May had a lot of unstable weather - Equipment review

April started out great for flying, May had a couple good days but overall it was very unstable and not many flights were happening. In the mean time we have been busy with the canoe's (incl. camping), bike rides, kids' soccer and at the Skateboard park (Erik's favorite place to ride his bike).
Penny did a lot of training and got super fit for her 25 km trail run at Nippika. They had a couple hundred participants and Penny was 3rd overall and got 1st place in her age group. Way to go Penny!!!

In the mean time I'd thought I'd share some of the questions I. have've had. Several people have asked me about the harness/backpack and the MBT's I used during the race.

The Altirando XP from Supair was the harness I used and still use. This harness is excellent and I just love it. Here are a couple remarks of what I love most about it.

• The backpack is very comfortable to carry and most outstanding is the ability to pack it flat and tall as this keeps the weight close to your body. The further you move weight away from your body, the heavier it will feel. My pack weighs about 14-17 kg depending on supplies (5.5 kg the wing, 3.9 kg the harness/backpack, 1.4 kg reserve plus helmet, clothes, GPS, Vario and water/food. 
• The harness is very comfortable to fly and allows you to assist turns with weight shifting. The Nova Triton needs a harness which allows you wight shift in combination with break-line input as it can not only be flown by break-lines. 
• The extra bonus is the leg fairing or pod you can attach (0.850 kg). This is excellent as it saves you from wearing extra pants or a flight suit (a flight suit alone is at least 1.3 kg). It is warm, streamlined and fits nice with the front-mount reserve. The front-mount reserve is also serving very well as a cockpit for your Vario and GPS.  

I am very happy with that harness as it is way more compact and with the extra packing space if needed I can add more stuff to go traveling with this pack alone.

In the video below you can see how the pack carries and a short clip about MBT sandals. MBT is not a good shoe for trails in the mountains as it an unstable shoe with far less traction than proper mountain shoes. But at the same time, I have to say that I would not have been able to walk these long distances (especially in the valley's) for this many days in a row and to be able to recover so quick with only a couple of hours of sleep a night, had I not been wearing the MBT's. I am still wearing MBT's every day as I have sandals, runners and dress-shoes.
Here are the reason what I like on these shoes the most.

• The round sole virtually makes you walk and feels very soft. 
• The MBT system forces you to have a upright posture and this is a mayor advantage as a upright posture will provide you with a good blood circulation for the organs and you will not get tired as fast as with a bend over posture. 

First I got told to use MBT only for training as it builds up your core strength but not to use them for the race. After all the experiences I had with MBT, I am training with them and would use them in the race any time again.

Slovenia part 2 and first flights with new Triton in Canada

Today I received my last missing bag. First thing was to unpack the Milka chocolate and Hariboo Gummibears. Second was to weigh the new wing. Guess how heavy the light version of the Triton 24 (large) is? 7, 6, 5 or 4 kg... It is just a bit over 5kg, exactly 5.1 kg. Well done Peter (manager for Nova productions), this is very light for a large glider.

Back to Slovenia, we had ideal conditions every day with about 10 km wind at launch and great soarable conditions mixed with some light thermals. We could climb up to 1400 m asl and flew up to 35 km x-country. I am not sure what kind of connections Brigitta and Dusan are having, but they seam to be working very well and we had great flights every day. By the way, the Nova Pilot team has a Photo Gallery and we have a lot of pictures about the meet at http://picasaweb.google.com/NovaTeamPilots.

One mistake I did going to Slovenia, was not taking my harness. As you all know, only change one part of the equipment and not all. So, at my first flight, I used the new "Globe" harness from Charly on my new Triton and it was kind of hard to have a real first impression about the wing.
Here is what I experienced. The Triton handles very nice with a short break travel and average break pressure. Launching is very easy, it thermals very well in light conditions and where the Triton really stands out, is the speed. It seams to glide best with little speed bar on and the faster you fly it does not seam to sacrifice to much on glide. Also an important fact is that the large Triton is only a EN "C" (for those who are not pilots, it means it is rated for intermediate and not for expert pilots). It only has a couple C's in not important flight characteristics (at least for me). Overall, the rest is either A's or B's (even accelerated). Now my Triton is build with extra light material making the wing even more tame and this makes the Triton in my eyes the perfect wing for the x-alps.
While testing in Slovenia, the only part I did not like to much is that the wing likes to get out of the bank after about 2 turns. We figured that this is due the stable harness and the Triton needs input with the seat board to stay within the turns. I also had the opportunity to fly the "Factor". What a great wing that is. It handles like a toy. Light break pressure and the wing can entirely be flown with the break lines, in other words you can use a stable harness and still have excellent handling characteristics. It seams that the Factor and Triton are performing the same in trim speed and in thermals. The main difference between the Factor and Triton is when you start using the speed bar. All I can say, both wings are a absolute wow. Well done Hannes.

While writing the blog, the weather seam to improve and checking the wind at Panorama ski resort, it did not look as bad as forecasted at NavCanada. So I packed my skies, the new Triton, my Apco AirChair and a medium "Sky" reversable harness from Jeff. First I flew with the Apco AirChair and wow, the handling is great and just as expected. Second flight I did with the "Sky" harness and the handling is excellent as well. The only difference is that you sit a bit more upright then with the apco AirChair, but it also could be that the medium harness is a bit on the small side for me.
I was very happy after these flights confirming that the harness is a big part of the equipment and should never be underestimated. Can't wait to get out for some big air now.