Three tasks, ranging from 77 to 124 km,  were flown of a possible 9 days at the Bogong Cup, which finished on 21 January. All podium places were taken by Australian Moyes Litespeed pilots: Curt Warren took first position, with Jon Durand junior in second and Steve Blenkinsop third. www.xcflight.com

The Nissan Outdoor Games is fast approaching, and the jury have now been selected. They have the difficult task of deciding which team gets the ‘Golden Peak’ award for the best film, the ‘Best Sports Sequence’ and the ‘Jury’s Special award’. There will also be a photo contest during the event. The responsibility is great, [...]

Some of you may have already heard that Stefan Schmoker, one of the Swiss Team Pilots, sustained fatal injuries during today’s task. Stefan and the rest of the field were flying in a perfectly normal place where we fly every day and nobody was on the bar or pushing hard near the ground.  In fact [...]

The smell of dope in the morning. Or, as it were, in the evening…Am writing this out on the little terrace in front of our team apartment. On the terrace below is the landlord and his police-officer friend, sharing a doobie, and the smell is pleasantly wafting up my way so I can pretend that [...]

The Brit Team has had a bad day. After storming round in the lead gaggle all day it all went very wrong in the last 15k because we all got stuck and watched the chasing pack fly over our collective heads to take the glory and more importantly all the points.  By the time we’d [...]

“Explore New Skies” is the title of Advance’s new promotional film for the Epsilon 6. You can view it here, www.advance.ch/index.php?id=662&L=1.

ITV have just received EN certification of their new mini wing, the 18 m² Awak, and say that it flies very well! www.itv.fr

Nova sum up their new EN D, LTF 2-3, wing, the Triton, as having “performance without a bite”. They say they are not pushing the boundaries of the certification categories on any of their wings, but instead are concentrating on getting the right feel and features for each wing for its perceived target group of [...]

Apco have redesigned their tow release so that on opening it now separates the two legs. This means that in the event of a water landing, for example, the pilot can escape his harness unhindered by the tow yoke, a potential problem that had existed with the previous version. www.apcoaviation.com

What a day (or did I say that yesterday???) Today was the best flying day we have had so far, with real thermals originating from real thermal sources, nice cu’s popping overhead and not QUITE as dense airspace as yesterday.

Sorry for the lack of a blog yesterday.  I got back to start writing and was so tired that I fell asleep whilst typing.  I woke up at 3am with a cold cup of tea next to me, all the lights on and about 20,000 full stops on the page as I’d obviously dozed off [...]

The organisers have gotten their act together today – we’ve been issued maps with turnpoints on them, and I now have a list of the turnpoints too so I can tell you guys where we have been! Task was 94km around the launch, with a 2km entry cylinder around Maguey and the Maguey turnpoint after [...]

UP have totally updated their clothing range for the coming season. A new T-shirt collection, all 100 % cotton and available in sizes S – XL, consists of four new shirts for the boys, two new designs for the girls and two new polo shirts. Then to keep you warm all the way from launch [...]

The Himalayan Sky Safaris team of John Silvester, Eddie Colfox and Jim Mallinson, will be running a tour in the Spring, 25 March to 4 April, based in Bir, India. This time of year generally sees very good flying conditions, and Jim says “it will also be the best way to blow the winter flying [...]

The task setters had a challenge up their sleeves today – 91.7km of bumpy racing with 3 turnpoints and a 6km exit cylinder around the Penon launch. I had something of an epic today, was all lined up to launch in the ”free for all” 10 minutes window right after open window, inflated the first [...]

In the continued absence of any catastrophes, bad management, poor organisation or inclement weather to give me something to rant on about (today’s task was, again, close to perfect) I thought I’d write a quick few lines about the comp pilot’s nemesis.

So, today being the 25th we finally got the first task off our minds, and what a task it was. We’ve cleverly managed to put Ronny on the task committee, he’s likely to be one of the foreigners who knows this place best, and he’s always good for a dose of reason when everybody else [...]

I’m annoyed. I’ve got nothing to moan about. The first task of the World’s was run yesterday in glorious weather.  The organisation was perfect, the take off was in fantastic condition and the launch ordering system used to get everyone off quickly worked well and minimised queues.  The task was an intelligently set race with [...]

Registration was amusing on Saturday as all the World’s best pilots queued up to present paperwork, FAI Licences and GPS’s to the organisation.  Arriving in my normal shambolic manner half an hour before registration was due to close there seemed to be some sort of drinking competition going on outside the registration building.  A water [...]

Hi All (all two??) I have been offline for a bit, busy getting my arse over here and getting installed. Flight went well in spite of two gliders and umpteen t-shirts for the team, and in the end I just got in a cab at the airport (happened to be a Suburban, full-size SUV) and [...]