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July 7-10: Make your way to El Yelmo Festival (Spain)!

If you like massive free flight events, with a beautiful mountain to share the sky with other 300 gliders, cinema sessions and parties every night, and a good bunch of PG addicts to hang around with, then you shouldn’t miss this Spanish-style Festival! The 6th International Air Festival of El Yelmo 2005 -FIA- (Jaen, Andalusia, Spain) comes this year with interesting side events and, of course, a number of activities to keep you amused during the whole weekend.
As you might know, this has become an essential event for flight-lovers in Spain and an ever growing attraction for pilots from all over Europe. El Yelmo offers one of the very few Cinema Festivals dedicated to productions about what we like the most: flying; with an interesting selection of the best and newest films made in this field that are shown at an open-air cinema every night. But this is only part of the fun. There’s also a big commercial fair (all related to air sports), a spectacular flying site of almost 1000m above LZ (El Yelmo, 1809m asl) with usually very good summer conditions, paramotor fields, aerobatics show, flight-related forums and lectures, a very good atmosphere, and all topped by concerts and parties every night.

This year, the FIA has invited for the first time a neighbouring country, Portugal, represented by the Portuguese Association of Free flight, with the objective "to discover new horizons, valleys and mountains from other cultures". The organizers hope that this invitation will also be a good opportunity to exchange ideas about a future European model of Free-flight Resorts. The guest city this year is Algodonales (Cadiz, Spain), which has already become a Free flight Resort, together with Loja (Granada) and El Yelmo (see box on the right).
New for this year’s Festival will be the astronomy sessions that every night will take place at the take-off of El Yelmo, in which the public will learn to identify stars and constellations, taking advantage of the clear skies of Jaen. Another attraction will be the solar balloons made by the Solaris Team, a group of French youngsters who will build a hot-air balloon to make it fly thanks to the solar energy and carrying a person.
This year, the fair will have more than 4,500 m2: 2500 in covered areas and 2,000 outside, with the participation of more than 35 companies. There will be parking places for more than 2000 vehicles, and a total of 20,000m2 in different landing fields for the users of the Free-flight Resort of El Yelmo, and the special collaboration of the airfield of Beas de Segura that will be the place of the 1st International Gliding Championship Memorial José Bautista de La Torre, one of the side-events of this Festival.
Safety, always a delicate subject in such a massive event as El Yelmo, will be backed by a series of regulations for pilots and visitors, which will include compulsory registration for the pilots to grant them access to launch, obligation to carry a personal identification on a visible part of the gear and to know the regulations. Acro below 200m agl will be strictly forbidden, just as flying over the festival’s premises or populated areas, and pilots must walk out of the LZ right after landing to clear the place for coming pilots (last year, there were more than 200 paragliders flying every evening!). Tandems will have priority both at takeoff and landing. The Festival will provide transport to the takeoff in special vehicles and no private cars will be allowed to go up, as the road is quite narrow and there’s no place to park near the launch. Only PG clubs’ vehicles for more than 6 passengers will be authorized to drive up (after registration with the organizers).

FIA's Side Events

2nd Forum of Air-Filmmakers and Photographers. 10-12 July, Hornos de Segura.
Right after the Festival will start the second edition of this meeting /colloquy, in which different guests specialized in these subjects will offer lights over the art of professionally making cinema and photography for air-sports. If you’re interested in knowing the mysteries of aerial footage or TV shows taken "to the limit", this will be a unique opportunity to learn techniques, tricks and technology to impress through the image. Among the speakers we’ll hear Hugh Miller, Chief Editor of Cross Country International magazine; Fernando Ardura Garcia, TV producer of the popular Spanish reality-show “The Jungle of the famed”; or our Daniel Crespo (Ojovolador), who will tell you some secrets about the digital image in Internet. The Forum is also meant to be a meeting for flight professionals, traditional mass media and possible sponsors and investors for audio-visual projects.

1st Meet of Spanish Free-flight Resorts
The concept of free-flight resorts came from the FIA organizers as a way to enhance the potential of the flying sites and get more promotion for free flight. The idea is to transform a flying site into an area where a pilot can find everything to suit his needs, including public launches and landings, transport to launch, access signs, rescue services and nearby hospital, lodging, restaurants, supermarket, written information about the site, website, etc. At present, there are only three free flight resorts in Spain –El Yelmo, Loja and Algodonales- but there’s the will to transform many sites into resorts and this is what it will be debated during the meeting (July 7th, Old church, Segura de la Sierra).

You'll find a lot of info about El Yelmo, where to stay, how to get there, etc., at the site: www.elyelmo.com.

The official website of the Festival has all the details about this year's event but it's available in Spanish only so far: www.elyelmofestival.com

Posted: April 5th, 2005

Safety note: Harness karabiners

Munich, February 2005
Dipl. Ing. Thomas Finsterwalder,
Managing director Finsterwalder GmbH.
Finsterwalder GmbH, Pagodenburgstr.8, 81247 München, Tel. ++49 (0)89 811 65 28, www.finsterwalder-charly.de

posted: April 4th, 2005

From DHV website:
"Investigations by the DHV and the company Finsterwalder GmbH have shown that many paraglider- and hangglider karabiners are not fatigue resistant below the point of actuation by gravity of their catch. Aluminium as well as steel karabiners can be affected.
Harness karabiners with conventional catch fasteners show different fatigue resistance over and below the point of actuation by gravity of their catch. The point of actuation by gravity has not been investigated by the karabiner manufacturers and is subject to an unknown tolerance range.
Endangered above all, are those karabiners, by which the point of actuation by gravity in the fastening catch occurs by a loading (Fk) that is larger than the fatigue strength (Fou) -reduced by 20%- established for the fatigue strength with open catch by the least favourable harness arrangement. By these karabiners, load oscillation tensions can arise on the inner bends of the karabiner, which are greater than the fatigue strength of the material. The reduction of 20% is a result of the safety coefficient of 1.2 with which the fatigue strength must be provided in order to take account of fluctuations in material and finishing. There is no warning before a breakage due to metal fatigue, as pronounced deformation does not occur, and is therefore not recognisable.
A karabiner fastener is "actuated by gravity" when there is no play present in the fastener. Karabiners with catch fasteners exhibit "catch play" from 0.2 mm to 2.5 mm. "Actuation by gravity" first occurs when the catch play is reduced to zero by deformation as a result of loading (Fk).
The point of actuation by gravity Fk can be roughly established by every pilot by testing the size of the load at which the karabiner fastener can still be easily opened.
The DHV has requested the karabiner manufacturers to establish and announce exact values for the fatigue strength Fou by March 1st 2005. This deadline has now been extended to the middle of April.
Endangered karabiners as defined above are not airworthy.
The Finsterwalder GmbH therefore takes the following precautionary safety measure:
It is recommended to use only karabiners whose fatigue resistance has been verified."

X-Alps, back in August: 850 km across the Alps!

In 2003 the world of paragliding saw the toughest and most exciting competition ever designed for free-flight pilots, the Red Bull X-Alps, a race of 772km across the Alps using only paraglider or feet. Thousands of pilots and public from all over the world connected every day to the competition’s website to follow what the athletes were doing, reaching an incredibly high number of visitors every day. Then, 17 teams competed but only 3 of them could complete the 3-weeks race, from Dachstein in Germany all the way to Monaco, through two turnpoints.
"This event proved to be the most astonishing paragliding and adventure race of the recent years. A race against all physical and pshychological odds, a race of pure paragliding and never ending hikes!" said X-Alps mastermind Hannes Arch after the first X-Alps in 2003.
This year the challenge will launch again from Dachstein on August 1st, this time with 3 turnpoints and a distance of 850km to cover. The pilots will go from east to west/southwest and thus, against the prevailing winds for long distances. Furthermore, they will have to survive in the mountains by their own means, sleeping in open air, and will not be allowed to use any transport vehicle other than their gliders and their feet.
Cutting edge technologies will be used to provide "images never seen before in such an event", according to the organizers. Among these, there will be Mini DV cameras and MMS mobilephones carried by the athletes to directly update their diaries on the website. A helicopter with a Wescam system will follow the teams all 3 weeks to get images of hiking and paragliding "as never seen on TV". The pilots’ position will be available online in realtime via a GPS Tracking System designed specially for the X-Alps together with Braüniger –one of the most important manufacturers of instruments for free-flight.
This in an invitational comp, but there are 5 wildcards available for teams interested in competing. Registration on the website will be open until the 25th of April 2005.
+Details in www.redbullxalps.com

posted: April 1st, 2005

1st International PG Festival Valle de la Orotava – Tenerife (Spain)

The Canary Islands, for our luck, seem determined to support and promote free flying and thus attract PG pilots all over the year. In addition to the XC championship being held in La Palma, "A Challenge amid Volcanoes", Tenerife is now organizing the 1st International Paragliding Festival Valle de la Orotava, a recreational meet that will take place from April 29 to May 3, organized by the Commission for Promotion of Puerto de la Cruz – Valle de la Orotava, together with the Canary Federation of Aerial Sports (FECDA). This event will put the emphasis in fun and flying, "with the objective of making this region known as a unique destination for the practice of outdoors activities and sports any time of the year".

Among the most powerful reasons to attend this Festival there’s the opportunity to fly from Izaña: 2200m above landing at the beach for a long, stunning glide over one of the most beautiful areas of the island. Aditionally, there’s La Corona, an ideal place to "hang" for hours soaring a slope 750 m above sea level and to play with the alisios winds. The organizers assure that the island is one of the places "with more flyable days for paragliding in the world. Its mild climatic conditions, along with its special orographic characteristics and the good orientation of the prevailing winds, allows to practice paragliding on at least 330 days a year in any of its several flying sites. Due to its huge central mountain -of triangular form and with an average altitude over 2,000m- it is possible that even with the worse atmospheric conditions on one of its faces there’s still good weather in some of the other two".

The program of the Festival includes acro shows of free flight, paramotor and kitesurf in charge of outstanding international pilots; a commercial fair in which products related to our sport will be offered, also an opportunity for the locals to get to know our sports a bit better; lectures, projections and conferences on nature and sports; samples of canary culture and gastronomy; and, of course, free flights in the most attractive sites of the region.
The Ojovolador Team will be there, and we will do our best to inform you about the best moments of this fun event, that we hope it will consolidate in time from this year on.

Posted: March 31st, 2005

Registration fee is 50 euros until April 10th, or 70€ after then. The price includes written material, souvenirs, entrance to all the activities in the program, transport to take-offs, excursions and meals (included in the program), and also special activities for non-flyer companions. For the participants there’s a special price of 20 euros/day/person at any of the hotels listed in the event’s website, where you’ll also find all the details about the Festival. Los Realejos Cityhall: www.losrealejos.es

See you in Tenerife!

Steve Cox and Louise Crandal: World Champions 2005!

After 10 valid tasks flown in Governador Valadares, Brazil, Swiss pilot Steve Cox (Advance Proto) managed to climb to the first position of the 9th Paragliding World Championship, followed by Christian Tamegger (AU, Gin Boomerang 4) and Stephan Wyss (CH, Gin Boomerang 4), in second and third places.

Danish pilot Louise Crandal (Gin Boomerang 4), absent at the last Europeans, showed she’s back in great shape by ending in the 18th place overall and taking the first position among the 32 women who participated in the event, an unusually high feminine participation. Second was Ewa Wisnierska Cieslewicz (DE, Advance Omega 6), and third, Elisabeth Rauchenberger (CH, Gin Boomerang 4).

The winner team was Switzerland, with Germany in 2nd place and the Czech Republic in 3rd.

The conditions during the championship were not as epic as expected from Valadares, with usually weak thermals that forced the pilots to exercise their patience and skills, and making some of the favorite names end up landed way too early in some of the tasks. This probably had a high cost to pilots like Frank Brown (9th), Oliver Rössel (16th), Achim Joos (23th) or former female World Champion Petra Krausova (4th – women).
*The next Worlds will be held in Manilla, Australia, in 2007. The Pre-Worlds will take place in March 2006 there.

First places by countries:
1 Switzerland
2 Germany
3 Czech Republic
4 Austria
5 Italy
6 Brazil
7 UK
8 France
9 Australia
10 Korea

Photos: RRPuertas / goup.com.br

*Full results, pictures and even the official beat music of the World Championship 2005, on their official website: www.2005worlds.com.

First Places Overall:

1	COX, Steve	Advance Omega Proto	CHE
2	TAMEGGER, Christian	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	AUT
3	WYSS, Stefan	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	CHE
4	SCHALBER, Alex	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	AUT
5	CANIGLIA, Anton	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	CHE
6	SIEGEL, Torsten	UP Targa 2	DEU
7	DONINI, Luca	Gradient AVAX R7	ITA
8	MAURER, Christian	Advance Omega	CHE
9	THOMAS BROWN, Frank	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	BRA
10	BIASI, Christian	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	ITA

*Results of this Worlds were processed by the Flight Analysis Software, CompeGPS: www.compegps.com

Posted: March 28th, 2005

First Places Women:

1	CRANDAL, Louise	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	DNK
2	WISNIERSKA Cieslewicz, Ewa	Advance Omega 6	DEU
3	RAUCHENBERGER, Elisabeth	Gin Glider Boomerang	CHE
4	KRAUSOVA, Petra	MAC Magus IV	CZE
5	HIRAKI, Keiko	Gin Glider Boomerang 3	JPN
6	LICINI, Caroll	Gin Glider Boomerang 4	CHE
7	BRILLE, Caroline	Advance Omega	FRA
8	SCANAGATTA, Rosanna	Swing Stratus	ITA
9	HOUDRY, Elisa	UP Targa 1	FRA
10	GARCIA Diez, Beatriz	Sungliders Khan	ESP

News in our previous Archive #14 (February 2005):
New PG Forum; 20,000 € in La Palma; Airborne Expedition; Algodonales rediscovered; APCO Harness & helmets; Open Laragne; The Skynch.

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