The first time your risers go slack, and your leading edge lurches down towards and tries to slap you in the face…

There’s no room for naked fear tackling the first paraglider circumnavigation of 8,126 m Nanga Parbat - the naked mountain

Why do birds fly in circles? Which way should you turn? Where’s the core going to be? Bob Drury picks up some tips from some of the best pilots in the world about how they thermal, in the final part of Cross Country magazine’s definitive guide to thermalling

Cross Country Magazine’s definitive guide to thermalling by Bob Drury

So far we’ve only soared the Danish coasts, but next week we are off to Italy for some real flying. World Champion Louise Crandal’s life takes an unexpected twist as she falls for a bird of prey

Until the eighth day, the Flytec Championships was a festival of fast racing and fun times, as Davis Straub reports

Skywalk’s technical guru, Manfred Kistler, looks at applying artificial feathers to paragliding design.

In the latest of Dennis Pagen’s ongoing series of psychiatric examinations, Dennis visits Ukraine to interrogate the mighty Oleg Bondarchuk, current world champion and winner of the 2005 Flytec Championships

Bruce Goldsmith relates a recent close encounter with a Cu Nim and looks at how best to avoid the dangers of thunderclouds. During one of the practice days at the recent World Championships in Brazil, myself, Xavi Bonet from Spain, and Americo de Souza from Portugal had to outrun a thunderstorm. It was a pretty exciting experience, almost a bit too exciting for comfort to be honest, but it got me thinking that an analysis of how I was assessing my situation that day could make a useful insight into how to or even how not to fly in thunderstorms.

Will Gadd embarks on the glide of his life…I’m scared, scared enough to taste metal in my mouth and have a hard time keeping my feet on the bucking struts of Chris Santacroce’s Cosmos trike as we toss through the thermals over the Arizona desert.