Raul Rodriguez recounts his invention of the latest aerobatic manoeuvre. Right back in our early days Felix and I loved the energy of throwing our gliders about and even collapses became like a game to us. Step by step we learnt to understand the dynamics of the glider and how to deal with big collapses; we even became confident at using the full stall as our ?get out of jail card? when it all went wrong.

After the briefings, TV interviews and preparations, then the adrenalin, glitz and smoke of a showy launch from the snow of an Alpine glacier, the reality of the monstrous task ahead finally sunk in somewhere on a road 750 km from Monaco.
The sky turned dark. Hail began to fall. Hard, cold daggers of ice. The race had begun.

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.

Last Friday, Chris Muller died while flying a low-level grab the bag stunt at the end of the Flytec Championships, writes Hugh Miller. The news has left many in the free flying world reeling. Chris was an exceptionally gifted hang gliding and paragliding pilot and a warm, generous, kind soul with maturity well beyond those of his 29-years of age.

Jerome Maupoint takes part in Operation Nazca. The aim: to be the first to fly paragliders over the famous etchings of Nazca, Peru

Carol Binder reports on the 15th World Hang Gliding championships in Hay, NSW. In her words “Hay, it’s both heaven and hell. You’ll either love it, or never come back.”

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.