Craig Morgan blogs from Turkey
Action from Task 1 at the PWC Turkey
The Prophet would be pleased.
A bit of weather came through in the night. The curtains billowed in for a spell and the thunder & lightning proved very very frightening – for some. One of my roomies, Mr. A Hill was heard vaguely whimpering in the corner “I want my Mummy”. But me and Wattsie snored on …
The trip up the hill was academic. The restraining ropes were set for the ordered launch (yawn), task setters gathered and discussed and the wind picked up.
Big clouds at the Paragliding World Cup in Turkey. Photo: Craig Morgan
Some big clouds were growing and it didn’t look good. Two dummies were sent off, one got sucked up and the other made no effort to show us how worrying it may be aloft, preferring instead to core the sink and scurry off to the landing field below. (Can’t blame him).
The task was set and promptly cancelled to a large round of applause. Mind sets are clearly changing as there would have been a time even last season when the task would have gone ahead. The Prophet MaHayman would have given us his blessing were he here.
So, enough about today’s boring paragliding drivel – let’s get stuck into some juicy gossip…
So, who’s doing what next year? Or rather ‘flying what’ next year? An open class glider may now be a thing of the past for some pilots – so what will they be flying next season?
Ozone, I hear, have taken the lead again in offering any pilots who have bought a (redundant?) R11 a 30% discount on an M4. Savvy. There’s no flies on those boys when it comes to business. But would I want to donate another £2.5K sterling to ‘the fund’ (totalling £7.5K in three seasons) maybe not.
A new name on the block is ‘Air Design’. Their equivalent to a DHV 2/3 is the ‘Pure’ and it’s certainly raising some eyebrows. There’s clandestine arrangements being made with new importers and pilots looking for ‘deals’ that in the recent past have been unavailable.
Can two-liners get through a certification test? Some people think so and Luc Armant keeps an open mind to the possibility.
What about this new 3D goal cylinder malarkey? Well, the techie nurds amongst you will have already spotted one failing to this concept. Firstly an instrument’s altimeter may be barometric. A Garmin has a small hole in it that if covered, purposefully or accidentally dampens the reaction time and may not give a true reading. Could its readings, therefore, be trusted if accidentally or unscrupulously tampered with ? Maybe not.
Secondly an altimeter reading taken from a GPS reading is not always accurate. Prof Adrian Thomas even tells me that with a coke can and 15 quids worth of gizmos, GPS reception can be interfered with and even blocked as terrorists have proven to their benefit.
So 3D cylinders have their obstacles to overcome unless of course you can hang an officiator with a laser off a 300 metre high set of sky hooks!!! “CALVO”…
More later
Competition website
Paragliding World Cup Association
Paragliding World Cup TV (Vimeo)
Craig Morgan is current British Champion: read an interview with him here
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