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)

Jellyfish flying and testing the HD GoPro

The weather is soooo sh.... here. I got a chance to get in the air when my roommate borowed me his paraglider so I finnaly got the chance to test the HD GoPro in the air. I am amased about it, so small with a realy good quality and wide view. It was funny to be in the air with a praglider after 2 years but it was a nice glide down with Avax XC2. Here is a video of jellyfish flying :) Can`t wait to get my GoPro in the air with a hang glider.

It`s christmas time :)

Both me and Nena we wish you all a merry christmas and happy new year. Let it be full of personal victories, love all around and smile on every corner :)

Here is an e-card for that we made for you all :)

AEROS WINTER RACE 2009 (24th to 28th of February)

AEROS is proud to present first FAI 2 hang gliding competition in Europe in 2010. The site of Ajdovscina and Kovk (Slovenia) starting place has been choosen for its unique flying conditions where it is possible to race the ridge and flats already at this time of year.




So all the pilots willing to strecth their wings as soon as possible in the season YOU are all welcome to make the competition as best as it can. The Kobala open 2009 organisers will be in position to make your tasks as long, as safe and technical to compromise wintery muscles :) Party included of course.

AEROS is here to award the best pilots with great prices:

1st price: 1000 EUR cash or credit note for 30% discount when ordering a new Combat

2nd price: 500 EUR cash or credit note for new Viper S harness

3rd price: 300 EUR cash or tailplane

4th-10th place: small prices

AEROS will have in this period of time also DEMO days so the gliders will be available to test fly.

HOME PAGE of the competition is coming soon on

http://hg.sffa.org/aeros_wr/

You can find the FACEBOOK event HERE

The area is well known for its early good conditions for flying you can find some flights from that period of time

FLIGHT 1
FLIGHT 2
FLIGHT 3
FLIGHT 4
FLIGHT 5

Deep in the autumn

Well we are deeply in to the autumn here already and the weather is total sh.... I had three flights since the beginning of october and now the town is in fog for already 14 days. Realy waiting for some rain and some sun afterwards. In the mean time I spent some days in Spain to see Nena who is there as erasmus student, seems like I brought bad weather with me from Slovenia as it was raining almost every day but still we had a great time there. This week Regina, Primoz, Tim, Ute and a lot of other German pilots came to fly here but got in to this foghy air so unfortunately they had small flights but it was realy nice to see them again after a long time.


I can now officialy say that next year the SLOVENIAN OPEN will be held again in Tolmin on almost the same dates as last year, so you`re all invited to strecth your comp wings for the last time in inland Europe in the season. Hm, seems like we are able to make also the first one in Europe as we have a very good ridge to fly REALY early in the year. Maybe but maybe Bassano won`t be the first competition in the season anymore :)

As you were able to see YOUTUBE has cut down the music in many of my videos, which is understandable by the copyrights but it is not nice to see just the picture of the video so I will be soon puting the videos to vimeo and maybe they will loosen a bit on this issue.

Last week we also had season price giving of our Free flying association where in the hang gliding category overall the price went of course to our best pilot Primoz Gricar. For OLC the first price went to Stanislav Galovec and for national league to Franc Peternel. I got a nice trophy for third place in national league. Seems like we finnaly managed the sistem that works good for getting the team members for next season. We all agred on it and the sistem works good, for now. I am in a bad 6th position so Ager is in big question. I hope they will allow six pilots for nation but untill they don`t publish local regulations for the comp I won`t know.

Yesterday our 4 students Polona, Marko, Vasja and Severin made a theoretical part of getting the licence so soon after 2 years they will be pushed out of nests. Congrats!