German freezing Open at Tegelberg

This is what Tegelberg looks like tonight. Lots of rain and snow today, no task. For tomorrow the forecast is positive that we will fly, but it will definitely look like a week ago on Rauschberg when I sat up the Moyes RX3 in the snow. At least after landing it was nice and warm like summer last week and I met the legends of our XC cup, Peter Waldmann and Markus Ebenfeld. Peter is leading the DHV XC at the moment which is a remarkable achievement. Many years ago he had a severe accident, but he is able to walk and fly hang gliders again. He flies with huge wheels as he can´t land on his legs, but despite the wheels he flew huge FAI triangles last week and is now the XC Nr 1 in Germany - congratulations!
Meanwhile I have put a new sail on my Litespeed 3,5 s. Quite a lot of work to fit the stickers, but I like the result!
For the German Open, it looks like we will fly a task tomorrow and on Saturday, maybe not on Friday. The weather is difficult to predict at the moment. I just hope it warms up soon, it will be below 0 this night...

Rain on course, day cancelled

Today the clouds keep growing and we see a lot of showers on course. At the task briefing, the organizer Manfred Vaupel excused that he had not explained the early start correctly- he didn´t know that there was the "Jump the gun - factor" in the Gap edition he used until he saw that I got bombout points for nearly having made goal. At the briefing, he only mentioned that there would not be leading points or time points, and I thought if nobody gets to goal, just the distance counts anyway... So I left 40 minutes early, made the course before the weather shut down, an hour before Suan and Matjaz came to goal (but the day had already been stopped before even I made goal). Would have been nice to win the last day of Hessische.
A short task to Irschen, Gerlamoos, Castle Stein and goal, 60 km, was set, but then cancelled as the clouds kept growing and there are constantly some showers on course, the forecast is for storms later this afternoon. Tomorrow the wind is predicted to pick up a lot again, so they decided to do the awards already tonight.
Markus Ebenfeld ranks 1st, Matjaz finished 2nd and Suan Selenati 3rd. In rigid class, Tim Grabowski won, and I won the female ranking. Photos from the awards late tonight.
Sasha Serebrennikova, a new good pilot from Russia, testflew the RX3 today - and I think she fell in love with it ;) She is even smaller than me and is very light, but she had a fantastic take off and really liked the handling in the air. You don´t have to move to do a turn, just to think "turn" and the glider does it. If you are a light pilot interested in a test flight with the RX3, please contact me, Im happy to help you if the weather is nice next week somewhere in the alps!

From hero to zero!

Looks like I completely misunderstood our organizer when he explained in the briefing that if we start before the race starts, we would just not get leading points and time points. I thought I can live with that and happily left 40 minutes early today, as I expected the day to shut down fast (which was right). WRONG - sure the "jump the gun -factor" is used as well... so I basically just got bombout points instead of having won the day today by being first in goal. Oh well, I flew all on my own, the whole course, good training, fun thermals, guess I can live with not winning the Hessenmeisterschaft this year ;) but for a moment, I was disappointed that all my good decisions and skills were not rewarded, but punished.
Hopefully we will have another taskable day tomorrow. I want to get at least one day right in this comp!

Task 3: 92km around 3 tp

A lot of ESE-wind made our day difficult today. Air pressure dropped again, it got colder and more unstable - I thought we might see storms early today. In the air, Regina and I decided not to wait for the 1pm start, but to take a risk to loose leading points and time points, but to make it home safe.
The air was unpleasantly turbulent in some places, and Regina dropped out after the first tp at Höfer Alm. I went the conservative way, all on my own, down the ridge to Radlberger Alm not to end up in a lee side with this wind that showed up to 28km/h.
Second turnpoint - difficult to get up again, because the valley wind reaches very high up. Eventually I made it to base, crossed back into the Drau valley, then on to the last tp in Gailtal. Regina gave me good information about wind and weather situation at goal, and I could see the cloud tops. It looked still safe, so I decided to fly back to goal. Landing conditions were really nice when I got to the Thaler field, but it was good to have my father and Regina helping me with pack up. An hour later, just past 4pm, the first lightening and storms started around Greifenburg.
I don´t know how they will score today, will be interesting. I saw Tim racing into goal maybe half an hour after I did, and also Matjaz seems to have gone around the course.
For tomorrow weather conditions look similar, maybe even windier.

Time for racing!

 Today was a difficult day for the task setters. With the prospects of clustering thunderstorms and the possibility of showers in the early afternoon, they set a short 62km task.
A lot of shade and not much lift in the known areas forced me to forget about plan A - leave early, fly fast, get to goal - and made me invent plan B - land fast, pack up fast, race up the mountain again and prove that I learnt something from watching Sebastian Vettel´s Grand Prix. It was impossible to stop my father from complaining - he wanted to get out of the car, even more when I turned on the music so I didnt have to hear his complaints ;) At least Regina was happy, she got a reflight too.
Not many others in the air, less wind and less and less rain, so it felt quite smooth. I went around all turnpoints on my own, even saw a rainbow in the air (hey, they are round!), and made goal. Only 5 people made goal today, but as they stopped the time at 15.30 because of the uncertain weather conditions, and I made goal at 16.29, of course not even half my distance counted for the scores. It was a fantastic flight though and Im getting more and more confident landing in nil wind or changing wind directions. Great training! Also good to see that it sometimes pays off to never give up and always try, always fly, even if it means to "just" fly ;)
Jörg Bajewski won the day which will push him a great deal up the list, while Suan and yesterday´s winner Achim did not make goal. I guess Markus Ebenfeld is in the lead now. And Tim Grabowski, after having won task 2 as well, is still leading the field of 12 rigid wing pilots. 
Similar conditions are predicted for tomorrow, I guess we might aim for a short 60km flight to goal at Villach to get out of the cb zone.

It was still quite a decent wind from the south, I measured up to 30 km/h in the west at Hoefer Alm, our first turnpoint. I know Davis does not like these conditions where you get quite a good work out in thermals (and outside)...

Even though the clouds built up and it started raining here and there, some pilots made it in. Base was high, around 2700m, you just had to get there. Climbs were sometimes really strong, sometimes very slow when you got low.

Wind direction in the valley changed around from west to south to east during the day.

I was getting low on my way to the 2nd turnpoint at Kleblach/Lind bridge, but with this small glider, it was a lot of fun to scratch the tree tops ;) eventually, I climbed out again, while two other guys didnt quite make it. I was too late though, it started raining again, and I landed a few km short of Greifenburg, without the last turnpoint.

The guys did a good job with task setting, keeping us in this valley so they could cancel in case the overdevelopment got too strong.

Tomorrow it looks like a similar day, maybe even more unstable.

By the way, congratulations to Scott Barrett for having won the Dalby meet in Australia, and to Kathryn for having won the women´s comp - and there were a lot of women competing up there!
Also felicitaciones to Pedro Garcia for having won the Flytec race and rally in flex class, Françoise Dieuzede as 1st women and Oli Gregory in rigid class! Sorry mentioning them so late, I was just superbusy and working hard to make enough time for flying in May, which is usually one of the best months over here for long cross countries.

No task but test flight with some rain

This morning we picked up Matjaz, went up Emberger Alm and optimistically set up our gliders even though the sky was grey. We waited and socialized, a lot of pilots were interested in the new small Moyes wing, and I was happy to show them. It went darker and the west wind on launch started kicking in, so after 13.30, the day was cancelled. I decided to fly down hopefully before the rain came over into the Drau Valley.
It is truely an international competition, with Suan Selenati (Ita), Matjaz Clemencic, a few Austrians and even Russians! Not bad at all for our usually small regional "Hessenmeisterschaft" - also the German League has entered the comp, so we have about 55 pilots and quite a good field this time.
I had to wait quite a while on launch for a little bit of not too crossing wind and eventually had a really great take off - the new a frame helps me a lot to lift the base bar higher above the ground.
Sure enough, some rain moved in and my sail got a bit wet. On top, there was no wind when I came in for landing... I did a big flare and the wing stalled perfectly, two steps and I was smiling!
While waiting for pick up, I helped a young pilot, Max from Switzerland, to tune his sail symmetrically. Looks nice now, it should fly straight as.
Also important - I got an Austrian mobile phone card so I can twitter and go online whereever I take off and land, because Gerolf complained that the reports about comps were not fast enough online lately. Well I wasn´t in Florida, but over here, I will try my best to keep you informed about tasks and results as fast as possible... but it is true, it was much easier in Australia to get an internet connection through my iphone and keep people updated, over here you always have to adjust the whole settings in the phone... Im trying!

Preparations

No flying today, as the wind up high was way too much. At the opening briefing of Hessenmeisterschaft, some good news: A pg girl who landed with her reserve on a snow field up high yesterday had been rescued by the helicopter in the morning. Her phone went flat and they couldnt find her last night, but she was smart and slept (maybe not slept, but survived) in her canope. Since we had a lot of snow recently and now it is quite warm, the risk of avalanches is superhigh and she would have had difficulties trying to walk down.

No rain, just some high clouds and wind, perfect for preparing the gear and for arriving in this beautiful, perfect place. A den for the gliders, a wind shielded spot in front of the house to set up the gliders and check them, a huge, safe landing field that belongs to the farm, and we can see take off from bed when we wake up... what more could I wish for? I hope I can come back for the Austrian Nationals, I love Greifenburg!

Looks like we will start the comp tomorrow, the wind will die down, a few clouds will be around - I don´t care too much really, I am keen on testing this beautiful wing in all kinds of weather situations (well, except for storm like today maybe ;))

Hessenmeisterschaft Greifenburg, Day 1

Yesterday I was filming a funny teaser for Red Bull Flugtag which will be in 4 weeks, on May 28th in Mainz Zollhafen. As soon as the film is online, I will link it for you!
After that, I drove to Greifenburg where the Hessenmeisterschaft was supposed to start today. I thought on the southern side of the main ridge of the alps, the wind would calm down, but when I was driving, I already felt that the southerly was quite extreme also after the Tauern tunnels.
Currently we see a 116km/h wind at Sonnblick which is about 60 km away from our take off mountain Emberger Alm. Already yesterday people complained about a lot of turbulence, so I guess they will call the day for safety reasons.