New Blog

Peeps -

So here's the deal . . . . from now on, I'll be posting all PG-related stuff on Ozone's team blog site - my page is here. Any personal rantings or stuff PG-13 rated (which means any paragliding gripe that a pilot with less than 13 years of experience should hear) that shouldn't go on the company blog will, of course, be posted here.

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Back home . . . . kinda.

Yeah . . . . I'm back in Interlaken.

I was supposed to go to Gerlitzen for 6 days to train over water, but I'm no longer going to the Red Bull Dolomitenmann (website may be down) in Lienz, Austria which is only an hour and a half away. Unfortunately, the team organizer had to bow out due to injury. Since Gerlitzen is a 6.5 hour drive from Omegna, it made more sense to come back here and train in Murren where I have pass that I already paid 59CHF for, good 'til early September.

Murren was beautiful the other day - blue skies and all. I started at 10 and did a flight/hour until 4. I started work on my left helicos trying to get the feeling back. I also did the rhythmic on the left side, trying to get the timing down. I've decided to learn/re-learn the infinity by way of the rhythmic SAT, which is really the correct way to do it. On my last flight, I did one on the right and after 4 - 5 rotations, I started to go over the glider a bit but stopped before I started to get into full tumbling since I'm just taking it step-by-step. That evening, Hans, the Swiss Ozone dealer, held his evening acro sessions where you get a ride to Axalp (ski resort), you fly about 2 km and practice over the Brienzer See, then he waits for you in his boat in case you go in the water. (If you've seen the great movie "Play Gravity", the scene where Mathias & Raul are doing a Rodeo Infinity is where I flew. If you haven't seen it, you must!)

I did 2 flights and did more rhythmics, each time able to get the FLX to tumble, but stopping after a few since I don't have the timing yet to transition cleanly to Infinite. This will come but for right now, I'm very happy that I'm getting the timing of the rhythmic itself.

Once I perfect this, the Infinite is sure to come!

It's 12:40 a.m so I'm going to bed. I'll write more about the World Air Games test event and my first helico jump next . . . .

Acroaria - Run 2

I´m in Torino now and took place in the acro paragliding test event for the World Air Games (WAG) 2009. I´ll post more about this next time.

Regarding Acroaria, I did the same exact routine and did slightly better with another clean run. I don´t know how I did for the day, but I`m happy with my overall results. (We only had 2 runs.) I achieved my goal of making the top 20 by finishing exactly 20th! This is a great improvment over my Paranoia results and will certainly boost my FAI ranking. My APWC ranking is 30th, which isn´t too shabby considering this is my first season.

I don´t have a lot of time to post right now as I´m on someone else's computer using their internet time! I`ll post more soon when I find the next internet spot.

I head back to Omegna to get my car, then go to Gerlitzen, Austria to train, at least that's the plan.

Acroaria - Run 1

After 2 days of crappy weather, we finally got to do a solo and synchro run. Besides Vertigo, this is one of most competitive comps of the year as all the best pilots are here, except for a few. Because it's so close to France, all of the best French pilots are here as well as all the Spaniards (i.e., SAT team except for Raul). It's quite impressive to see so many have runs that consist of rhythmic SAT-to-Infinity, helico-to-helico, SAT-to-helico, helico-to-SAT, and then do ground spirals while landing on the raft. These tricks are so difficult to perform under pressure, it's amazing . . . .

As for my run, I was happy with it. I did SAT-helico (yeah - I can do that now), helico, helico-SAT, and misty flip. I scored mid-70s for the first 3 tricks, but got a low score of 66 for the misty. If I made the misty like I usually do, I think I'd be much higher in the standings. One of my goals for this comp is to end up in the top 20 - so far, I'm 20th out of 40 pilots! And if I can do this without ANY dynamic tricks, it'll really be cool!

This season, I haven't practice anything dynamic, like the rhythmic or tumbling. But after this, I go to Gerlitzen, Austria for 6 days to train over the water so - who knows! - I may have the rhythmic to infinity before the summer's over!

Anyways, here's a video of my run:

Leaving for Italy!

The weather was gorgeous today in Interlaken so I got 6 flights at Murren. I got to practice more SAT-to-Helico which I feel I have now since I did 3 in a row. This is important as I abandoned the helico-helico for now and I needed to replace it with another trick with the same difficulty. At Acroaria, we may get to do 5 tricks which means I'll have to one trick on both sides since I'm not doing any dynamic maneuvers in my program. So it looks like I'll just do SAT-to-Helico, Helico-to-SAT, Helico, Misty right, and Misty left - if I do those cleanly and consistently each day, I think I have good chance of placing in the top 20, which is my goal for the comp.

(As a sidenote, since Paranoia, my ranking has gone up to 74th from 97th making me the top-ranked US pilot! WOO-HOO! If I can place in the top 20 in Acroaria, I could break the top 50 in the world - that would be awesome!)

I had a really great practice today. I'm very happy with my helicos since I learned to moderate the rotational speed with the outside break in Organya. While they may be slightly slower, I'm no longer experiencing any oscillations which is typical of helicos that spin too fast. Now I can consistently hold it for 20 - 25 rotations which I was NEVER able to do before. And when they do start to oscillate, I now have the sensitivity on the outside brake to slow the wing down and then speed it up, thus eliminating the problem. (Enleau was teaching me this last year but it wasn't until last week that I REALLY got it.) Now . . . . if I could just get my left helicos back as they've seemed escape me in Organya. Once I start fixing my left side also, I'll be going back to the helico-helico.

On my last run, I did a helico-SAT, then transitioned to SAT-helico, exiting and going to a misty left, then misty-to-helico that was just beautiful - my best one ever - there was no pause, just went right to it. I was super happy with this run so I decided to end practice right there.

I'm back at the Funny Farm now, ready to grab an early dinner at Little Thai, if they're even open this early. I have to say, I've been to many Thai places and this has got to be one of the best EVER. If you come to Interlaken, don't miss this place.

See ya in Italy!

Back at Euro home base

After 17 days in Organya, I'm back to what I consider "home" in Europe . . . . Interlaken. When you've been away from your "real" home for as long as I've been, you need SOME place to call home and I'd say this is it. I know I can easily buy/eat veggie food, where to sleep, where to get on the internet, where to fly, etc.

Seiko and I got back to Annecy after a 10-hour drive from Spain on Saturday night, afterwhich I quickly got my stuff together and took off to meet Arnel, Erik, Antoine, and Arturo in Mens, FR which is southeast from Grenoble. It was REALLY great to see some familiar faces from home, as I've been feeling a bit homesick the last few weeks. While I feel very fortunate to be doing what I'm doing this summer, I'm getting tired of camping - living out of a tent, using communal bathrooms, and sometimes sleeping in my car when putting up the tent isn't practical or possible.



Before leaving for Spain, I spent a night in a friend's room here at the Funny Farm/Mattenhof Resort
where I use the internet all the time. While the room wasn't spectacular, I got to sleep in a bed with a real comforter and a real pillow . . . . it was amazing! Like this, I miss the most basic things from home: laying in my couch, taking a shower in my bathroom, flying at Mussel Rock, driving my car, having toast with margarine, going to King of Thai after flying, sleeping in my bed, holding Ayumi's hand . . . . I've learned to appreciate the most simple things in this trip. While I'm sure upon my return I'll miss Europe, as of today, I'm looking forward to being home.

That said, I plan on doing some training at Murren for the next few days to acclimate myself back to thicker air before heading to Acroaria on Wednesday afternoon. But the weather looks pretty poopy this week here in CH as well as Italy so who knows what will happen. Nevertheless, I will head out there since I have nothing better to do. After Acroaria, I hope to be part of the WAG test event which will be held in Turin, IT. I say "hope" because only a select number of pilots (20 for solo & synchro, I think?) will get to participate based on (order of importance): helico d-bag experience, top 10 finishers in Acroaria, 2008 FAI ranking, fair subdivision among the different countries. Even though I think my chances aren't good, I'm gonna get a d-bag from Pal while I'm here anyways, just in case. Besides, I may have Arnel take me up in a tandem and I'll d-bag at The Dumps which I think would be a first.

You just never know. : )

Organya, Spain

After being here a week and a half, I'd have to say this place hasn't been the most "magical" as advertised. If you're into competitive acro, Organya's is definitely a place to train, but according to other pilots from France and Austria, it's not Shangri-La. One of best French acro pilots is here, and he thinks his site is just as good. Anyways, Organya is located here about 2 hours NW of Barcelona.

Here's my day-to-day:

830 Get up, have breakfast, and go use the internet.
1130 Go back to campsite, hang out with other pilots, read a book, or go to the pool
1500 Lunch
1530 - 1630 Siesta
1645 - 2030 Train acro
2130 - 0030 Go back to campsite, hang out with other pilots, read a book, or party

Repeat

Pretty simple, eh?

Here are the pluses of Organya:

1) about 1000 meters AGL to play with consistently
2) 4 -5 refills an hour
3) the time to fly is always the same
4) many of the best acro pilots to learn from
5) the campsite has free wireless and a swimming pool for 5E/day

And the minuses:

1) training is over the ground, and the ground is hard
2) if you throw your reserve and you aren't far enough away, you'll land in the mountain and that's BAD
2) it's really f-ing hot every day
3) there's NOTHING to do around here other than flying
4) it's a REALLY long drive versus comparable sites in France (10 hours from Annecy, for example)

I haven't been training as hard as I'd like, esp. with the dynamic maneuvers. I was hoping to do more infinity attempts, but I just don't feel comfortable doing it here. So, I'm focusing solely on the SAT/helico, helico/helico, helico/SAT. What I've realized about my acro flying is that I'm a LONG way from where I thought I was, and thinking about doing the Infinite before mastering the above-mentioned tricks is just a joke. Trying the rhythmic is the most I'll be doing.

I think about Seiko, whom I've been camping and hanging out with a lot. She's been flying acro as long as I've been flying, and she's just now learning the rhythmic and tumbling. But, her SAT/helico, helico/helico, helico/SAT are beautiful. In fact, like some of the great pilots here, she can do in 1 continuous run: SAT/helico, helico/helico (3 - 4 times, going back and forth), helico/SAT (other direction).

The 3 other pilots doing this here are all ranked in the top 10. It's simply beautiful to watch.

From what I've seen this summer, we (Americans) aren't even close. IMHO, I'm only the one from the States who's really trying to raise the acro bar and I feel, at times, I'm one of the worst pilots here.

As I sit here in the restaurant, we can see the training box. It's a little too early for most of us to fly (1430 now), but the Spainards, Horatio Llorens and Alejandro Rodriguez, are training. I just watched Horatio, who's the #1 pilot this season, do the following all flawlessly transitioned from one to the next:

Infinite (10 turns)
Helico
SAT
Helico
Helico (left)
Helico (right)

then exited to Misty/Helico.

As I said, we're not even close.