The sun rarely shines in Vancouver...

Since we arrived here in Vancouver, it kept raining and drizzling. Lucky that the hotel provides an umbrella for us! 3 pm feels as dark as late evening, it is difficult to stay up late here, specially with 9 hrs time difference in the back.
It is a bit warmer than at home, around 8 c above 0, so I kept walking around outside, because I like this city very much. Even when you dont exactly see that there is a waterfront or Grouse Mountain on the other side, because cloudbase is at sea level ;)
Every time there are more poor people in the streets, and yesterday I experienced a new sad record. I was asked for money by people living in the streets 26 times (in about 4 hours of walking around...) - that is more than in any other city I have been to.
But there are good news too - all our crew members who were in Mumbai returned home safely and are well looked after right now!

Standby

Way into December, I have to work a standby line at Lufthansa which means I dont know when or where I will end up. Today I called and offered to work a day early - with the latest news from Mumbai I can imagine that some people are scared to fly there, so I offered help.
A few hours later, I was called and got a flight for tomorrow - going to Vancouver. A relief on one hand, even though I would have been ready to go to India to help, get colleagues and other people safely out of the country. My thoughts are with the people who live in Mumbai as well as with all visitors - quite a few times I had the opportunity to enjoy the vibrant city for a day, to taste the best food in the world, to haggle on the markets for silk and mangoes.
Three times over the past 12 months I met extraordinarily strong Indian women sitting next to me on private flights to Australia or the US, hard working and successful women, medical doctors or professors most of the times. I admired them for their amazing stories, for their braveness and for their vision that India is on the rise and they can support their country´s reputation abroad.

Sportlertag DHV 2008

Today we are still in Bruchsal at the "day of the sport pilots" - we are listening to different presentations about hanggliding and paragliding. Torsten Hahne (on the photo) just showed us the most amazing photos of his cross country flights around the greatest peaks of the European Alps and glaciers. And by the way, he is 3rd in this years DHV xc contest in sport class.
Now Peter Achmueller is teaching us about how to improve performance in cross country flying, and how to work in the hanggliding and paragliding clubs - how to raise motivation. We are laughing a lot, Peter is a real comedy talent!
Soon after lunch, we will also get the awards for this years cross country contest, also for German leagues and German Cup. Soon more.

DHV annual meeting: Honourings

Today we met in Bruchsal, close to Heidelberg, for the annual meeting of our hanggliding organisation DHV. First they started with honouring the pilots who won medals in European and World Championships. Rebekka Speckenheuer started with her song and video "Hammer" that she wrote for our women´s team - I dont know who was more nervous, me or her!
Then Monique, Regina, Ute, Christa and me were called to the stage and got a big applause from the about 150 delegates of all hanggliding and paragliding clubs in Germany. We got a great present - as a memory we got a real book filled with photos from the worlds at Monte Cucco.
After that, Ewa was honoured for her European paragliding champion medal - here we are sisters, I also won the gold medal at the hanggliding Europeans at Greifenburg, where the men´s team won the bronze team medal, so Andre, Lukas, Hans, Jörg, Gerald and Roland were called to the stage as well.
Now the political part of the meeting is starting, and tonight we will have a party for all the pilots. Tomorrow we will have the awards for the DHV XC flying contest with interesting presentations of some of the best cross country pilots.

"Hamma" (Hammer)

After a couple of work trips last week (Orlando and Portland), I finally arrived back home, picked up my parents in the airport and we started preparing the big "gold party" that Regina and I celebrated with the German women´s national hanggliding team at Reginas place in Riedern last night.
But not only our team and people who helped us win this summer at Monte Cucco were there, also our families and friends, lots of pilots of different kinds. Regina and I loved to prepare the best food in the world for our loved ones, all tasty, healthy and vegetarian. And I heard quite a few people raving about the Indian and Thai curries, the pumpkin soup or the veggie chilli ;)
Unfortunately, a lot of our friends from further away could not make it this time - we hope they are all well and that we see them sometime soon anyway. Music, food, lots of flying action projectored to the wall and even a dance floor!
But the best surprise was our young friend Rebekka - she and her friend Sandra have created a video for us about the worlds, they dubbed a song and cut a whole film. Incredible job! We love "Hamma" - have a look at it here: Hamma you will see quite a lot from the women´s worlds and I wish all of you could understand their German lines of the song. Those two girls are great, incredible, and that is what "Hamma", actually "hammer" means in colloquial German. Thanks a lot for the song and the film, and we hope they will be successful on MTV ;)

My Australian Hero

I had intended to write a bit more about Jeddah and also about Ewas movie, when I read about great news from down under where the Aussies already had 6 rounds in the Canungra Classic comp and they fly the final round tomorrow/in a few hours.
Local boy and top Australian pilot Jonny Durand bombed out the first day because he was very sick, and is now in first place!!! Believe it or not, it really sounds incredible! World Champion Attila Bertok is close behind him, so it will be a very nerve-wrecking last round!
Unfortunately I couldnt make it there this year, but every morning when I have a cuppa and look at Big Jon´s great Canungra mug, I think of my friends down under and hope that they get great thermals and a safe flight. And I keep my fingers crossed for Jonny the legend - he deserves to win after that incredible week.
By the way, to get one of those great mugs, you have to be in the top 10 of the Canungra Classic comp, which is quite difficult with all those Australian guns racing there. Results and pictures here: Canungra Classic 2008
By the way - all you paragliding guys should consider trying hanggliding as well! Australian pg pilot Enda Murphy is currently ranked 5th in the comp in his second year of hanggliding. I bet he has a lot of fun!
Also amazing - young German talent Jonas Blecher won one round in this years Classic! I took me years to get there once... great on him, I hope he enjoys the great company and the parties just as well.

Ewas paragliding movie in the cinema!

I just returned from the premiere of the first paragliding movie in cinemas ever: "Reise zum Horizont" (Journey to the Horizon), featuring Ewa and her 69 years old pg student Dörthe.
The applause for producer/editor Thomas Latzel and for Ewa and Dörthe was neverending, about 200 spectators were deeply touched by their amazing story and incredible aerial pictures in different parts of the world. More tomorrow.

Jeddah - Timezone GMT+3

My last adventure took me to Saudi Arabia. The only way to enter the country is by work or with an invitation from a company or the Royal family, so I was excited to see a country that I usually cant travel to. We flew Frankfurt-Jeddah-Asmara (Eritrea)-Jeddah and arrived just after midnight.
Jeddah airport is quite small, with a large area outside for the muslim pilgrims who do the hadj and go to Mekka or Medina. No chance to get to those places unless it says "muslim" in your passport. Anyway, I could not have rented a car anyway, because women are not allowed to drive a car in Saudi Arabia. Really, no kidding! Also, women dont work, not on the market, not in restaurants, not in hotels... so there are a lot of Indians, Pakistani, Africans - people from other countries who do the work.

Back in Munich

Back in cold rainy Munich, I am still dreaming of Mexico. Just to give you a picture when you haven´t been there for a while - last year for the pg pre worlds, the take off at el Penon quadripled in size. Still sandy then, it is now beautiful green, grass everywhere.
Also amazing: The landing field at the lake looks really big enough now for a hangglider as well. I only landed there once years ago and just made it with dry feet... now it looks much nicer.
Tomorrow I will meet Alex Ploner, Regina, Andy, Jörg and Tim in the Dolomites. The weather forecast is great and team Timezone is going to take some photos and films in the spectacular scenery.

Valle de Bravo - Timezone GMT-5

Today Miguel Gutierrez picked me up in Mexico City and took me out to Valle de Bravo. It didnt look very flyable, so we just cruised around and he showed me what he and Oscar are doing at the moment to prepare for the perfect paragliding world championships that will be held here in January 2009. I had flown a competition in the beautiful area two times and I was overwhelmed by the work they have put into take off and landing areas!
I will post more pictures as soon as I am at home - seeing how much work they all put into the event makes me want to be on the pg national team! Ewa knows this area very well and loves to fly in Valle, she will have the best chance to compete successfully in a really great event. With Nextel Miguel and Oscar have a really strong sponsor, and apart from amazing flying around the vulcanos of Valle, be prepared for some incredible events - these guys are really creative!
...by the way, the Monarca competition first week of January already has 91 entries, so if you want to go, you should consider entering now ;)

Screaming Mimi

Not exactly as pink as in the TV series "Riptide", but at least as screaming - when I joined a business event for Cisco a week ago, I was the only one allowed to sit in the cockpit during the flight in this great old Sikorsky helicopter. It had been painted in army green because it played a roll in the movie "the storm flood" some years ago. No digital screens in the cockpit, quite a different sight to the jet cockpits I usually see, only beautiful old instruments. The pilot was experienced and despite quite a strong sw wind, we had a really smooth flight.

Dieser Heli ist zwar nicht schreiend rosa wie die Sikorsky in der Serie "Trio mit vier Fäusten", aber mindestens genauso laut - als ich vor einer Woche einen Vortrag für Cisco halten durfte, wurde ich zu einem Rundflug eingeladen und war die einzige, die beim Flug im Cockpit sitzen durfte. Dieser Heli wurde in bundeswehr-grün angestrichen für den Fernsehfilm "Die Sturmflut", der vor etwa 2 Jahren im Fernsehen lief. Im Cockpit ein herrlicher Uhrenkasten, nicht ein einziges digitales Instrument! Der erfahrene Pilot flog uns sanft durch die Hügel von Heilbronn, trotz starken Windes kaum ein Wackler. Sah total einfach aus, vielleicht muß ich Guido anhauen, daß er mir auch mal Helifliegen beibringt...

Back to winter

It was superhot when we were setting up the glider at satellite beach in Florida. Had there been a dune like in Christchurch, we could have flown here all day with the pelicans.
Now back in Munich Im missing the heat - temperatures were down to 6 degrees celcius this morning, and the prediction is for snow in the mountains down to 1500m today! Winter cant be far away... lucky that there might be some flights to Mexico, Argentina and Brazil on my schedule soon!

Escaping the hurricanes

Long hours of work - I flew to Orlando with Jamie and Rolf Wenzel who is producing a film for the Lufthansa Magazine on Air. We filmed on board while I was working and Jamie was our very patient passenger. I had hoped to be able to fly and film at Quest, but we arrived one day too late- it was too windy on Monday and Tuesday with hurricane "Ike" passing along south of Florida.
At least Rolf could film my usual layover training - swimming, running, working out in the gym. In the evening we cooked porcini risotto and had a beautiful dinner on Jamie´s veranda 20 m away from the waves.
Thanks for your invitation, Rae-Ann, I only saw it when we were on our way back already. I would love to see you when Im around next time.
At the moment Im preparing a presentation about hanggliding and being successful in competition for some Cisco sales people - "The view from above". Tomorrow in Heilbronn I will present it and get to fly in a big helicopter with the guys, i hope the weather stays this nice ;)
More pictures soon.

Real people in every Timezone!

Walking through Manhattan, we had a lot of fun - but why keep people asking me for the way? Happened three times on this trip ;) do I look like a local?
Here on broadway a young guy walked past me and asked "Corinna? Bist Du Corinna Schwiegershausen?" I was stunned - out of all the 20 odd million people in Manhattan, I met a German pilot who said he knows me from the magazines and his friend who flies the competitions. Sometimes the world is small.
Now we are off to Frankfurt, then to Orlando to film on board and also hopefully at Quest if Hanna is fast and Ike is slow... Im not too keen on thermalling in the torandos of a hurricane!

Skyline Moyes Party in Marquartstein

I just returned from the great Skyline Moyes party at Weßner Hof, organized by "Mr Skyline" Wolfgang Genghammer and his team. About 60 pilots were flying from Hochplatte take off, or were aerotowed, came in from Kössen or Hochfelln or other mountains, it was a great fly-in! Star of the tug pilots was Dragonfly inventor Bobby Bailey who barely touched the ground today. He had fun taking passengers into the air, showing them the beautiful castles and mountains of Chiemgau from the air, or towing up happy hangglider and rigid wing pilots.
I saw some Slovenian national team pilots, some Italians, Hungarians, Austrians of course - it was a big international event, and I had the honour (and power) to present our sport to the audience, interviewing pilots and telling people what it is all about. Nice to see the big smiles in peoples faces who went up for the first time!
Now I will be off to Frankfurt and tomorrow to Newark. My sponsor Timezone had a large shop at the party with great trousers, so I will sport my new great pair tomorrow in Manhattan - maybe those hip and trendy New Yorkers will appreciate them ;) I was happy that my friend and team mate Jamie wasnt at the party today, she already has plenty of access luggage kilos when she flies back next week and Im sure would have ended up with a lot more today, as the collection was excellent!
A last time to meet Oli for a while, he will be off to Australia to stay with his family and escape winter. Of course Gerolf was at the party, presenting the beautiful new Moyes "Malibu" a mix of beginners and intermediate glider. Tonight they will have Tom Weißenberger talking about his "Island jump" and about the biggest triangle started in Germany this year, in May he flew a 320 km FAI triangle from Hochfelln!
With Primoz, Regina, Jörg, Andi and me we had a great bunch of Team Timezone pilots at the meet, and people loved to have their photo taken in front of our sails with the Timezone wings. For tonight or tomorrow, they also expect Alex Ploner to drive or fly over from Italy, the new rigid wing World Champion.
I wish I could party with all of them tonight, sitting at the bonfire, watching the best of hanggliding. These Skyline parties have a great reputation throughout the area.

Antenne Bayern, Anastacia and GO on TV!

I just came back from a radio interview with one of the biggest private radio networks in Germany, Antenne Bayern. They have an impressive studio at Ismaning, a few kms north of Munich.
When I arrived, there was excitement in the air - they told me that Anastacia was there, right now next door. And she outed herself and admitted for the first time that she turned 40, not 35! Great on her. I love her music, her incredible voice, her passion - and she patiently gave lots of autographs and had photos taken with fans, she seems to be a great person too! (no, I didnt dare to ask her for a photo or autograph, I just admired her from a few meters away and thought what a great job she does with her inspiring music).

For the very positive side of the German Open, I forgot to mention Henry Maek who put a lot of effort into the comp. He managed to get two TV stations out and they some great shows about the comp, one of the shows was even broadcasted life!!! Have a look at the impressions here: http://www.dhv.de/typo/German_Open.
There were also big articles in two local newspapers, which is a great advertisement for our sport.Thanks, Henry, I know how much effort it takes to convince those guys that it is worth coming over and filming a story! When I waited for the copy of the show, I heard that the RBB guys were really pleased, they all agreed it had been the nicest story they had done all week!

German Open – some Highlights

The nicest moment of this years German Open was when Sarah, the cute little daughter of Henry Maek (he is one of the organizers), gave a great bunch of flowers to me for having won the German Champion title. Konrad Lüders played a song for the rigid wings on his violin, but I only knew the „Hungarian Dances“ that he played for the hanggliding pilots. Very fast run up and down the keys, very inviting to dance (at least for Regina and me), good job, Konrad!
Also special thanks to Wulf, one of the hardest working volunteers Ive ever seen in a comp. And my flying highlight was Harm the Dutch Dragonfly pilot when he dropped me off directly into a thermal yesterday – not an easy task up here in the north!
Uli Eysel was lucky and he is fine after the towing incident on the first day, but he has to have a gum surgery on Monday.
Im extremely happy that my Slovenian friend Primoz (Reginas boyfriend) is now German Champion in Class 5.
And now some of the controversies of the comp for dear Davis.
Concerning the competition, Im still not sure who really deserves the title.
On that first day, I didnt even get a chance to leave the airfield. I had two tows of horror with huge lockouts and decided it is not safe for me to try and tow in a 90 degrees crosswind of up to 30 km/h in gusts. Call me chicken – anyway, I was still disappointed that I didnt even get a fair chance on that day, because I didnt get higher than 50m off the deck.
Elio and Lukas looked at the towing conditions, also at the strong southerly and just shook their heads and also did not get on course. When even the towing pilots call it Russion Roulette and have doubts to tow in those conditions...
Second day that we flew, the pitch measurement discussion started. We had to change towing directions and move our glider about 800m along the field – when Lukas moved the other way. I asked what happens, and he said they want to measure his glider´s pitch in the shelter now... in the beginning of the competition task? Lukas is very strong, but after carrying his glider over and back, take off had already started and he was exhausted. They did the same thing with Andre Djamarani, the top ranked German pilot of the Europeans. Lukas and Andre could only start really late into the task on that day and I suppose both of them were physically and mentally quite exhausted, so they did not get a fair chance to compete in their own national championships.
On the other hand, winner Roland Wöhrles glider was not measured once. It seems like similar problems as last year – lack of concept, thus more disturbing than helping or working together. I had my glider measured in the goal, in the morning of the last task and in goal again, and was able to find agreeable settings, I could move my glider over in time, so I was lucky. Andre and Lukas have been the best German pilots this year, always highest ranked in the competitions they flew, but even the best guys can´t perform properly when they are forced to cross the line of their stress level.
We had a lot of discussions about how to do the measurements and how to deal with them at the Europeans, and there it seemed quite constructive and positive. Over here, that system was not adapted. Numbers and names were published so everybody knew who were the „bad guys“.
Out of the seven comps I have flown this year so far, this was definitely the most disturbing one.

German Open finish

Yesterday Lukas and my glider were measured before the task and after we landed at goal. My glider was found ok, but they zeroed Lukas for the day because they measured lower settings than they allowed (just to explain the results).
Overall Oli Barthelmes came second, Hans Kiefinger 3rd, Jörg fourth and I ended up 5th and as I was the top ranked woman, I was also able to defend the title as German Champion.
In rigid class, Primoz Gricar became German Champion, Toni Raumauf placed 2nd in the German Open and Dirk Ripkens 3rd.
Elio Cataldi had a problem with his gps yesterday and landed at the airfield, so he lost his 3rd place.
Japanese pilot Akira Mutazono finished 11th.
My gear is packed, early tomorrow morning I have to work on the flight to Vancouver.
Next weekend I will be back to go to the Skyline Moyes party at Marquartstein and I hope to see a lot of pilots and friends there.

German Open Day 5, 80 km out and return

Again a significant southwester, also some high cirrus moving through and shading off some areas. Still the task committee set an 80 km out and return to Golssen and back to the airfield Altes Lager.
Today I only needed one tow, Harm dropped me right into a thermal with his Dragonfly today! Lucky, because the tow was quite turbulent, the air was really rough.
I got high and decided to start out on course because it didnt look like conditions would get better. I was on my own, just a rigid wing in sight every now and then. It wasnt easy to get to the turnpoint even thoug we were flying with a tailwind, because the ground was shaded sometimes. I guess I rounded the turnpoint first, and only flying back Oli and Hans nearly caught up to me, but I made it in first, followed by Oli and Hans. Maybe 8 flex pilots made goal, and quite a few rigids, Toni Raumauff won the rigid day ahead of Primoz and Tim.
Looks like quite a lot of rain moving in tonight, we might not be able to fly tomorrow.
Thanks to Willi for the great picture of my father!

German Open Day 4, 120 km to goal

Today the wind calmed down, cloudbase was at about 1500 m and a task of 120 km to the Polish border was set. I needed two tows to find some lift that took me up - the others had already left, so I was on my own most of the day.
Primoz passed me and for some few kilometers we flew together, but I couldnt keep pace with his Phantom. Anyway, I made goal, about 8 people were there already.
I just got back, results are not out yet, but it looks like Hans won the day, followed by Oli
Thanks to Christiane Kappes for the photo.