No in the season with no comps I am at home in Interlaken, earning some money working as a nurse at the local hospital. Taking care about some unlucky skiers…

Whenever I have time I am plying with my newest toy, the OZONE ultralite 19m2. It means a lot to me with almost no weight on the back to walk up the mountains and taking off on places maybe nobody has launched before

Here two impressions: sorry dont get the pics on the page at the moment… I try later again

Interlaken, Dezember’08

After spending some more time in Brazil, mainly at the beach, I finally had to go back home to reality. Well, reality does not look so bad. We are having some beautiful autumn weather, with colorful trees, yellow fields, amazing view to the mountains… In that setting I got to test the ultralight 16 and 19. I just love it! Hiking with no weight on the back, just pure joy!

Tomorrow I start working at the hospital in Interlaken again. So I don’t have so much time to fly anymore, therefore I have to enjoy every minute in the air even more.

I am not very successful in this comp, so I will write more about my experiences in Brazil besides the comp.

Unfortunately there is only one other Ozone pilot here. Rood from Holland. So there is not many ozone story to tell.

The weather here is quite interesting as I find. When we arrived it was quite cold, but now the temperatures are like I was imagining Brazil in spring. Clouds and some rain are coming and going, not really according to the weather forecast… But we flew a task now every day. We had thermals that did not seam to be depending on sun or no sun. Every day the seabreeze kicks in from south, so whenever we had tasks to the flats, they ended up in soaring on small hills, for some pilots sometimes for hours on the same hill..

So fare most of my outlandigs where a very special experience to me. Once I landed next to a school, where the kids and the teachers absolutely wanted me to com in and visit them. Even tow I don’t speak portugues I manged to talk to them a bit. The school looked very well organised. Today I landed unfortunately quite early, next to a farm with a little lake, palm treas, coffee fields, banana treas, bees and so on. The family was very happy to meet me, helped with packing, where curious about how the comp works. The man said, that he had to go to the bank anyway and gave me a lift back to castelo. That’s why I am home early and using the unfortunately to upload some photos, while nobody else is using the Internet.

I am very positive surprised how easy it is here to get a lift back to town. Yesterday a care stopped next to the field I landed on (1.5k short from goal…) and waited there until I was finished with packing. Later in the car he told me that he was a missionary.

Brazil never seams to sleep. People are out in the bars every night, and when it gets bright at 5 am, lots of people seam to be up again or still?

After a training day with lots of wind and not so nice flying, the conditions looked a lot better for the first task. Light winds, some clouds but still a lot of sun also. So a 50km task was set, passing the village castello, into a valley next to some quite high rocks. I had a good start and enjoyed flying a lot, since it was slow conditions and i could follow the lead gaggle almost easy. But the cloud started to spread out and towards goal it looked darker and darker. As we are flying not very high over ground, a mistake leads you to the ground quite fast. So I was not careful enough and after 19km in the shade before a pass I had to land. Later people reported level 3 because of rain and the task got stopped.

In the morning of the second day, the sky was fully cloudcovered, so that the organisation is not even sure that we go up at all. But we did. The sun came out a bit more and disappeared again. That’s how it will go on for the rest of the day. The wind should have changed to more south today. They set the almost same task as the day before. Today it was more difficult to find some lift after the start, but it was still possible to stay up. I got out in the air very late because of bad wind and a big mess on the take off, but in the weak conditions it did not mather so much. I kept up with a group an we flew quite fast to castelo, but there I got low and had to land in castelo. Many pilots landed between castelo and 20km. A small group made it almost to goal, so the task is valid. Since also very good pilots are landing early here, the ranking is mixing up a lot. Andy Aebi still keeps the lead, but behind it is changing every day and the point differences are small.

It is very nice to fly over the brazilian landscape and to be able to explore a small part of the country in that way.

Since the Internet is a bit slow it takes long time to upload photos, I will try again later.

The last PWC of the year 2008 is starting on Sunday 28. September in Castelo Brazil. Just yesterday I arrived here with a group of swiss pilots and Anders my boyfriend, who is norwegian. They journey was long, but well worth it. We arrived in Vitoria with nice, warm, but a bit cloudy weather. After a swim in the ocean we continued our travel towards Castelo in the inland. 

Waking up this morning it was totally overcast. As it did not look any better around lunchtime we decided to go for an exploring tour in the area instead of going flying. Brazil has a very nice countryside. They grow a lot of coffee, bananas, papayas, sugarcanes and of course lots of cows everywhere. People are very friendly here.

Tomorrow Saturday is inscription and training day. I am very much looking forward to fly here. 

I will try to keep my blog up to date next week, but more information can also be found under www.swissleague.ch and www.new.pwca.org

Day four: The sky is blue and some small clouds are starting to build. The day looks very promising. And since we are in Fiesch nobody cares much about the inversion which the emmagramm is showing. A task over 70km is set with a early deadline because of the prize giving. But as we all got in the air we find quite stable conditions. The first turn point is already very difficult for most of the pilots, because it is in a bowl and many people are too low to get close enough to the turnpoint. With some passion and a small detour to the next mountain I finally got the turnpoint and continued on the track. I knew if I wanted to be in goal before the deadline, I had to hurry. So I flew as fast as I could in these stable conditions. Gladly there was also a lot of free flyers around, so I got an idea where it will climb. The second waypoint was up in Goms and quite easy to take. Then we had to go to the same one as first time again before crossing the valley in Brig. I was sure that now the conditions would be better and the turnpoint easier to take. But I should be only right for the first few pilots. By the time I was there, nobody was able to make the cylinder. People where soaring there for a long time. The mountain I climbed up first time did not work any more either. So was that it? The time was going to stop in half an our anyway. But suddenly I saw some people going around the mountain, inside the valley towards the glacier. Yes, that’s it, the turnpoint must be reachable from the back! First I was a bit scared about the outflow of the glacier, but then realised that the whole ridge was in the luv side of the valley wind and not dangerous at all. It worked out very well and I was mad about me not have thought about that earlier! Then the time was running away, I just flew fast to the other side and almost reached the next, second last turnpoint on the other side of the valley. Then soaring up and free flying back to fiesch. Only 7 Pilots made it back to goal in time.

Soon after landing I found out, that de girls on second and third position did not take that third waypoint. Uf, would I get enough points more to overtake them? A medal would be very nice! After some nervous waiting for the results I was extremely happy to see it was enough! I made second place behind Anja Kroll. And on top of that I made best lady on the task today.

I went to the swisschampionships with the goal to get a medal. That it would not be gold, I was quite sure, because Anja is just flying too much better than me. So I am very happy to receive silver medal. 

Best Ozone Pilot was the german Rüdiger Gördes, 13. overall on his Mantra race.

Susanne, Interlaken 25.08.08

Today is cancelled. The sms comes before 8 in the morning saying: Clouds and then wind- the chance for a task is too small: NO TASK TODAY. Tomorrow looks good.

Susanne, Fiesch, 23.08.08

On day 1 we had nice sunny weather, but a strong looking inversion above 2000m. So the task was set quite easy and only over 60km. First up the valley in to Goms, then back to the take off and a bit further down towards Brig from there over the safety turn point in to goal in Fiesch. The thermals where not as week as expected, but in Goms we found quite a lot of wind. On the way to the turnpoint I got low at one time and realised, that going back against the wind will be very dificult. So I took my time, even though I was a bit late already, to thermal up and fly back as high and far in the big mountains as possible. So it was working quite well, but I was happy to be on my good M2 when I had to speed through the leeside behind every ridge that I had to go over. Once out of Goms, the rest of the task was easy and I was happy to get to goal.

The Task was won by Michael Sigel and Anja Kroll. I made forth lady.

Day 2. In the morning the sky was blue and it looked quite promising. But as we arrive at the take off, the clouds are building and high cirrus coming in. Soon the whole sky was totally covered. Optimistically we set a short task, but as the window opened nobody wanted to take off. The wind dummies where only bombing out. Soon the task got cancelled before anybody took off. Later in the afternoon it started to rain as it was forecasted.

For day 3 it looks bad, for day 4 much better again.

Susanne, Fiesch 22.08.08

Finnaly it looks like we are gonna get some tasks. After the planed swiss championships in Flims got cancelled two times because of the weather, we give it a third try in Fiesch this coming Thursday to Sunday. At least Thursday and Sunday look quite promising for having tasks. Friday and Saturday less good, but still small chances.

I am looking forward to competing again. Fiesch is a place I have flown quite a number of tasks before. Also my first flight over 100km, a task of 106km, I flew in Fiesch in 03. So I have very good memories about this place.

I will leave from Interlaken Wednesday evening to Fiesch. I will try to keep you on track about what’s happening. More information about the swiss champs can be found on www.swissleague.ch

Susanne, Interlaken 19.08.08.

Hello everybody!

Bloging is as new to me, as new this ozone-team-blog page is to you. So I will start to experiment a bit, to get to know my blog.

Susanne Wyss, Interlaken, Switzerland