Amazing what the new beginner wings can do today.

Yeahhh,  Penny's new Ion2 finally arrived and she flew it last Sunday with a big grin in her face. Even this eagle (behind her) had to fly with her to believe what he saw.

We are very excited about the whole development Nova is focusing on.
Last October the kids, Penny and I had the pleasure to be at the last Nova-Pilots meet at Fiss in Austria. It was a fantastic place and we all enjoyed the area, people and the great service we had. Katia and I lucked out to win the first price (weekend in Fiss) by kicking the soccer ball into goal at our landing, see the pictures below.
Anyhow, a lot of people were surprised when Hannes announced during the meet that they are working on a new Low 1-2 wing (Ion2) instead of a new high end wing (Triton2). Hannes stated that the 2-3 wings are going through a lot of changes and he is more excited to show what you can do today with a low end 1-2 wing.

A couple month later, the result of the Ion2 (low end 1-2 wing) was enormous, the performance and handling in this class is outstanding. All the words and hype got now backed up with a 223 km FAI triangle flight last week. No one ever flew on a wings you can use to teach people on this far. Now to top it off, Nova released the new Prion2, which is a beginner wing which is used mostly in schools. Well, this wing is not only for schools, it has just about the same performance like the Ion2, which means you should be able to do a 200 km flight as well.
The very interesting result of this, is how students are now looking at buying wings. I was running a beginner to novice paragliding course the last 10 days and normally people are looking for cheap used wings to get started and once they have a couple hours under their belt to upgrade to a 1-2 wing and then start with cross country flights. This approach is now changing as you can skip the first step and get stated right away with a wing which is save to learn on with a great handling and the performance to fly far and long from the get go.
Well done and thanks to Hannes and his team.

2012 Easter Meet at Panorama

Sunny and hot.
The weather was just awesome and sunscreen was needed every day.

Thanks again for everyone who came out and was there to make this such a fun weekend with flying, skiing, hanging out in the sun, "Tray" racing and boat racing.

Penny Powers took home the trophy this year and she is the first female on the trophy. Well done Penny.
The kids were not so happy with me as I did not land in the target with them tandem on our first flights.

Thanks also to everyone who dressed up, and came with their costumes. Karen had the best costume and I forgot the name of the character who she was....again, see in the pictures below who she was.

If anyone has some pictures they would like to share, please send them to me or contact me to give you access to this album.

Thanks to
Panorama Mountain Resort, Calin Comaneseu, Rick Cowley, Jason Chychal, Raul Sanchez, Brett Yeates, Dennie Shipley, Dannie Wolf, Sandor & Nikoletta, Stew Cabbledick, Andy Gamp, Dominic Hughes, Dave & Carrie Corbin, Janet Morris, Bob & Natalie Gardner, Karen Girouard, Chad Chudyk & Mary, Nathan Livingston, Mike Waddington and Sherie Kark, Chris and Kari Wilson, Frank & Tracye, Jeff Grieve, Jimmy, Max & Penny, all who helped
raise $800 for our buddy Stewart Midwinter.

Happy landings.

Easter Paragliding meet is coming up this weekend.
Panorama is having a "Spring Carnival" and asked us to get creative with our outfits. We are planning to get a banner or flag going as well. I hear some people will have some fun costumes and I can't wait to see.
Depending on weather and wind, we will have some landings in the "tube park" just in front of the day lodge. So it will be great for spectators staying at the lodge as well.
Most of the landings and competition will be at the "Driving Range" (follow the Outrider run). We will have a target for the "Easter Eggs" (will be dropped at least 100 feet above ground) and target landing spot set up there as well.
We start Friday morning but most of the pilots will arrive during the day. Saturday and Sunday we meet at the day lodge at 9:00 am

Here are some pictures from last year.

Reserve clinic/repack in Calgary

It is already March and very soon the flying season will start. In April we will start to do our first xc flights from Panorama Mountain Resort and once the road is open to Mt. Swansea (beginning to mid May), flying will be at its strongest season.


To keep us up to date on Reserves and getting some reserve tossing practice in, we headed to Calgary last weekend and attended the "Reserve Clinic/Repack" with Muller Windsports.
They had a great turn out and it was super to see people we have not seen for a long time.


Something that came to mind when discussing what radio channels to use and how to react when someone comes down on a reserve, was my SPOT. I suggested to use a SPOT and to have the "Golden flying website" add a page where every pilot can register their public SPOT URL. With this system, pilots flying XC can be located and one can see where he/she is currently flying or hiking and their "OK" or "HELP calls. Strangley enough I received a very negative response to the SPOT, which left me a bit confused, as it seems to me, an obvious choice in locating pilots.
At the completion of the clinic, Bruce Busby, who was one person who thought it was a great idea, discussed this option further with me. He is considering presenting it to the HPAC board to see if this could be implemented on the HPAC website. The SPOT is great to locate someone for  a rescue, but how many times do we worry about others as to where they are and if they need help or not? Now if this gets implemented to the HPAC website, everyone could see where pilots are, if they are okay if they had to land way back in the mountains, or had to use their reserve, or simply need a retrieval after a long flight.

Thanks again to Vincene for hosting this great event and thanks to Bernand for repacking both Penny's and my reserve packs so quickly, in order for us to get back to Invermere so soon for another event!

Getting the Cessna 172 out for Discovery Channel

The DiscoveryChannel came to Invermere to report about "Gigantic" things. We thought that gives me some good reason to get some more airplane hour under my belt.
 The WhiteWay (19 km) is going for a Guinness record as the biggest maintained ice rink. Nick Bernzin and my self started the idea and and connected the right people to make it happen several years ago. Who would have thought it would get this big?

You can see the episode form the Daily Planet at http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/#clip619031
Here are a couple pictures we took from the air.

 

Happy New Year / Einen guten rutsch in neue Jahr We wish you all a healthy and successful 2012. Wir wuenschen allen ein Gesundes und erfolgreiches 2012

xAlps 2011 Presentation with Andy Froetscher (Italy) and Max & Penny (Canada) in Munich

Thanks for everyone of who could make it for the presentation. I got told there where about 160 people in the room and it seamed no one was bored with our plus 2 hour presentation. Andy and I had a ton of fun and even learned more about the race while doing the presentation. After all, what really counts to have a great time with your loved once, friends, learn more and pass on the positive energy. Thanks again for everyone to make this such a great event.