Finally after all the waiting in the rain we could fly today. Nobody really believed in a task but after lots of waiting we could take off at 1540 with a 36km race to goal starting at 1620. Great conditions and really easy flying. I was leading most of the race with my friend and now Ozone pilot Ronny Helgesen. It was a very fast race with people coming fast from behind. In the end we didn’t win but came in in 4. and 6. position with a time of around 56 minutes for the 36km.

A big congratulations to my girlfriend Susanne Wyss. On her Ozone Mantra 3, she was first lady in goal, first serial class glider and in overall 16. position. Amazing flying.

Results

We still haven’t had any task here in Slovenia. Yesterday we went up to launch but had to drive back down again before 12.00 due to rain and clouds. Today was cancelled already yesterday evening so the weather is really not kind to us.

However I have managed to use my Ultralight wing more than my competition wing here. Yesterday I did a small trip on my own and flew down from a local hill behind the hotel. This morning the weather was quite ok so I went hiking with Greg Babush from the US. Thanks to my girlfriend Susanne for letting Greg borrowing her Ultralight 19 (he almost wouldn’t give it back).

Below is a nice picture I took of Greg flying out. We just managed to land and pack before the rain came. Perfect timing.

All Scandinavian pilots and a bunch of pilots from the US, France, Serbia etc. are now gathered in Preddvor, Slovenia. The comp is hosted by Mads Syndergard with the help of Gasper Prevc as meedirector. The surroundings are beautiful with a mix of mountains and green grassy hills. The headquarters is at the local Hotel Bor which is surrounded by a nice lake with beautiful hiking paths all around.

Unfortunately we are not so lucky with the humid weather creating big thunderstorms earlier or later every day. Today, Sunday was supposed to have been the first task. In fact we tried to fly a 60k task, but after 15km or so flying it was cancelled. It should have been stopped, but some confusion regarding stopping and cancelling meant that the task finally was not scored. For tomorrow I hope we all vote in favour of the new rule saying we can score a stopped task even though nobody is in goal. Not doing this would be wrong and dangerous as we will push pilots into goal before stopping.

Todays pics:

So we ended up with two mediocre elapsed time tasks. On Sunday we ended up waiting on launch until the last possible start time to fly the 40km task.It turned into a more or less gliding competition where the furthest made 16km to get 82 points for the task…The overall points is then not enough for a valid swiss championships (800 points needed). However it looks like we will try again in August in Fiesch to have a valid Champion for 2009.

Here is a nice photo of myself on my Mantra R09 taken by Martin Scheel www.azoom.ch

Finally a chance to write about whats happening here in Flims. In fact, not much. It started with the first day being cancelled before we even left from home. The organisers even contemplated cancelling the whole event, but in the end we ended up going anyway despite somewhat unpromising weather forecasts. Yesterday we had the first task in somewhat limit conditions. It was strong North wind making the whole ridge in lee. We went up in the morning to find the takeoff (2.675 msl) with strong winds from the back. After lots of waiting we ended up walking down 20-30mins with our heavy backpacks to a place a bit more “protected” from the wind. Not easy takeoff conditions and not easy flying either. It was set a 40km Elapsed Time task. When I took off I realised I had a knot in my lines (too steep takeoff to abort) so I ended up landing again to sort it out. In fact I had to topland 2 times to sort the knot out, the first attempt a but hard so my back is a bit soar today. Anyway I wanted to start late to try and fly fast. Plan didn’t really work as the thermals got weaker and the North wind kept flushing us down. I thus missed the 2. last turnpoint wih 500m and went and landed because we were out of time for the task. Some of the guys in the second startgate, including Alex Hofer on his X-alps gear, flew really fast. In fact faster than the nominal time of 1.5h so the winner (Stefan Morgenthaler) got only 650 points.

Today was cancelled due to rain and thunderstorms coming. The forecast for tomorrow looks slim and for Sunday we don’t know yet so the chances for a valid championship is getting slim.

No photos from me yet, but Martin Scheel has taken lots. Photos Swiss Champs

On Wednesday 24. June is the start of the Swiss Championships 2009. It will be held in the beautiful area of Flims in Switzerland. At the moment the weather looks good so hopefully we get some nice tasks in wonderful alpine scenery.

You can follow my flights on the SPOT livetracking

Swiss Championships 09

…no I am not doing the x-alps. But some of my friends are and sometimes they drag me along on their training sessions. Thanks for keeping me fit guys! The other day I went with Chrigel Maurer and his supporter Thomas Theurillat. We started walking at 06.30 am with the valley completely covered in morning fog. By time we got to launch the sun was burning wholes in the fog and we could fly down in beautiful morning conditions. I spent the rest of the day flying tandems, Chrigel an Thomas continued walking. Check out some of the photos taken by Thomas Theurillat.

Russel just made it to the top of the PWC round in Turkey. Congratulations my friend. Great job.

Results

Just found a nice photo of myself from Korea. The picture is taken by Jeff Wishnie from the US. Check out his Blog

I have now added some more photos from the PWC in Korea. 

Even more pictures from Korea