ATL-FRA-MCO-FRA-KIX-FRA-MUC-FRA-GIG in 7 days - my new record!

Most of the last week, I´ve spent in the air, either working or as Yoko´s company home to Japan. I´m still writing the story down about our long journey and will share it with you soon! Great news is that Yoko is home in Japan and says that she feels much better, feeling more confident now that she is healing!
Meanwhile I had a beautiful flight to Rio yesterday. Always fun working for sports teams, and we had quite a lot of athletes from Brazilian, German and Austrian kayak, canoeing and sailing teams on board, going to train for the Olympics!
When Yoko asked me in hospital in Orlando how I could be looking so fresh and awake despite not much sleep and 27 hours on planes in only 3 days, I smiled at her - Jamie had just brought an ice cold Red Bull for me that morning, and that really revived me, just like today waking up in Rio. I have a long day ahead of me here, going to coach some Brazilian pilot friends about safer and better flying. So far, cloud base is a little low, but it seems to rise fast, I can already see the sugar loaf top station now! Fingers crossed, we will have a nice little flight at beautiful São Conrado and then discuss on how to improve :) Thanks Leonarda and Joe for organizing this event - Maria, another local pilot, had urged Leonarda to get me to help the local pilots, as I kept appearing in Rio, helping foreign pilots who had been on the ramp for the first time.

Rio without flying weather

Another short work trip to Rio right after the Hessen comp finished. I had my hopes up for Cristo weather, but this time the cold front pushed in much faster than expected, so the northerly got too strong and there was even some rain.
Instead I enjoyed hanging out with the Urubus and went to visit the little monkeys, which is always fun!

Hessenmeisterschaft Awards

Where were our Russian friends? I´m holding their trophies as well, guess they must have partied Russian style last night and just couldn´t get to the awards ceremony before noon?
Big thanks to all our voluntary helpers for a great, fun and safe international Hessenmeisterschaft in all rigid, flex and paragliding class!

Hessenmeisterschaft flex, rigid and paragliding in Greifenburg

After the German Open, most pilots went home, as the weather forecast was marginal for more flying this week. I like my regional championships, it´s great to see the pilots I started flying with, and with every flight even in difficult conditions I learn more.
A big group of Russian pilots joined our FAI 1 comp, amongst them some their top ranked guys Sasha Serebrennikova, Anton Struganov and Konstantin Lukyanov.
The sky was overcast on our first task on Monday, but no weather hazards apart from weak lift, so we set a 63km task around 3 tp. I was racing together with the two Russians, only on final glide they cut me off.
Yesterday was cancelled due to rain, and also for today we expected the rain to start very early. We saw sun in the morning, so we went up to take off really early, set up, and I set a really small task of only 30km (I´m in the task/pilot´s committee), because it looked like we barely had 1,5 hours to play with when we started into to tast around noon. Luckily we are only 28 rigid and flex wing pilots, and about 22 pg pilots, so we were in the air pretty quickly.
Sasha got up very fast and started racing straight away, while today it took me a bit longer to find some decent lift on shaded Emberger Alm. Pretty soon, I started with Anton and Konstantin again. Like the day before, they left me behind on the last leg ;) But it was a fun little flight. Not long after we landed, the rain moved in from the southwest in is still hanging around. About half our field made goal, while only Dieter Müglich got around the 53km of the rigid task.
At goal in the lush green field of Weisach, I met some Russian friends again.
Tonight we will all have a pilots party at Fliegercamp, and it doesn´t really look like flying at all tomorrow, with storms and lots of rain on the forecast.

German Open Podiums

Sorry for being a bit slow on reporting, but I caught a really bad cold. I made it to the awards of German Open, but then I went straight to bed to be kind of fit for the start of the Hessenmeisterschaft, my regional Championships, today.
Big congrats to Suan, Gerd and Arne, great flying! But Mareen really made my day, it was so nice to see another German girl flying in a big comp and enjoying it! We will meet again soon for some more training :)
Also congrats to Tim, Norbert and Robert! You find all the results and more photos and reports in German here!

German Open: Suan Selenati wins!

Primoz won the last task again with an amazing 10 minutes on the 2nd pilot, but as he had landed early in the 2nd task, Suan Selenati (ITA) won the international German Open ahead of my team mate Gerd Dönhuber. The awards will be at 10am.
I had quite a fast flight yesterday, averaging over 50km/h on a 103km triangle. It was enough to win the German Champion women´s title again!
In rigid class, Austrian Christopher Friedl won ahead of Tim Grabowski, but what I find amazing is Robert Bernat in 6th place (and 3rd best German pilot), an ex member of our paragliding national team. Within a year of flying rigid wing comps he got really good and he would be a great addition to make our team stronger at the worlds as well!
So big congrats to Suan for this big international title that he has earned with his great flying!

German Open: Suan Selenati wins!

German Open Day 1: Strong Foehn, day cancelled

At 8.30, Regina and Dieter started the opening briefing at the landing field of the camp site, head quarter of the German Open hang gliding 2016. An international field of 90 flex and rigid wing pilots is here to compete until Sunday.
During the briefing, a strong westerly picked up - the forecast was for a strong Foehn wind, a northerly up to 80 km/h had been measured at Sonnblick mountain while we were briefing, so we were a bit puzzled that the organizers were going to send us up. Lukas Bader and Martin from the Dutch team had been voted into the safety committee and talked to Regina and Dieter. Soon they cancelled the day, which also leaves the mud at take off some time to dry out when we go there tomorrow!

Some time to make an update of blog and fb, and time to talk about new, exciting projects with Matjaz!

St. John´s River with Sherry and Joe Kittinger

On my short trip to Orlando, I had the best tour guides you can imagine - Sherry and Joe Kittinger invited me to an airboat trip along the St. John´s river, Florida´s longest river! It is always a joy for me to meet them. Joe hasn´t only helped Felix Baumgartner to beat his own record of the highest skydive jump ever, which Joe had already set in the 60ies - but Joe had also flown almost every wing that exists during his time at the airforce! 

Aerophile as I am, I keep bugging him about stories of his time as a pilot, and he patiently never gets tired to tell me more. And this time he didn´t only tell some stories - they got me speechless when they showed me an original F4 jet, actually one that Joe had flown himself! It´s set up in Joe´s memorial park. Sure it was for very serious reasons when Joe flew that jet, but I had to ask him what it was like to fly that wing. He smiled and said that it was one of the finest planes that he ever flew.

Of course Sherry and Joe know how curious I am about local wild life, so they thought it´s a good idea to take me out and see some alligators. And we saw plenty of those amazing creatures, any size! Our very knowledgeable guide Joe blasted with us to the top spots for seeing all different types of birds and gators. 

I had no idea that you can actually cross soil as well as water in such a boat, it was almost like a hovercraft. Really fun! The guys in Florida never get snow to skid and spin their cars around, so instead they do it in airboats on the water! Quite exciting with lots of hungry eyes sitting in the water expecting a snack ;)

I was also introduced to the original orange tree that was still one complete tree, before they had started grafting them. Thankfully Sherry and Joe warned me that it is a very sour and bitter orange. And so it was - but as I don´t like wasting food, I finished the whole sour orange, pulling funny faces much to the delight of Joe and Sherry. Oh Joe would get along very well with Bill Moyes, pulling jokes on "tourists" :) 

Hard to believe I had barely 24 hours in Orlando - it was filled with an amazing trip, great stories and the best company you can possibly ask for! If you want to know more about Joe´s life, I can recommend his autobiography to you: "Come up and get me" - he has an extraordinary humor, and if you like flying, well - to me Joe left an important footstep in aviation history, in a very modest way. 

I can´t wait to get back and meet these fantastic, lovely people again! Thanks heaps, Sherry and Joe, you really made my day!

Support me at the Wings for Life World Run!

On May 8th, join the Wings for Life World Run and race to support a good cause: finding a cure for spinal cord injuries! Who of us hasn´t had a close call, some minor or major injuries, having seen "the dark side" of not having a fully functional body? Here you can donate and support all our friends who haven´t been able to recover yet!
You can run in many cities world wide, or you can selfie run if you can´t join an event, or you can donate to help - anything counts and will be highly appreciated!

From Rio to Denver

After a week of flying in the heat of Rio, the cold rain in Frankfurt welcomed me home for a short stop. Right on the next day I left for a work flight to Denver, Colorado. High cloud base, strong wind and some last specs of snow greeted us on the high plains of Colorado. Except for the Rockies in the background, it kind of looked like Forbes, just maybe 30 C colder ;)
The city is mainly flat, perfect to go around on inline skates. Except for the wind - but that counts as training.
The constant smell of marihuana in the city irritated me - I learnt that for people over 21, in Colorado it´s legal to smoke it not just for medical reasons, but also recreationally.
After a short stop, it´s already time to pack my suitcase again and head home. Let´s see if spring has already arrived in Germany!

The sky above Rio de Janeiro

Arriving in Rio de Janeiro on a work flight the day after Carneval finished, the weather looked dreadful. Showers on approach, strong wind and grey sky. On the way to our hotel, I could see Urubus (Brazilian vultures) sitting on lamp posts, trying to dry their feathers.
Talking to the champion of all Cristo flights, Nader Couri, he wasn´t positive about a chance to get "the flight" any of these days. Even my friend Fabio Thomaz, who is usually super enthusiastic, didn´t sound excited - that´s why I only brought the bare necesseties over this time, my helmet, vario, sunglasses, gloves and a gopro.
After some heavy showers, at least it stayed dry for the rest of Thursday, so I was happy when Leonarda Beltrao offered to pick me up early the next morning to find a glider and harness for me. Well, not just "a" glider, but "the" Gecko, the brand new intermediate wing that had just arrived from Moyes!
We got to the ramp at Pedra Bonita nice and early. When Konrad Heilmann told me that he had tried to fly to Cristo early this morning and turned around half way as he really wanted to get back, I got excited about the day. A flight to Cristo seemed possible, but not easy. The few times I went to Corcovado, it was always soaring with a significant south easterly wind on the ridge. Today there was almost no wind, but really good looking clouds. And a smiling Rui Marra who talked about an epic spread for today :)
It´s not a long flight to Cristo, but it is exciting nevertheless. You don´t have any places to land really, just the trees of the Tijuca national park, some huge Favelas and high rise buildings. The beaches of Ipanema or Copacabana are too far away - and they were also really crowded with umbrellas! The only place to land is at the race track - and many of the paragliders used this option indeed on this day.

Thanks a lot to Chico Santos and all his tandem pilots from the Sao Conrado flight school for their patience! It felt like 50 tandem gliders were lined up, yet they let me move in for take off, two wing men leading me down the ramp! The Gecko was smooth to lift off the edge of the ramp, guess my wing load was really low. I realized after the first turn how easy the handling is and started to play with the VG.

I was super careful to not land out today, and I was happy when I saw Nader Couri cruising along, showing me another time how to do the flight of flights!
When I finally reached Cristo Redentor, I could not stop smiling. What an energy! Flying back to Sao Conrado was easy, so I decided to turn around and visit Cristo a second time.
Going back to take off, it looked tempting to try and soar up the big rock of Pedra da Gavea. Suddenly a thermal took me up and I could fly over to the back of the huge boulder under the cloud. I have never been able to do that before! When I came in for landing after about four hours, I concentrated to finish in style. I had never flown a harness like this before, but it all worked. The Gecko flared easy and seems to have quite a big window for smooth, elegant landings :) sorry that my gopro had already run out of battery!
And so was I - so I put down the new green machine in the shade under a tree and sat down to have açai and fresh coconut water with my friends. We were FOUR hang gliding girls at Sao Conrado on that day, so we took a photo as proof :)

Also a nice surprise to meet my old German friends Egbert von der Höh and Wolf Schneider together with Markus Fiedler here in Rio, also raving about the great flying!
Thanks to all the people who made this awesome flight possible for me - I can´t wait to get back!