Buzzing the paragliding comp

Here you can see how it looks like when a hang glider pilot comes to the top where there is paragliding comp. Lots of interest in material, almost too much some times with touching and twisting :)
Kobala has some shade but for some time the best view to the valley was from my glider so jelly fish pilots soon sarcasticly said that there is actually a use of a glider :)
Well I flew with top guns yesterday in the air and was amased by the glides that those new Mantras,Bommies and Peakies are getting, ok speed is our side of story. They will need to make not two liners but wirelles paras to concure the side of the speed. Speaking to the pilots you realise that top gliders are flown only by top pilots, where I see a bit of difference here with hang gliding. Ussualy if you fly an intermidiate glider for so much time that you have some experience then you have no problem to fly a top wing. Here at paragliding comp you get the felling that not many pilots are willing to fly the true competiton wing (Open class). Even if they have lots of experiences. The stair between intermidiate and comp wings is smaller in our sport then in paragliding. At hang gliding competition I can glide with Alex, Primoz or Gerolf but in paragliding if you are not in some way conected to some factory then you are likely out of the game due to the equipment problems. Well Mantras made it a bit different this year.

End of Kobala open 2010

So it ended up, with three valid tasks. The weather this year was not on the side of the competition as we had to fly in strong east wind conditions. The overall winners where from 1st to 3th with Primoz Gricar on top, Franc Peternel on 2nd followed by Peter Kejzar. You even didn`t need to make a goal any day to be 5th overall, this tells the story of conditions we where in. My flying.... Phhhh, like sh.... I have to do something radical to change my flying here in my home valley :) The curse of home flying goes on, so lets hope for next year.

It was nice to see all friends again, some of them sadly went before the weather became better but timing with work is usually a big issue for most of us.

Now I will try to catch some of them in Greifenburg if weather goes as predicted. Maybe I get to fly Gerolfs Litespeed as I would like to see what else is in the hands of other best pilots in the world. It is going to be interesting for a pilot that likes the tail, to fly something different. We will see.

Here is a photo album from Kobala open that you might enjoy

Third day of Kobala open 2010

The forecast from yesterday was totally wrong for today. I woke up in to the rain. The forecast sure looks good for tomorrow again but I wont say anything as you can not trust late forecasts that are made on the internet and TV.

The meteorologists where speaking about the mistaken forecast today even on the radio.
Well we hope for the best tomorrow.
Here is a video that I made to feel a bit of what the flying is like in our valley on good days. Sure we are missing a lot right now…

1. task stopped

The "organisers" :) stopped the task today after having low cloudbase and in the end rain at second turnpotint. We are strugelling for two days now to make a good day but since now the weather didn`t cooperate.
No one is not in the worries as the weather is predicted to be every day better and better. Tommorow I look for a first task in the valley of Soca.
Here is a picture of Julia having fun at the take off today

Kobala open 2010

Yet again, we are counting down the days to another, now almost traditional already, Slovenian open.

This time there is many more competitors signed in so we might expect around 60 to 70 pilots this year. We will have an honour to have here also a new European champion Gerolf, we will see how much will we have to speak about him :)
Then there might be Alex Ploner coming the world champion and many many other good pilots. We just hope for a good weather.

The official site can be find at http://hg.sffa.org/open2010/
Official blog where we will try to inform you all as much about the comp, can be found at http://slovenianopen.blogspot.com/

Monte Cucco 2010 (the video)

This time, no competition, just playing on top. Thanks to Wolfi and Laurent for taking my camera with them and making the video even a bit more interesting. Speakers loud!

My playground (Monte Cucco) 2010 from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

Playground garden (Monte Cucco)

So we arrived, with two of my ex-students to Monte Cucco, the site where pre - rolds are going on right now. It was nice to see many familiar faces again after Ager :) Really a long time :)
We came at 5pm when many pilots where in goal already, but the sky looked like it was worth a try already today. I will play a tourist this time with my camera and try to make something good out of it. Cucco is the perfect place for that, land and change the angle of the camera and fly again. Where is Malibu? :)