On the way to Kayseri/Turkey

Today I will start the journey to Anatolia to fly the European Championships in Hang Gliding. You will find more photos and reports on the DHV page. This is the official website.
It looks like quite a few pilots pulled out again. The only women are Francoise, Julia and me, so unfortunately we won´t have a new official women´s title. But at least I can score for our German National Team, which I already confirmed with FAI Jury President Flip Koetsier. Heather will be launch director, and Claudia is FAI steward, together with our team leader Regina we would aleady be six women who could fly...
It sounds like the first part of our team had a good trip to Turkey and enjoys Kayseri. I can´t wait to get there early tomorrow morning. We are missing quite a few good pilots, like the whole British team, Manfred, Gerolf and Tom from the Austrian team, Natalia from Russia, also we had a change on our team - Jörg had to pull out and instead Konrad Schwab is flying with us.
The race will be interesting with a very strong Italian, French and Slovenian team, but also the Spanish have some wild racers like Blay and Pedro in their team. Anyway, I will keep you updated on Blog, FB and if possible, twitter as well!

Nagoya, Japan, Timezone GMT +9

The weather in Munich right now is mild compared to what it was in Nagoya last weekend. 38C and very humid. Perfect weather to go for a walk at 3am and enjoy the quite clean air - Nagoya has a lot of parks and trees! Still it felt like in the movie "Lost in Translation"... the sleepless crew and other jet lagged foreigners met in the middle of the night in the gym or walking through the hotel.
In the shops, I found the first "small" can of Red Bull - in the US, the can had to be XL, in Japan it has to be "cute" ;) I like it.
Last preparations for the trip to the European Hang Gliding Championship today, tomorrow I will fly to Kayseri with my team mates Gerd Dönhuber and Christian Zehetmaier.

Red Bull X-Fighters Munich

Yesterday I met a lot of good friends in the Olympic stadium in Munich to watch the Red Bull X-Fighters. The show was incredible - these daredevils fly completely without wings, not understandable how they do it, how they control those huge jumps, flips, spins and other tricks on their bikes high in the air. An amazing event!

Their next stop will be on Oct. 6th in Sydney, and I can really recommend to watch the show live!

Yesterday Thomas Pages from France won the Munich event, Spanish rider Dany Torres was 2nd and Eigo Sato from Japan 3rd. We were all in awe!

Challenge

Last week I helped at the Challenge in Greifenburg. 44 hang glider pilots who were interested in XC flying came to fly together and to learn more about meteorology, flying techniques and the secrets of flying safe and far from Emberger Alm.
Andi Becker hosted the de-briefings in the evenings, Alex Ploner and I talked about how to master landings in unknown areas, Peter Cröninger lectured about take off and landing perfection. Regina, Matthias and Andi did a great job again to get more pilots competent and interested in competitions and XC flying. You can read more on the DHV site (German).

At the same time, Jonny Durand flew a world record in Zapata - congratulations! Flight to a declared goal 561 km - have a look at Tim´s blog.
Also congrats to Kraig Coomber who won the Big Spring US Nationals (results here) on his new Moyes RX 3,5.
In the Altay, Anton Struganov won the Russian Nationals on his brand new Moyes RX 4 - have a look at the beautiful photos on Zhenya´s blog!
At Monte Cucco, Alex Ploner won the competition after 5 rounds. Looks like the weather in Europe slowly gets back to how it should be like!
I need to work work work to make enough time for the European Championships in Turkey. There are lots of thunderstorms around these days in Bavaria, so at least I don´t miss out on too many epic flights. At the challenge, I was rewarded for all the voluntary work with one epic flight of 200km. It wasn´t exactly easy, the conditions this year are already like late summer, very stable until early afternoon. But I haven´t seen that high cloud base in a while, it felt great to be so high above the Austrian and Italian Alps!
Even if Im not around in Germany, you can still take test flights on the great little Moyes RX 3 - just contact Wolfi at Skyline!

Italian Open

After four tasks, the Italian Open finished today. Manfred Ruhmer won ahead of Alex Ploner and Christian Ciech. Best German pilot was Gerd Dönhuber (13th) and Jörg Bajewski (19th). For pictures and more details, have a look at Matjaz´ Blog. Well done Matjaz for not giving up after two bad days and finishing 3rd in the last task!  Results here.
In Ager, Blay Olmos Jr won the Spanish Nationals after six rounds ahead of Pedro Garcia and Joel Miron.
In Laragne at the Belgian Open, the British pilots rule. After two tasks, Grant Crossingham is ahead of Richard Lovelace and Malcolm Brown. Apparently Mart Bosman went down on the reserve when the cross bar of his Airborne C4 broke on final glide. Mart is ok, luckily no broken bones! Results here.
Meanwhile Ive been preparing for the Junior challenge in Greifenburg next week, a great hang gliding comp where some friends and I will coach new pilots, show them XC tactics and competition routines.
Also, I had been to Bayern Plus for a fun interview. Sorry - it is just in German! It was live, so no time for mistakes or long pauses. The presenter, Mr Küffner, had been flying planes and helicopters, so he knew which questions to ask about hang gliding. When he asked about our world championship team titles, he asked if we were flying "formations" - a nice idea.
This weekend, I will keep my fingers crossed for Sebastian Vettel at the Grand Prix at Hockenheim in Germany. At the moment, he ranks 3rd behind Fernando Alonso and his team mate Mark Webber.

On Air today

 Last week our group of adidas Air athletes went to the outdoor exhibition in Friedrichshafen. I like the Festspiele at Bodensee right in the lake at Bregenz, they always have an amazing stage.
The evening before we joined a workshop with all the other adidas outdoor athletes. What a great bunch of excellent artists in their individual sports!

We were presented with next years collection´s outdoor shoes and sure wore them on the "Outdoor" fair. It was funny to walk around these knowledgeable people - they first saw my Red Bull logo, were probably wondering which sport I do when they looked into my face, then they scanned my clothes and always stopped for quite some time at the shoes ;) Im sure most of them knew that those are already next year´s gear!

Today I will be at Bayern Plus for a live interview on the radio between 14.00 and 15.00 this afternoon. It will be available online or at 801 Khz if you have a radio.

Chennai, India, Timezone GMT +5,5

Life is as vibrant as ever in South India. The spicy food is great, so many vegetarian choices that it takes me half an hour to decide what I want to eat ;) The hotel entrance is beautifully decorated with purple lotus flowers and leaves. And yes, it is stinking hot, just below 40 centigrade, but so far no storms or rain. Mind you, the water in the pool is so warm that you start sweating in the water when you swim a bit faster.

When I heard some birds today, I felt homesick for Australia. Which is strange, because the Indian Myna bird had only been imported to Australia and it is not an Australian native, but I always connect it´s unique sound to my first stay with the Moyes family in Sydney. I wish I could come to Canungra, but the comp is too early, and our European Championships in Turkey only end in the middle of September. Guess I will only make it to down under again in December.

I was amazed to see a paraglider on an instant noodle package called "Thrillin Curry" - sure I bought a whole bunch of them!

Nanjing, China, Timezone GMT +8

Lots of interesting things to see in Nanjing, like the old walls of the old Ming Palace. There is a huge lake not far from our hotel, and the Lotus flowers were massive and beautiful. And for some reason, other tourists always wanted to take photos with me, so I turned it around and also took photos with them ;)

New distance World Record: Jonny and Dustin!

Jonny Durand and Dustin Martin fly a new XC world record of 771 km in 11 hours in Texas, going from Zapata north to Lubbock, which a few of us know as a turnpoint or goal from the worlds at Big Spring! Finally the big day has arrived and has been picked as the big day. Well done guys!!! I wish I could have gone with you! Maybe next year, with less big comps in summer ;)
Read more on Jonny´s Blog

New Bräuniger home page

Have a look at the new Bräuniger home page - I am happy to be a Bräuniger Team Pilot together with Ewa Wisnierska and Toma Coconea! Hope you like it.

Nanjing - no social media

Muggy air, poor visibility, no chance to reach my blog, facebook or twitter- that was Nanjing/China for the past 3 days. Still an adventure. More photos tomorrow. The day was too long today - one flight home was cancelled, then my suitcase didn´t make it, then the s-bahn didn´t stop where it should, as they are working on the tracks... hours later Im at home. Looks like I missed a nice flying day on Saturday.But the fresh, clean air is a nice change!

Soon in China

Im nearly on my next work trip now, going to Nanjing soon. I will try to post some photos from there, but I don´t know if I can reach blogspot. Last time in Nanjing it did not work, but maybe this time it is not as censored, as I managed to connect from Shenyang as well, just a limited time. Storms are in the forecast, no flying, no football :( yet I keep my fingers crossed for the German team, specially for Mario Gomez - I was lucky enough to have met and talked to him a couple of times, and I really like his friendly, open attitude. He was like, "well Im just running and kicking a ball around in a field, but you are FLYING WITHOUT MOTOR, that is really daring and exciting..." I also met his girl friend Sylvia, super smart and super pretty. What a match! C´mon Mario, score some more of your brilliant goals, por favor! I keep my fingers crossed for you!

FAI triangle weather

Inbetween work, finally a day of good flying weather. Yesterday the wind slowed down and I met good friends at Hochfelln take off early in the morning. Dieter Müglich, Frank Schmid, Tom Becher, Alex Köhler and Toni Raumauf are also excellent xc pilots, so my hopes were up for a "big day".
We took off around 10.30 am got up to 2200 m and started out on course, into the blue towards Wilder Kaiser. Soon it was clear that the day was too slow for a really big FAI triangle, and the wind was still too strong, but who cares - it is great to fly with friends and go sightseeing around the steep cliffs of Wilder Kaiser.
Pinzgau wasn´t easy either, it got quite turbulent with a southwester high up and the easterly valley breeze. But with the small RX3, it was fun to even climb in very broken, tight thermals.
After Hundstein, I was rewarded for all the work - base got up to 3400 and I could fly along Steinernes Meer (petrified sea), and it really looks like waves out of stone! And due to the sw wind, it was really easy and quite calm to climb above those majestic rocks. Normally it is really bumpy there.
The best part is when you make it home. I landed at Wessner Hof where Oli Barthelmes held a take off and landing training, in the evening they made a barbecue. A six hour flight, 179km, not the furthest, but one of the nicest! Here the flight in the DHV-XC.
I will be back from work on Wednesday, so if you like to testfly the Moyes Litespeed RX3 from Thursday onwards, please contact me!

Silbernes Lorbeerblatt

Today I was officially invited by the German Government to come to berlin and receive the "Silbernes Lorbeerblatt", the highest award for successful athletes in Germany. Only one world champion title is not enough to get it - Sebastian Vettel got his in February.
Dr. Friedrich, Minister of internal affairs, awarded the leaf to a group of athletes today and started with Regina Glas, Monique Werner and me!

Charlie Jöst as the president of the German Hang Gliding association and Klaus Koplin, president of the DAeC (German Aero Club) were also invited to the presendation.

It was great to meet the Latin dance formation from Grün Gold Club Bremen - a while ago I also danced at their club house which is very close to my home in Bremen! I congratulated them for their titles and they asked me about hang gliding - half of them want to do a tandem flight now ;)

I had no idea that there are fishing and even under water rugby world championships! I found that hang gliding is not half as exotic as a lot of the other sports people do.

Thinking of the next European Championships - thanks a lot to all of you for assisting the petition so the Turkish hang gliding team can compete in Kayseri this year!

And, of course, the current European soccer championships - Mario Gomez did a great job with his goal against Portugal, I keep my fingers crossed for the young, German team tomorrow against the Netherlands!

Rain

Luckily it stayed dry for the big pilots party, organized by Flugsportclub Oberdrautal. I heard pilots stayed till 2am and tried to drink the weather for today nice, but they did not drink enough I guess. The cold front only came across to us this morning, with rain and thunder. But that also means it will rain all day and linger around until tomorrow.
Finally Wolfgang decided to hold the award ceremony today already, as the chance of a valid comp day for tomorrow is minimal. At 2pm, the winners of the Austrian Open will be awarded at Fliegercamp Greifenburg.

Day 2 Austrian Open: Day cancelled

Team Turkey at Emberger Alm launch

Strong wind was the forecast and clearly visible in the air. A short 60km task was set but then cancelled on the ground. Half the pilots flew - higher up they reported strong turbulence, and the wind changes and strength at goal were not funny. I packed up instead and watched it from the ground. Im sure there will be a better day.
A big wave cloud made it difficult to get down in the valley, and the forecast is for a cold front approaching today with rain and storms tonight. Hopefully after the barbecue party the organizers prepared for the pilots tonight! A little bit of rain has already moved through.
Tomorrow more rain and storms are predicted, so our hopes are on Sunday.

Jörg on launc

Austrian Open 1st Day: Moyes rules!

Results Day 1
Today we were not so sure about the conditions, but Wolfgang Sattlegger was positive that we will fly more than 100 km today. I am in the task committee with Tom and Raimund Kaiser, so we built a task around 4 turnpoints to Lind bridge, then Irschen, across into Gailtal to Windische Höhe and back over Gerlamoos church to goal.
Base was low, never higher than 2200 m the whole day, but the climbs were not as slow as predicted. Once we made the quite difficult crossing into the headwind to Gailtal, we could just race along the ridge. The reward of the day! But the crossing grounded the leading gaggle out in front - Friesi, Seppi, Döni and Christian had to land after having been drilled in the lee side of Reißkofel! Tom Weissenberger was first in goal (I lost him when we did the crossing back at Emberger after the 2nd turnpoint), Matjaz second and Gerolf 3rd. A good day for Moyes pilots! But also Primoz did very well. Having taken the last start time, he flew the fastest time of the day. Results are not out yet. Would have been great to watch our race online today. You find the link for live tracking here, so if we race again, you can be with us!

A launch should look like this!

I am quite exhausted, many people reported quite some turbulence on lee sides, the wind in Gailtal picked up to 30 km/h. But it is fantastic to fly a small, fast glider in these conditions! I love climbing in the RX3, it has a very small turn radius so it is easy to hook into the strongest lift! When Jörg, Stefan and I came back along launch from the first turnpoint, quite a lot of pilots were still on the ground, which seemed strange. After a while, I saw a helicopter parked at take off and they brought somebody towards it. I told Jörg and Stefan to head on so we are not in the helicopter´s way. A rigid wing pilot tried to take off with side wind and could not make enough speed for his "Phantom" to get off. He was taken to hospital, but luckily it looks good, he might get out soon and has no severe injuries.
It is great to see a full team from Turkey here! The six pilots drove up by car, 2500 km one way, two days and two nights of driving - that´s dedication!!! Of course I bug them to teach me some Turkish so I can communicate a little bit with people when I fly in Kayseri at the European Championships in September.
For tomorrow the forecast is for stronger winds from the south, but maybe we can fly another task.
A good day - Wolfgang did really well with the task setting and the weather forecast! I hope he organizes another women´s and rigid wing worlds here in Greifenburg. If you flying girls and rigid wing pilots would like to compete here again, please contact me on facebook, leave a comment here or send me an email. I will forward our wish to Wolfgang.
Results here!

Team Moyes at Austrian Open

Tomorrow the Austrian Open will start in Greifenburg, and Team Moyes already met at dinner, fully motivated for some interesting days of flying in the beautiful Carinthian alps! It is good to see so many top pilots in a comp again. Let´s hope for good weather...

The Dragon Princess, Shenyang, Timezone GMT +8

 Im in Shenyang for the first time - another one of those growing Chinese metropoles like Beijing and Shanghai. Not as many foreigners here, and not many people understand or speak English. Nevertheless, the people from Shenyang are very helpful and friendly. It is also nice to walk along in peace and quiet without hawkers attacking you, aggressively trying to sell anything, like in the more common Chinese cities ;)

First of all, I visited the great imperial Palace of Shenyang. It is a little like the Forbidden City in Beijing, just not as vast. Beautiful dragons everywhere, so I decided to dress up for them, trying to lure the dragons into coming to Germany with me. Did not work, I have to practice my Chinese.

If you like to see the movie from Red Bull Flugtag, it is on youtube now!

ps: The shoes are a bit exhausting here, quite a different concept of "high heels" - after a while, I managed to balance on them...