrees) and later the organisation are hosting a Pealla party for us. Life is good.

We are testing a live tracking system developed by some Italians. The Top 13 pilots are flying with a special tracking device. Follow the flights here:

Live tracking

Again we woke up to a beautiful sunny sky and warm weather. We had a detailed briefing in the morning, and the organisation once again proved their proffesionality. On the landing we were met by an armada of rescue vehicles, boates, the Baywatch team and a helicopter. Our safety is being well taken care of. We had a nice task yesterday, Desafio style. The task was made up of 5 turnpoints where the goal was to make as many rounds as possible within a 2h window. The task was stopped at exactly 2h flying due to a rescue situation. As far as I have hard only minor injuries. At the time of stopping I was in 4. position. Best female was Regula Strasser from Switzerland. At the moment it is nice and sunny today but they are forecasting rain later in the day.
Competition website

More photos of the Swift. Take-off is Schilthorn (2.970m). Pilot Susanne Wyss.

Was lucky and had the opportunity to try the new Swift a couple of weeks ago. What a nice glider, I want one… I flew the XS size and it felt like a fun acrowing, would probably have the S size for myself. Did a 3h hike with it and flew back down to Interlaken. Here are some pictures. The Ultralight in the background is my girlfriend Susanne, with Eiger showing itself through the clouds.