Time flies

I found out this one in an old album. At that time I think I have already started with my first jumps but this was a good training facility straight in our living room :) Here I am together with my brother :D Time does go fast :)

Needless to say anything

I woke up with a wish of making a 100km in January but a quick look at weather report showed that it is not happening today. We went on take off, knowing that gradient is more like spring like and it should go high, but strong NW was predicted which brings a lot of turbulence.
Jellyfishes where already trying to catch their canopies when we rigged the gliders up.
Bomb up to 2200m, with some scary air in the beginning and after with fat thermal that was forcing me out to the sea. No long distances, but just freezing flight, for me it stopped at 2200m as I flew towards Gorica, Alan and Davide where up to 3000m crying for their fingers at landing :) Needless to say anything, who ever knows the area will understand all of it from the picture :D

January flying with a new toy

I got my present from GoPro, after a long battle with border authorities. It lasted for 1 month but in the end they won. It is so good when you get something for free and then they call you saying: "Hello, we estimate the value of the package to 1k € as we checked it on the internet." Nothing helped, no lies, no arguing :D
GoPro helped me out big time with it, they have one of the best customer service I have ever heard. If anyone had a problem with the camera, they where eager to help and solve the problem.

The other part of the story next to this video is of course January and some good flying for that time :) Looks like it stopped at autumn and we are dealing some times with some small bubbles next time we get a strong thermal that makes you feel like you are flying in spring time. The only thing that remembers you of deep winter are the Christmas lights on a drive back home trough the city.

Here is my first test of a GoPro hero2 with very fast edit, just to see how it handles. Does not look bad at all :D

Enjoy

How much luck can you get? (Skydiving N8)

After overall good time I had past months you would have expected

that it needs to turn around a bit one day. But not all on one weekend :)
I can say I had one of the most nerves breaking weekend as things went wrong one after another.

The forecast was good for flying for Saturday and Sunday, Regina came from Germany and many friends have shown the will to fly. I was really looking forward for flying but already on Saturday work came across my plans so I had to do the work in the morning and at 1 pm I was able t run out under a high cloud covered sky. Regina was at Kovk, I went to the nearest take off Lijak. Nothing showed any good signs of lift but I said I have to go in to the air otherwise why all the rush all day.
Rigged the glider fast, jumped in to the harness and took of. Nothing nothing, just a glide down close to the hill all the time. Last part I went out over some smoke, just to see if it is possible that fire underneath can make a beep in my vario. Well it did but just not enough for turns of course.
On landing I flared like always with Rs, normally with out any problems, but the mud on the landing made me slip a little so I was catched under the wire :) I had to go out of the harness just to start moving. Not a nice way to land in front of all the jellies :D
Parked the glider, had a laugh with Davide about my landing and started to look at my stuff and noticed an open zipper of my harness pocket!!! :S Nokia and my wallet :S
That really ruined all day to me. I de-rigged the glider very fast and went up to the take off as I presumed it fell off immediately as I took of flying low down the hill and then opened the glider. I called the phone which was still ringing.
My thought was for this day that I would open live tracking via www.livetrack24.com but as the day was so poor I had no intention to track my glide down. Well, it would be nice just to sit next to computer and look for the phone trough Google earth. Then another thing as well, I mostly film my flights, today I made a sequence for photos to 2sec. If I would film the flight, I could see it falling down and calculate the position of it. Well none of this was done...
I cam back to the take off which has a really nice drop after meters, so we tried to hear something while calling the phone but did not heard anything.
I went home to look at the pictures but I did not see it falling down at any of it. My guess was it must be at the beginning of the flight so I made turnpoints on my GPS with an idea to walk the track next morning.

Next morning I went up very early so I could catch the flying later. I started to walk down the track trough the bush and high gaps which I am not happy with :) Lots of pilots are afraid of big drops, but we are able to fly thousands of meters in the air :)
Dears, rabbits, you name it, everything was there just the sound of The naked and famous was missing. The ring I have on my phone that is thankfully really loud.

After some km of walking and almost climbing, I realised I am losing the game. The last part was made over the rocks and quite high so my guess was phone can not survive 50 m drop down to the rocks or grass field.

I came to the landing, with out any hope of finding my Nokia and all of my documents. I borrowed a phone from my room mate so I had to return it, but my car was on take off. I borrowed a car from one friend at the landing who had his students flying down and needed the car soon to retrieve them up. I was in a rush, too big rush. Just as I thought ok, if cops get me on the radar I am f... up. Nice long street where you easily go 20 km/h more then you should. Sun was shining straight at my face while I got to see someone waving in the middle of the street. Yes, police....
First thing I said to them I have no documents, no driving licence, no i.d. :D Yes, police man said, but you where too fast :/ As he had an excuse to write a bill he forgot about the documents and I drive further happy man with a 300€ bill.

We went on to fly which was, well, winter like. After all bad things I was happy to land and have a glider in one piece. My head was just not right for this bubble flying.

It is amazing how you see things missing after you loose it and not thinking of it before when you have it. I retrieve Luciano to the take off and saw one of the nicest sunsets from the ramp. Sun is so low now that it dives in to the sea and as the sky was so clear it dived to Venice area. You see, you could see that, if only I would have N8 with me! :D

I cam home at 5 pm when I opened facebook, my only connection to anyone while not having a phone. I open my computer where my brother is sending me a text with, one guy called, he found your wallet, call him!
1 in a million chances that someone just walking could found my wallet. I called the guy and found his son, he said they went on the internet and found me :) Called home and whola, I got my documents back.
Of course the idea was that maybe phone fell out at the same time. That was a place over one village whit vineyards around. He said they will left it in the bar where we used to go after the flying for a good pizza.
I called for some nice help to search the phone in the dark. I came to the bar where woman showed me the guy who found it, by some coincidence he was there at this time. He was very kind and offered me to show where he found the wallet. We went up the hill where we got to a nice open grass field and started calling my phone which was still ringing. Two pairs of better ears then mine heard it little bit more down. After few steps I heard it too and could not believe that I actually will get it back after 2 days. It lay behind one small house on flat with out a scratch. It fell down 50 m for sure and survived with out a scratch. Unbelievable!
I offered the guy all the money I had in my wallet but he was to kind to take it. Well, next time he comes for a beer in that bar, he has a credit there, prepared already ;)

How much luck is it needed that you find a phone and a wallet on like 20 km2 ? I am afraid to calculate. I will pay the speed ticket if this was a counter weight to all of this :D

Phiuuuuuu :)

1st day of the year

I spent it at home in Tolmin. As I had all of my gear in Gorica I steal the jelly from Nena and went for a jump down from Kobala killing a bit of hangover in my head :)