Future pilots :)

I was kindly asked by a local kinder garden to come and show their group that is called dragons how does a real hang glider look like. They already build many small wind kites but the real thing was coming on this day.
Mostly they knew from where we take off and where we land but you could see the surprised eyes when they saw how big it is. I let everyone try to hang in the harness and feel like a real pilot. So many happy faces :)

First three

I dont need to tell who is who :)
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90 km task, Troffeo Carlo Zanchetin

Shorter task today, but more challenging. More flying over the flats. We where not able to stretch the task to the east due to giro di italia and helicopters. Gerolf won the day ahead of Tom and Alex. I am in first 15, I
hope I end up in first 10. This was a nice competition Rova family organised a nice two days of flying. Now slowly pack up and off we go to Slovenia.
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Photo of a first page results

We are having a nice dinner at the moment. Like always in Italy, food that is good already when you look at it. It looks like the goa cilinder was not in the center of the landing field so quite a lot pilots missed goal by a few meters. Always a hard lesson learned.
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A nice 113 km task

We had a nice weather all the way. Clouds did not overdeveloped so we had a nice lift all the way. Many pilots are coming to the goal now. First in goal was Alex, he seems really prepared this year. Second was Gerolf and third was Tom Weissenberger. I finished in top 10. Satisfying. For today :)
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113km task

we start with 113 km task, flying to the west where we flew from Bassano. no landing area and then back towards east and Aviano. Lots of nice wineyards everywhere. Alex is here, Gerolf Tom and so on. Let us hope that it doesnt come to overdevelopment. Lets race.
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First day, Troffeo Carlo Zachentin

First day of Troffeo Carlo Zachentin. Looks like around 30 pilots will be in the competition. Weather is predicted for a chance of overdevelopments but for now it looks ok. First briefing will be in an hour.

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Hang gliding and zero g gets published

Since there is a lot of media attention due to the Zero G experience with Nokia, we should not forget why it all happened. Because of hang gliding :)
The story went to the cover of free magazine that gets to more then 40000 homes and so we got a really nice cover of a magazine with a hang glider over Soca river.
For Slovenia, I can say that hang gliding sport is growing fast in last 1 year. 3 schools have produced more then 15 new pilots in last season and people are still asking for it (You need to know that there is 2.000.000 people in Slovenia) :) We won`t catch up with paraglider numbers but for those who see the elegance in that sport now they have a chance to do it. With new school gliders it is all much easier and under the right instructors also really safe.
Is it the media that caught the attention to more people? I would say so, but also the ability to ask people and find contacts trough the internet makes it easy for someone who is enthusiastic enough to find someone and start hang gliding.

This weekend we are off to TROFEO CARLO ZANCHETTIN. I will be blogging from there so you can get some news from this two day competition. I haven`t flown since Bassano due to my loss of batten on the last day there. I still feel good about it because I know that glider is prepared for the race and so is the pilot :)

Tomorrow I have a visit to a radio. More people will get to hear about what hang gliding is all about:)


Here is copy of the article published in Goriska magazine.

Video of Combat 13.5 GT

My computer needed a long health care to be able to produce movies again. I have been filming a lot while I had my first flights with new Combat 13.5 but was not able to publish them. Now I just tested the computer for video rendering and put together a small movie with flying in Nova Gorica in February. While most of Europe was still in snow we where already thermaling the spring air :)
Enjoy!

My wicked WoNdeRLaNd

I have a fortune to live in a place where camera can take so many beautiful shots of nature that is covering big part of Soca valley. I started this album some time a go on facebook and got good feedback from them so I thought I could share them with you all as well. Come on a journey to a wonderland with me :)