First task flown at the World Championships

 

Today got canceled for the weather, yesterday got stopped when I was already in the air, but we flew a great task on the first day. Even if I didn´t get to goal, I really enjoyed the flying a lot. Here´s a link to the results , also to more pictures and reports in German on the DHV page !

World Championships Krusevo, Macedonia!

 

I´m excited that after a really long time, we now have an official Women´s World Championship again - thanks to the Macedonian organizers, CIVL, and many really motivated pilots! 

I only just arrived in this beautiful mountain area and had my first training flight, still settling in and getting organized. More pictures and information later!

Winning worldwide FAI XC Contest!

I was superhappy when I learnt today that I won the international women´s hang gliding cross country FAI championships! 

Really great pilots with me in all the different hang gliding and paragliding categories, big congrats to all of them! Still not an easy year for traveling internationally, flying and possibly retrieving long ways! I have thoroughly exploited every minute I could spend in the air during the few weeks that I had to play around this year! And I´m already dreaming of more adventures to come!

Thanks for the loyalty and support of my sponsors Red Bull, Moyes and Woody Valley! 

Find the rankings and more information on the FAI CIVL page, or just click on the picture!

Wingmen above Landshut

  

It was great to follow a part of this clip in the making - look at the unreal stunts that my brothers in crime Miles Daisher (US), Marco Waltenspiel (AT), Marco Fürst (AT) and Max Manow (DE) painted into the sky above the beautiful Bavarian city of Landshut!

German Open Awards

It´s been some busy days after the German Open, so I just get to post and write now. Congratulations to Alex Ploner for winning the international German Open at Kandel overall, and also to Dirk Ripkens who won international and also national title as the new German Champion in rigid class. I am happy that I was able to update my German Champion women´s title as well!

The organizer and the volunteers did a great job setting up the biggest competition "after covid times" has seen yet! 

Big thanks also to the artist of the beautiful wooden trophies, Martin Schmidt, and to the local mayor of Gutach and his wife, Christine and Sebastian Rötzer, for looking after us with great local products like black forest cherry cake and the very famous "cherry water", a schnaps made from the tasty local cherries! My dad loves everthing I brought home for him, that way, even if my parents can´t travel anymore, they can at least participate sharing the goodies!

 

After 3 tasks - Ploner in the lead

Results Class 1 Results Rigid Wings DHV Page

Despite very low base, a strong wind and a poor forecast, it paid out to stay positive yesterday. We managed to take off safely into a small 45km task. Nobody made goal, Primoz won the day with 23km distance. 

After a great take off and a very slow start, I was stoked that I managed to fly the 5th furthest distance, despite my weight disadvantage and the excruciating headwind towards the first turnpoint. Slowly things start looking a bit brighter, after I had made two major mistakes in the first two tasks. 

On the second day, I managed to get to goal at a time which would have put me into 12th or 13th place of the day, had I not put in the wrong turn point radius of the very last point and flown 8 kms more than I needed to, including two large valley crossings in quite some wind... whatever, I was happy about a nice landing in turbulent conditions at goal, and promised not to ever do that mistake again! I was happy anyway to celebrate with my friends at goal. 

There is a nice large tent in the landing area where people can buy food and drinks, and due to the great media work - TV has reported every day on the German Open - we had a lot of spectators at goal every day too! Now we just need one last, nice task today with lots of pilots in goal and a great party tonight. 

Awards are tomorrow.

German Open at Kandel

 

From May 24 to May 29, we are flying the international German Open at Kandel in the famous and beautiful Black Forest in the southwest of Germany. 81 pilots from 13 different countries are here to compete. 

You find more photos and a German report on the DHV page, and also a link to the results of class 1 and class 5!

You can even follow us on the live tracking!

Free Flying: Aerial Athletes Camp in Argentina!

 

Winter and covid time has been way too long for my traveller´s heart, so when I got a short notice invitation to join the Red Bull aerial athletes performance camp at Andy Hediger´s AeroAtelier in La Cumbre, Argentina, I was on my way in no time! Since Guido told me about that magical place about a 9 hour drive inland from Buenos Aires, I had always wanted to visit our great visionary friend and his crew. Now was my chance to meet with some of the finest international air athletes one could dream of!

And as Andy said - this is about sharing our experience, and the chance to look into the other air sports and learn to fly all different sorts of wings! I was totally inspired by everybody´s skill and modesty. None of us needed to post any achievements, cause we all are top in our tiny niche, but curious beginners and happy to learn from each other. Skydiving, Wings Suit flying, Basejumping, Paragliding acro and de-bagging, hang gliding, Extra300 aerobatics, Alpha training flights, helicopter flights, plus yoga or circuit training lessons in the morning. In great, warm summer weather, with the most warmhearted crew you can imagine, looking after all of us like we were family! 

It was a physical and mental reset for me, something I had been looking for without knowing it. Being free again, traveling with friends to places I´ve never seen before, being able to fly, learn, play, instruct others, share incredible moments, imagine new projects, party, just be me. 

Then my personal highlight - I summoned the condors, and they happily flew with me in many thermals at Cuchi Corral!!! The biggest wing span of a bird I every flew with, yet so relaxed, peaceful and graceful! 

Sorry that I didn´t have time yet to put this whole air adventure into words and pics, I´ve been busy to fit it in between work flights, but I promise I will write a nice article in German and English for the magazines for you!

Meeting Alvaro Soler at Porsche Open Space IAA 2021

After a great little flight high above Rauschberg with my friend Giergl, I managed to get back to the Porsche Open Space in time to enjoy a live unplugged concert of singer/songwriter Alvaro Soler. Since Rebi and I always play his songs in our car when we drive to our hang gliding adventures, it was fantastic to experience how powerful his live performance is!!! Man, I missed concerts so much, and didn´t even realize that until yesterday. 

Talking with respect and curiosity about other cultures when traveling, mentioning how important it is to learn foreign languages, Alvaro spoke from my heart.  I love it when people stay modest and grounded despite their talent and success - because really, aren´t we just luckier than many others that we got the chance to live our dreams?

 

At Porsche IAA Munich

What a dream! I am invited to present my Red Bull Porsche hang gliding clip and pursuit of my dreams at the international automobile exhibition IAA Munich at the Porsche Open Space! Presenter Sarah Elsser and I showed the audience how dreams can develop and get wings! Seems the audience enjoyed seeing the sky with my eyes, cause there was quite an appreciating applause after our presentation!

I am in awe of so much beautiful, perfect design! Since my childhood, I always loved Porsche design, cause my designer heart just loves beauty and function connected in perfection!

 

Porsche x Corinna Schwiegershausen

After a long break, it felt great to get into the air again! I am very motivated to qualify for our open (men´s) national team to join European and World Championships in hang gliding. I need to perform extremely well in competitions that count for the world ranking, and especially when the weather is difficult and requires a lot of creative and persistent flying, I seem to do well. 

Lucky that Hessenmeisterschaft served that weather where patience is needed. I flew almost on my own the whole time, and it paid off to fly on different paths - with my 2nd place in the international, and 1st place in the regional championship, I moved up to 4th position in the German national ranking and am currently qualified as part of our national team! 

You can activate subtitles in your own language for this video, hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09mwMqJh_pU&t=62s

Back to work

I wish I could have gone to the next competition in Italy too. Marco Laurenzi´s home turf is San Donato di Val comino, about a three hour drive south of Monte Cucco. Higher mountains, beautiful national parks. 

Instead I had to drive home, which took 14 hours, due to traffic jams, school holiday times, roadworks and accidents on very crowded highway through Italy, Austria and Germany, also it didn´t help traffic that the German train drivers went on strike for some days. 

My next work schedule is coming up soon, and I´m thankful that I get the chance to fly away every now and then, meeting friends that I couldn´t visit otherwise. 

But I´m already dreaming of the next hang gliding adventures!
 

Cucco last task: 150km around 3 trunpoints to Spoleto, and Awards!

Results task 4 Results overall

Saturday was the last comp day, and we were promised even better weather than the day before. The organizers set an ambitious 150km task - telling us to speed up to be back for the award ceremony in time ;) 

I was really happy to see such a big number on the taskboard, cause I like long flights very much! It´s been many years since I´ve seen Spoleto from the air.

I took off early again, but the promised 3000m turned into a not quite 2000m boundary layer, with a wind stronger than the day before. The first 30km of the flight were the toughest, going through really bad lee side turbulence, in the blue, trying to grab every little bit of lift I could. Half way down to Gualdo Tadino, finally the clouds formed, and we could get a decent height. 

The furthest southern turnpoint at Spoleto was a long glide out and back to the ridge, so it took a bit of rodeo again to get up and face a bloody headwind, as usual, going up north.  And as expected, I ended up on my own again for about 80 km. It didn´t matter, I was happy to fly high along the clouds and didn´t care too much about my time - it was my last flight in the area for  a while, and I wanted to celebrate every minute of it! I was rewarded with the best views ever - the air was so clear that I could see both sides of the coast of Italy when I was at 3000m! No, I´m sure it wasn´t hypoxia ;)

In goal, I basically collapsed, cause the zipper of my harness didn´t want to close properly and only went up to my knees, so the whole 5 hours of flying were a bit uncomfortable. But who cares. 

Many happy faces at the awards. Our top German pilot Roland Wöhrle finished 5th, then I explained to Mario Alonzi in 4th place why Tomas Suchanek called it "Potato medal", Christian Ciech in 3rd did a great jump up with his amazing, fast task win on the last day. Filippo finished second, and a superhappy Marco Laurenzi was celebrated by his fan club like a rockstar!

Andrea Fusi won the sports class award, Konrad Baumgartner won rigid class. 

I finished 16th overall, had a great time and am looking forward to the Europeans at Cucco next year! Flavio and his large support group did an excellent job to offer us pilots a safe and fun competition. It felt great to race the sky again with my friends from all over the world!

Special thanks to my friend Rebi - without her dedication, I would have probably not dared to go. She was not just a committed driver, but helped me on take off and after landing. Driving back on Sunday in the main holiday season meant a painful 14 hour drive for me, and about 18 hours for her, despite having started at 3am in Sigillo already. 

And, last but not least, thanks to Moyes for that sweet little RX3 pro that just keeps climbing like a rocket! So much fun to fly that beautiful wing!