Back to winter

I was finally able to put sight on my wing also here in Europe. After paying a huge bill to Schenkel company I was able to retrieve a box that was really badly curved on a cargo plate. Guy drove the box out with a truck holding it with only one pin. My hart was racing when I was looking at that. I opened the box and went trough a fast inspection of everything. Short packing at Moyes was made very good so everything has stayed intact even if it looked like everything is smashed inside. Close inspection showed few words written on the box inside which where from Ashanta who helped to get my glider in the box. Made me smile :)

Tolmin on a walk one day

I was eager to get in to the air as some of the pg pilots where doing 100km ridge runs here already. Rigged my glider and inspect the settings which I had to change quite a lot. Battens had to be turned at least 2 revolutions to get the same tension on the wing, some even three. The glider was rigged, sky was totally grey but I went to give it a try just to see that glider is o.k. and it is prepared for big air.

Glider was just as easy as in Australia, I was with out Compeo, just with a small beeper I integrated in to my helmet. After some back wind on take off I was very careful as it was my first real foot take off with this glider. Stanwell has a stair to step on to and this step is air ;) 

I got easily of the hill straight in to a thermal with another pg pilot who then told me got 7 m/s up at some point. So, confident on the glider also in Euro air, I had no doubt about it, just wanted to feel it asap.

Next day was Sunday which showed good potential for a nice day. We where late on take off as rest of our Turkey national team Stanko and Franc arrived late. We went on the ramp which was still with 5 cm of snow but after cleaning a bit it was dry in less than an hour. Kovk take off must have looots of snow now, so Winter race will have a true winterly background :)

We flew only locally but had a really nice view of snow fall around us, clear sky but huge cumulus clouds that had snow falling down bellow. Amazing, but really cold. I took water with me but the tube was frozen after 5 minutes in the air. I had a hole in my gloves but covered it with finger. 1.5h of really pleasured flying, really nice to fly with company Davide and his student Christian who is flying like a boss with his 6th flight.

I think you will be able to get the feeling of flying trough this video I made and which was represented as a GoPro video of the day as well.

Just day after another font came trough bringing lots of snow. Looks like it will be a long winter but I am glad I am here so close to the sea that just in few day of sun we will have conditions to fly again. Cold but, flyable ;)