The start of the Red Bull X-Alps 2009 is now less than four months away, and the athletes are fully absorbed in their various training regimes. Dependent upon where they live, they have been cross country skiing, running , walking and flying hard in preparation for the gruelling race, in addition to preparing all the [...]

Rolex has become the main sponsor of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world air sports federation that governs all forms of sporting aviation including ballooning, gliding, aerobatics and model aircraft flying. Rolex will help the FAI to develop these activities, and will be associated in particular with the prestigious distinctions awarded by FAI. Previous [...]

Sol have created a classic glider bag, complete with back padding and carry harness, that can be turned inside-out to reveal a quick-pack bag – just bundle your glider into it and draw it closed to get your glider out of an impending shower, or into a waiting car, in record time. www.solsports.com.br

Nova, along with their partner Charly Produkte, have created a new flying suit, the Expert. With a technical cut it is made from 3 layer windproof, water resistant and highly breathable fabric. A micro fleece collar avoids that scratchy feeling on the chin while lycra cuffs keep draughts out at the sleeves. There is even [...]

Moyes Litespeed pilot, Giovanni Vitola, came out top in his country’s national hang gliding championships, which comprised 4 tasks ranging from 19 to 45.5 km. The event took place at Roldanillo, Colombia, and finished on 23 March. Hermann Rojas (Wills Wing T2) was second placed, and Rolando Mancilla (Wills Wing U2) third. http://sites.google.com/site/guatemalaopenhg/Home

Gradient’s Aspen 3 has landed after a long period of development. The team have finished fine tuning its new sport class ‘climbing machine’, and with its stability at high speeds and reduced weight over the Aspen 2, Gradient feel it will meet the needs of ambitious XC-pilots. The Aspen3 is available in five sizes and [...]

French acro and speed riding star Cyril Planton is joining the R&D team at 4Speed. He will help in the development of what will hopefully be competitive speed riding wings of the future. As the season draws to a close, the company’s ex demo wings are now being sold at knock-down (30 to 50 % [...]

The 2nd Speed riding Cup and first ever French speed riding Championship is to be held at Samoëns from 3 – 5 April 2009.

Buzet, Croatia, is preparing itself for more paragliding competition action this summer, as the PWC event will now be followed by the FAI cat. II Croatian Open, on 19 – 26 July. Manilla’s Godfrey Wennes will be meet-director. The entry fee of 120 Euros (if paid before 1 June or 150 thereafter) includes transport to [...]

Want to step up your paragliding game this season? Axis UK team pilot Mark Watts and ex-British champion Hugh Miller will be running a cross country paragliding clinic for UK pilots this spring, with seminars, air-to-air coaching and free retrieves.

The 2009 US Paragliding Nationals will consist of 2 events: Round one will take place at Dunlap, California, from 27 April – 2 May; then from 16 – 22 August there will be a round at Salt Lake City, Utah. The website for the Dunlap round can be accessed here, and for the Utah round, [...]

Gin have released a new basic harness, the most compact in their range, with seat plate and back protection. It is aimed at students, beginners and experienced pilots looking for a simple, comfortable and light harness with back protection for a reasonable price. The Basis is available either with bottom rescue container (RC model) or [...]

The Boost is Gin’s beginner model, which, along with the Bolero 3, completes their Easy Glider range. Gin say it is the perfect paraglider to learn and to teach paragliding and paramotoring, and also to discover paragliding possibilities. They say it is very stable in all axes, and “a real pleasure to pilot, with an [...]

Moyes wishes to warn pilots that a Slovenian company intends to produce and distribute uprights which closely resemble their Zoom uprights. These models can be mounted into Moyes gliders, but Moyes urges its pilots against this, as they have been found to be signifcantly lighter and thinner than the true part, with an estimated 30- [...]

French school, Cumulus, based at Greolieres (Alpes maritimes, France) are running trips to Morocco, from the end of March until 14 April; to Corsica over the late May bank holiday and then to Dune de Pyla (FR) and the Spanish Pyrenees in June. For more information or to book onto any of these trips, visit [...]

Scott Mason and the parahawking guys out in Nepal are just coming to the end of another busy parahawking season. As well as all the raptor training and tandem flights, they have rescued several injured birds. The rescue centre is now bursting at the seams, and the team are looking for donations and sponsors to [...]

Apco’s tandem spreader bar has been fully redesigned to include an integrated automatic B-stall mechanism (It will collapse the wing in case of reserve deployment) plus 2 main pilot and 2 pasenger hook-in points to allow adjustments for different pilot and passenger weights. All hook-in points are clearly marked in red. The spreader bar is [...]

Version 5.0 of the paraglider simulator DemoFly  was released in February 2009. Changes include: Optimised mode of play with wing on the land; option of fast running to take off;  more realistic in turbulence; asymmetrics, frontal collapses, back collapse and transition between them and normal flight look more realistic; photo realistic panoramas (Google maps) and [...]

A new version of Track-Album: Flight Log, GPS software was released recently. Track-Album is made specialy for paragliding/hang gliding and includes logbook module, track analysis module and statistics module. More screenshots… You can Download this GPS software here.

Matthias Klinger is now part of the Skyline development department and will be working with Bernhard Greindl on the paraglider designs. Matthias says, “I am looking forward to placing my 20 year experience in Glider design to the Skyline range. First prototypes are currently in production. I am sure that we will reach our ambitious [...]