A wedding and Seattle

Before going on the big trip to Australia, just a few photos of the last 10 days. I had been invited to Jasmine´s and Benjamin´s wedding, which was really fun. In order to have time, I had to do a work flight early the next morning though. And that took me to beautiful Seattle!
It´s simply a myth that it always rains in Seattle ;) This is the second time Ive been there, and again, beautiful blue sky, sunny and pleasant.
First of all, I went to visit Chief Seattle, the wise Native American who the city is named after. His speaches are legendary and worth reading.
At the Burke museum, they have a great collection of local Native American history and art, but also a really groovy cafe. It´s on university premises, so you meet a lot of studends there.
On the flight out, we paid tribute to beautiful Mt Rainier (I still can´t pronounce that one right, sorry Belinda!), saw the city and Puget Sound from high  above - and just enjoyed awsome mountain views!
More once Im in Down Under, where Jonny Durand is already out in record flight mode :)))

Rio Cidade Maravilhosa

It´s always great to be in Rio, I love those lazy, large vultures called "Urubus" who always soar around in front of my hotel window. This guy landed on a roof next to my room, and we had a great little chat :)
I took my colleague Volker to see the take off at São Conrado, next time he might bring his paraglider.
Also I visited the jewelry factory of H.Stern and tried on some exquisit necklaces. As long as I have to pay for my gliders though, I think I can´t afford these, but I liked the colour of this blue topaz very much.
On the way back, we saw a funny umbrella sculpture along the beachfront. After the soccer worldcup, prices went up in the city, but it is still priceless to have a chilled coconut water on the beach :)

European Championships Akhal Teke Horses

Last weekend I met my friends Helene and Patrick and their beautiful horse Saiga at Gut Ising, where they participated in the Akhal Teke horse show. These horses are the national pride of Turkmenistan, and they are still very purely bred.
They seemed to be smart and very dedicated to their provider of food and fitness :) And it looked like the horse people were more than just dedicated to their horses, they are truely devoted to their beauty, character and intelligence!

Home in Bremen

While I´m preparing the big trips to Canungra and Mexico, I´m happy about a short break back home in Bremen for my Dad´s birthday before having to start a standby line tomorrow. This means not knowing where or when I have to work-fly to for about the next two weeks. Yes it´s exciting, but it can also be exhausting, because between 5am and midnight, a call from Lufthansa can reach me any time, and I need to be at the airport within just one hour to fly whereever they send me to. Even more stressful in times of ebola in western Africa and different possible war zones in quite a few other destinations.
But at the moment I´m happy to just spend a day in beautiful late summer air in Bremen, enjoying the blue sky and light breeze.

Bangalore

This 474/8 is the plane that picked up the German national soccer team after they won the world cup in Brazil. Since then, the golden letters "Siegerflieger" are on it, nice to personalize planes in this way. Would be interesting to have a book on board, and all the world champions who ever flew on this aircraft should sign ;) I was happy to fly on this new aircraft to Bangalore, nice flight with a great crew!

Vamos a volar - en Mexico!

I just got nominated to fly on the German national Team at the next Hang Gliding World Championships in Valle de Bravo, Mexico! That is the "open" team, not the women´s team. The top 6 pilots of the country are nominated, and at the moment, I rank 6th. I´m happy that I was chosen, because I like Mexico and the flying there. The people of the flying community over there are extraordinary, with a strong bond to aviation history!
If you like to see the area, have a look at my flight over the Nevado de Toluca vulcano. Training starts - now!

Adam

Through several channels, my friends from down under informed me yesterday morning about the tragic accident of Adam Parer. When a close friend dies, I always hope that it might have been "somebody else", but in this case there was no doubt unfortunately.
Apparently Adam looped, when another guy crossed his line. Adam managed to avoid a collision, but in an extreme manouvre, his glider broke and crashed through a powerline into a house. As a fireman, he is used to risking his own life to save others. And I guess he didn´t hesitate a second to not put the other glider at risk. That´s how Adam was, and that´s why friends and pilots around the world are shocked about this loss - he was not just a top pilot, but a top guy!
Last year at Canungra I ended up flying with Adam along the course in the same thermals almost every day - we both called it a "privilege" that we are able to do that, and celebrated our flights in the evenings. I have known Adam for almost 20 years, and I hoped to meet and fly with him again in October.
Not just Newcastle will miss you, Adam, but you left the whole flying community devastated. The only consolation I can take is that I hope that you are united again with your Love, and that Chris and Guido now have some serious competition drawing aerobatics into the eternal sky. Fly high, my friend, I miss you terribly!

Shenyang, Timezone GMT +8

 I was offline for a while, because during my work trip tho Shenyang in China, local censorship cut me off from all social networks. After coming back, a heavy summer flu struck me down for a few days, but Im slowly recovering.
It was great to have some time in the northeast of China, and together with four colleagues I went to the Benxi caves. Never do it on a Sunday during school holidays - we waited for an hour walking through the narrow caves before we finally got on the boat that took us along the river into the mountain to see the stalagmites and stalagtites. "Waiting" in a Chinese line means that constantly somebody pushes into your back or tries to push in in front of you... not a pleasant experience. But the actual cave and boat trip was great! While it was about 30 C outside, we only had about 14 C in the cave!
After that, we went to see the local fossile museum - great collection of amazing animals, I also liked the crystal exhibits very much. The pilots were hungry after that tour, so before going on the 1,5 hour drive back to Shenyang, they stopped for some food. I was glad I had brought my own sandwiches, as the meals didn´t look or smell too inviting for me as a vegetarian ;)

It was great to visit the site of the ancient culture of a matriarchal tribe that had lived in the Shenyang area about 7200 years ago. If only there was more information in English, as my Chinese is pretty limited... But I understood that they already then had a totem or a myth about a sun bird, or rather a "red phoenix", the female counterpart of the "dragon".
Going on the metro train, it was a bit exhausting to be stared at the whole time, but it´s understandable - there are barely any foreigners at all in this city. It was a great adventure!

Helsinki, Timezone GMT +3

For the first time I was in Helsinki today for a short stop on a work tour. I was lucky with the weather - it was warmer than at home! Thunderstorms haven´t arrived here yet.
The place is not very crowded, and everybody seems quite calm. I looked at some churches in the center of the city, at the harbour with it´s old ship and the market, then I went for the city beach. When I swam, something touched my leg under water and made me jump out - then I saw a fish jumping up, so the water quality is quite good I guess. Cute geese and noisy seagulls are around too. The language sounds a bit as if Greek people try to copy the talking melody of Swedish or Norwegians ;) With all the double consonants ääkii and öö, it reads very funny for German eyes. Very cool place.

Work work work

Not really enough time to fly any comp at the moment, because there is a lot of work at Lufthansa - main holiday season and various international crisis make my schedule quite tough at the moment. But I still manage to find a few hours to enjoy inbetween, like here in Prague!
I wish all the best to my friends who are currently competing at Monte Cucco and soon in Laragne and at the Slovenian Open - may you have great weather, wonderful flights and always safe landings! In September I might have a bit more time on my hands again and join you guys :)

And another spot for HG on Trace TV!

Just a brief spot for our sport, but this channel is out in 109 countries with millions of subscribers - there must be some new guys interested in our sport somewhere in the world! Let´s teach them how to soar the sky!

PR for our sport

Since I didn´t have enough time to join the hang gliding challenge this time, instead I went to a few interviews this week.
On Tuesday, Marcel Wagner interviewed me in the old castle of Burg Katzenstein for a regional TV channel. It helps a lot if the presenter of a show flies paragliders and cessnas ;) it was a lot of fun to do half an hour of talk with him!

For Red Bull Media House I went to the beautiful setting of Mondsee to do an interview about Red Bull Flugtag for a compilation of the Flugtag history. This interview was in English, and the show will be aired some time in October - I will post the link as soon as I have it!

Matthias Dolderer in Zell am See

Sometimes when it´s good weather for hang- and paragliding, also our powerful aerobatic friends are out... landing at Zell am See/Schmittenhöhe yesterday, it was a nice surprise to suddenly get a phantastic air show by Matthias Dolderer! Enjoy the short clip here!

adidas outdoor athletes meeting in Friedrichshafen

Today at the adidas outdoor meeting in Friedrichshafen we were introduced to the latest in fabric development and new products. Exciting new gear will be on the market soon, very lightweight, pleasant to wear and easy to travel with! It was great to meet our friends from the adidas outdoor team, but also 46 of the top athletes of all sorts of different mountain sports were here today - great inspiration!

 

Medals for Team D!

Congratulations to my team colleagues for the silver medal in the rigid class team score, and to individual silver medal for Norbert Kirchner and gold medal for Tim Grabowski!
I finished with the bronze medal this time in the individual score, and in 4th place in the team score, all on my own ;)
Yoko Isomoto from Japan is the new women´s world champion, and Françoise Dieuzeide won the silver medal.

Preliminary results

13 points for the task yesterday, and 9 points for a bomb out in women´s class, so all stayed as is. Yoko is the new women´s world champion, Françoise is 2nd, and I am 3rd.
In rigid class, Tim is the new world champion, Norbert is 2nd and Christopher Friedl 3rd.
In sports class, Mario won, Piero 2nd and Balasz 3rd.
In class 2, Manfred won, Andi Hediger came 2nd and Steve Cox 3rd.

Congratulations to the well deserved winners!

Dark clouds over Annecy

This morning the sky is covered with dark clouds and I already heard some sounds like thunder. It displays our mood - a tragedy happened yesterday. Japanese rigid wing pilot Masakazu Kobayashi died during his flight. We are all shocked and mourning with the Japanese team. This was the first time ever that a fatal accident happened during a World Championship I competed in.
Coming back to headquarter, I was greeted by Stephane Malbos and told I had been chosen for a doping control test. The FAI had ordered a doping test for pilots during our competition, that was a first of for all of us too. Well, not all of us - only Francoise Dieuzeide, Mario, Balasz and me got controlled, as far as I know.
It was an absurd szenario, me crying my eyes out being heartbroken for my Japanese friends, sitting on the toilet being closely watched by the friendly woman from the doping control to make sure I don´t pull some other urine sample out of a pocket - not easy to pee in that situation, but eventually i managed to follow the instructions.
They said it takes 4 to 6 weeks to get the results, but we will only hear back if the samples were positive. Im pretty sure they won´t, as I see no possiblities for doping in hang gliding, but I will keep you posted.
Francoise or Yoko won this competition, and I think I stayed in 3rd. It was a really stable day, we only started at 5pm (!) into our task, many girls went directly to the nice Doussard landing field, so there won´t be many points.
A very sad finish for all of us.

Day 9: cancelled, rainy day

At noon the day was finally cancelled as the drizzle just didn´t want to stop. One last rest day before another race day!

Task 5: Semnoz, 85km around 3 turnpoints

A tough, stable day today with a base barely higher than 1800m gave us a late launch and a hard time in the air. We could take off at 3pm, and the race started at 3.30, going down the Semnoz ridge, back over the lake into the east, to Thones and to Doussard. Nobody made goal with all turnpoints today, even though some women landed in Doussard on the way to the 2nd turnpoint.
I had a good race to the first turnpoint just soaring the ridge and only stopping at take off again on the way back to cross the lake. Still not enough time to get to the second turnpoint. I landed just short on a slope where Françoise Dieuzede already showed me the wind direction and the best approach. Even nicer - she said that I can go back to hq with her retrieve. Her daughter and her dad were there 15 minutes later! Can´t get much better :)
A perfect landing, but about 20km short of goal. We might have gone furthest, as we only saw rigid wings going past above our heads. It won´t be a high scoring day though because nobody made goal today. 
Rain tomorrow, but a good day on Thursday hopefully. We have some points to catch up!

Task 4: 70km around 2 turnpoints

The weather improved quickly after the rain left, base went up to 2200m, and we had fun racing around the task. Most of the way, I was flying with Julia and the Françoises, but in the end Julia pulled ahead and won the day by a margin of 9 minutes on us. I was 4th of the day.
Looks like another two or three tasks can be possible here.
Suan was first in goal in rigid class, but there were some problems with his scoring. Tim was second, Norbert 4th and Dieter Kamml 8th, so team Germany scored well yesterday!