And the winners are...

 ... Konrad Lüders won overall, but because he doesn´t belong to a club in Hessen, Walter Schurr (2nd place) is new Hessenmeister while I´m the 1st woman (3rd overall). Some results are here, but the overall for hang gliding and class 5 is not published yet.
Peter Friedemann won rigid class overall, but Dieter Müglich (2nd) is Hessenmeister in class 5.
Verena Puttrich won the women´s paragliding comp, while Axel Bauendistel and Alexander Füg both are paragliding Hessenmeister in open class now, with exactly the same points after 3 rounds in 1st place! Paragliding results here.
It was a really nice competition, even though we were only 50 pilots altogether. We were lucky that the weather allowed us to fly 3 tasks up to 60 km in the end, two in very nice conditions. Meanwhile it was raining almost everywhere else!
Big thanks to the organizers, especially Manfred Vaupel and Christoph Limpert who looked after everything, from take off, tasks, goal and scoring!
The alps are drowning in rain right now, time to go north - the sun is out in Bremen!!!

Here comes the rain again...

... but thanks to Rüdiger, I have some nice photos of my flight two days ago and my landing yesterday!
At headquarter, the paragliding group is discussing yesterday´s protest about cloud flying at the moment, we will see a decision later. Cloud bases were anything between 1800 and 2100m, so it is difficult to mark by gps which pilot could have been in the cloud, or too close.
Finally the rain arrived today and there might not be another day of competition possible. The results are not online yet, but I will try to take a photo and publish it here. Today is cancelled, next briefing tomorrow morning at 9.

Hessenmeisterschaft

My favourite competition started on Sunday in Greifenburg: Hessenmeisterschaft in hang and paragliding! Not many pilots decided to join, because the weather had been bad and the forecast wasn´t promising. But the few of us optimists were rewarded with 3 consecutive days of flying!
The tasks were between 50 and 60km, both for flex and rigid wings. right from the beginning, Konrad Lüders had a very good run and is still leading the comp after three rounds, followed by Walter Schurr and me. It is great to fly with Katharina Dressel who came here from Berlin! She is keen and will be on our women´s national team soon I think!
In rigid class, Dieter Müglich won the day yesterday. But also Peter Friedemann who is in the lead overall, Rüdiger Bien and Axel Hartmann are giving Dieter a good run for the money! 7 rigids are competing in class 5.
In the paragliding class, it looks like there could be two champions for the first time ever, as their points match after three tasks.

Rio

While the weather has been dreadful in Germany this spring so far, I have had a chaotic work schedule and was barely at home and didn´t have a single flight in Europe since I returned from the Valle comp. Luckily I scored a work flight to Rio - and with the help of my Brazilian friends I got into the air again! It felt sooo good to do some turns at Sao Conrado and land on the beach!
Today I have to go back to what feels like winter, and I hope that we finally get some flying weather for our comp in Greifenburg next week.

Fly high!

Hey bro,

I bet you are already teaching the angels some silly aerobatics, happy that you are not bound to gravity anymore. Not that you ever were ;)

We saw the eagle waving his feather tips at us, and we knew it was your last good-bye.

Guido, I will always share every moment in the air with you.

Guido

No words can describe our loss, this darkness – at least it is raining today in Munich, so my tears blend into the grey sky. One of the finest, most talented pilots in the world, one of my friends for half of my life, the sunshine of the flying community, left this world on his final flight yesterday. Guido died when he tried to emergency land his BD5-J south of Gnadenwald in Inntal in the afternoon of the 1st of May 2013.

It was not a stunt flight, not a daring manouvre, no weather problem - Guido simply wanted to fly the plane back to Salzburg when he experienced a technical problem. Knowing him, knowing the plane, and knowing the area, it seems to me that he tried until the last moment to cope with the technical problem and to make sure that noone else gets hurt. He could have bailed out of the jet with his parachute, with the possibility of the plane crashing uncontrollably and hurting other people. Instead Guido chose to steer it into an empty field where he crashed and died. Not a lack of competence – he was one with his wings and he knew every single field in that area. A lack of luck in that very moment caused his death.

Guido, you physically managed to not hurt anybody else, but you left your family, your loved ones, your friends and the whole world inside and out of aviation in mere shock and pain beyond words. Everybody adored you, not just for your aviation skills but also for your shining personality. And you were as modest as can be. You were aware that you lived your dream and appreciated it. Your legend will live on with anybody who´s life has been touched by your inspiring enthusiasm, freedom and love for anything that flies!

Little brother, I know you have good company in the eternal sky. Some day we will race together again!