Super Dan's first Day Topless

Here's a wee clip from the other day for those who weren't there

T-Shirt flying, Oh mein Gott! Visiting pilot Polona Jezek, Oh mein Gott!

Well what an exciting day we had on Monday. Boy did we get sun burnt! Not only were we flying around in T-shirts, but we had a visiting pilot in town. Can't say the flying was amazing, it was on and off on and off, but if you were lucky enough to take of in a strong bit you could stay up, having a larger glider didn't hurt either. Our visiting pilot, Polona Jezek from Slovenia, flew on Missy and impressed us all with her smooth scratching. Andy managed to get into some blotchy North/West wave that was 5degrees warmer, happening quite low, but the rest of us that flew after were scratching in close to make the most of the North and somewhat naff air. Super Dan had his second day on the Litespeed, made friends with a thermalling hawk getting all up in his airspace and pioneered a new bomb out.

John Smith, Charlotte McKirdy and Polona Jezek. Obviously post-flight

Standard DFC Pilot

John watching Andy scratch up

Andrew coming in

John mid beat-up

Nice angle of dangle Johnny

Pre-flight gesticulation

Super Dan

Mount Ida League Day 1, Later re-named Epic day at Pams

Aramoana

There was a small male bonding flight at Aramoana earlier in the week. It's not often that we get a SE wind without rain for such a wicked site, so it was pretty special. Not super strong from accounts but just enough to stay up and enjoy a rarely seen view. Looks like it was awesome (bromantic).

Sandymount Silky Smooth Spring/Summer Sunset Soaring....Sick

What a day folks. Super Dan has lived up to his new name and apparently kicks ass at flying litespeeds, full VG full speed what's the problem?! Strong smooth thermals to 2000ft and "two foot ball fields of wave". Oh and it was on from 1pm until dark, people had to stop flying only due to fatigue and forgetting their head lamps and glow sticks. There should be some sweet HD video on its way but in the mean time, enjoys the views....

Andy flying the Toxic glider

Super Dan Cutting shapes

Itchy Pilots Scratched hard

In another lesson about turning up early, three pilots and two gliders went to Sandymount yesterday. Mr A McKirdy got the last of the good air and whistled around on his sisters litespeed. However the 'becoming northerly and dying away' came earlier than we had expected. One young woman took off anyway and scratched around, getting above the ridge in a few gusts but eventually utilized the emergency uphill landing in the saddle, for the first time. It must have looked like good fun, as Dan Gnoth promptly launched on the newly refirbed Aeros mothership, flew for 60 seconds or less and did his own last chance landing. After carrying the gliders back to the derig, it poured with rain. A nice rinse for the wings let's say. Quite the adventure though! Wierdly as we were leaving, it came on, too bad we were too cold and wet to rig again!

Nice colour coordination with the cows

First top landing, like a boss

This young man has made it all the way from the Taieri and beaten his bestiality addiction to have his first top landing and dynamic soar on the Otago Peninsula. Hope you like dubstep yo!

Naughty flying on Thursday

What a sweeet day. Lot's of play on the ridge and the newbees had some awesome flights and practice in a pretty damn strong NE. Here's a first person video from Super Dan, check it!

Max flys a combat in Crimea, Ukraine

location: mont Klementjeva Koktebel

Crimea Ukraine

I arrived in Kiev and was greeted by a local pilot Julia, then investigated Kiev. Later we met up with some of the local pilots for chili vodka and other delicacies. The next day, we checked out one of the local flying sites with a pilot named Victor, who later showed me around the Aeros factory.

I booked a ticket on the night train into the Crimea region- a 1000km haul which took 13 hours. Fun fun with no one on board speaking English! Sign language always works... most of the time.

So arriving in morning I then went on a trolly bus, a small 2 hour drive to the flying site 'Klementjeva Koktebel'. There was a small runway for towing, a north side and south side for dynamic and towing 500ft above ground. I was told it's the best school for hang gliding and paragliding in eastern Europe. There was a hang gliding bar and separated of course, a paragliding bar. I stayed at the hang gliding bar which also made fantastic food. There also was a hanger so no need to derig- just a 1 minute walk to launch, what more do you want?

The first day was low cloud base maybe 60 meters above takeoff. We still had a blast racing around the 3km ridge like mad men and women, a bit of acro, some low flying and safe landing.

Then Micheal invited me to check out their training methods, fun fun.

After that we had two days of bad weather, checking out Feodosia with some students.

Finally good weather! I pulled the borrowed combat L 09 out of the hanger and we flew slalom around the paragliders.

View from the take off

The hanger

The Camp

Take off south

On the training hill

The glider