Training day?

Was this a training day? We flew so nice in hidden corner of Lijak where "Burja" wind could not catch us. The air was steady so we were all buzzing the ridge several times. Those who didn`t flew this year were able to test their equipment and their arms. I was testing the first one, Primoz land me his 09 Combat with a tail. All I can say is poetry. Flies realy nice, handles perfect and you feel confident on glide. So handling realy soft but still stiff in all bumps you get on the course, I will curtenly like this glider. The weather for tommorow looks great.

First day of Winter race (Wanna surf?)

We have epic strong wind here in Vipava valley today with gusts to 160 km/h. So guess what, the task has been cancelled due to a bit too strong back wind on the start :)

Forecast is looking good for Friday and on, maybe we fly even tommorow but we will see.

Just to have a touch of what is going on right here



Official blog of the comp HERE

7 more days to a start of the comp season

Here it is already starting to fell like spring. Of course more then it warms up, more we look up to the sky after long winter. In 7 days we start with Aeros winter race and for now it looks quite good with weather so I hope for a good race. On saturday we will warm up with Slovenian league so we see if we are still able to adjust the instruments after a long time :)
Feels good to be back on the track with competitions and flying. I will fly with a tail this time in this comp so comparison will be written here also. I hope to get an interview with Oleg Bondarchuk and Primoz Gricar about this "new" design.
Here is a picture taken from the video of flight last week. It was actualy made in time when Aeros winter race should be but it was resceduled. Well the weather was nice for flying but I belive that squezing the task on that kind of day would be realy hard.

So the gear is prepared, we only wait for the 10th of March to start for real.

So what are we up to in the comp future

Here is a video from XC MAG youtube channel. Dennis Pagen has been interviued about the changes in the future that where discused at CIVL plenary.

Here is the video



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms1xbvSjAgk&

Every word every picture counts

Last year my student Polona got to know me with a journalist Sonja, one of few journalist who are not afraid to speak about sports that are not so much covered in public. We hooked up for an interview to explain a little bit about our hang gliding sport and my personal approach to it. Well we made few small mistakes that only flying people will noticed but in the end it is a good one page story about our sport. I think each and everyone in hang gliding should try as much as he or she can, to spread the word out about beautines that we experience during xc flights, comp flying or just hanging out with fellow pilots. Here is the big version of picture from the Sunday newspaper.

Slovenia has 4 new pilots

After long 2 years, yesterday our students made it to the last and practical flight to show their skills to comission for pilot licences.
We went to Kovk starting place which was covered in ice, we had to cut the path to start normally but gentle breezze took everyone to the sky with out any problems.
So we have, 4 new pilots and more are aproching on west and east side of Slovenia. I have to say that I feel that hang gliding is slowly regaining new pilots and more and more people are starting to fly with hang glider. It is also nice to see many new young people at the competitions, but, maybe it is just me getting older :)

January poetry

I have to be one lucky guy. While whole Europe is in snow and in Australia they have problems with weather I have here 15 minutes from home a true spring conditions with 5 m/s thermals. It is the area of AEROS winter race competition. Last three days I spent in the air and it feels realy good to have muscle reactions in the same place as they were in the middle of the season last year.
Yesterday we had a nice flight together with Lupo (the Hazard designer, maybe some pilots remember this glider) and Davide the leading guy of alpeadria flights(www.alpeadriaflights.net). We flew the 40 km ridge and enjoyed the views of snow in the Alps and on the top of the ridge.
In this three days I was also able to test my HD GoPro. I bought a retractable stick for 10 EUR, a gardening stick :) Mounted it on the base bar with elastic rope and "wola" great pictures and videos are here. Many questions were how to edit the HD videos. I found Pinnacle studio pro 14 to be good but of course quite slow. Paitence needs to be part of editing this videos untill we don`t get super computers in our hands :)

Here is a touch of the area where we will fly soon on AEROS winter race (note the ramp start is not on the list of starts in the comp)