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!
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
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!
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.
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.
Andrea Fusi won the sports class award, Konrad Baumgartner won rigid class.
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!
When I took off, the sky was still blue. I didn´t mind flying an extra hour waiting for the startgate to open, cause I didn´t have much flight time this year, and I enjoy boating around the Cucco peaks a lot! It was a race start again, as we were only 29 pilots, and the forecast was for some overdevelopment to our south.
Going back up northwest into the Gubbio Valley, I got dropped at the second last turnpoint by Roland. The valley was in total shade when I turned around, and as I knew I would face quite a headwind into goal again, I made sure I had enough height even if the glide was bad.
Again I was stoked to fly to the furthest point with the lead gaggle, but turning around and going back headwind, they shook me off in no time. I tried to fly the clouds in the flatlands and eventually got some good lift to cloudbase, but while the height was enough for Fabien to go around the last turnpoint and into goal, I had to find another thermal, cause the headwind just killed my glide. Those are the moments when I wish there was a "light weight and small glider bonus" - Sasha can probably write a book about it by now.
Since Tuesday Flavio Tebaldi and his great team organize the Piero Alberini international competition at Monte Cucco in Umbria, Italy.
I decided to go, because my great friend Rebi agreed to come with me to drive and help. Having my own driver is a luxury I usually don´t have, but in covid times is for me the only way to feel safe, cause I need to go home and keep taking care of my parents after this week off duties.
Marco Laurenzi won the day, and Roland Wöhrle finished on a fast 7th place as top German pilot.
Here you find more photos and the official results. And a new scoring system too! Hessenmeisterschaft 21
It felt great to fly around some mountains again, but the flight was too short. Some clouds turned the whole valley into shade, and before the sun was back, I landed after barely 20km. Very good training, but I have no idea where I´m ranking today, or if there were any points at all.
Without friends and their support, I couldn´t have done it. I hadn´t flown in over a year, cause my mom got really sick last year, then corona started and all comps, including the Women´s world championship in Florida that I had so looked forward to, got cancelled. So it´s about time I say thanks to a few people :)
When Harald Stephan invited me to take a tandem flight with him at Tegelberg in his Atos rigid wing, I was happy to start spreading my wings again after a long lockdown.
At Emberger Alm, I coached Rebi´s steps back into hang gliding, and she helped me a lot with my first paragliding flights after a long break. We had fun, and lots of flights. We squeezed out every flyable minute of every day, as we both had been deprived for too long. But it was hard work, as we took social distancing very seriously. We went up in our own car and took turns in flying, cause we soon leanrt that the official bus didn´t run in the afternoons.
Landing out with a hang glider is always an adventure, but in times of corona - you just don´t want to try it. It´s exhausting and frustrating, cause nobody really stops to take you back to your car. One day, I walked some km with my harness on my back to the closest train station, took the train back to Greifenburg, while Rebi walked up to launch to get our car down. On the hottest day possible of course, with a storm lingering on the horizon...
Billy
was stoked when I invited him for home cooked dinner with chanterelle
mushrooms that I had collected the same day in the forest.
When I heard information about a new virus coming from China in January, I was alarmed to hear that they quarantined cities by destroying highways. Of course I was hoping for the best, but I clearly remembered Sars and Swine flu, which didn´t disappear within a few weeks.
Another sad cancellation- the Wings for Life World Run won´t happen this year, only if people run individually. It has been a great event over the past years and got more and more popular, supporting research for victims of spinal cord injuries. 
In these times, I hope that people will get closer, despite the "healthy distance" and a namaste greeting instead of a hand shake. I hope they will see that it´s important to stand together and help each other, that our human values are more important than ever to cope with this crisis, rather than fighting about toilet paper or beating each other up over some kg of flour. But in panic, everybody shows a different behaviour.