As already said: compared to the swiss guys we are real beginners here. But still - we've had some very beautiful flights. And isn't that why we are here?

Here's some lines about one of them.

The weather seems about the same every day. After a series of early morning flights, which ended very quickly, the strategy was set: All pilots who had flown under 50 km had to soar the take off for 2 hours. Only one pilot followed this strategy: Dominik Frei. The result was eye opening. Whilst every other pilot landed in the first hours of the day Dominik flew 280,83 km with his late start. The next day, nov 6, everyone followed his example. Including me.

Problem was, after 2 hours of soaring I was forced to land. I was very frustrated, so I started again at 12. I made it to 1500m with Stefanie and we headed West. Very fast I was down at 750 m, which is 500 over ground. But I managed to climb in the leeside of a small hill. High above me Stefanie flew on. She is always climbing like a monkey. Impressive.

It took me 30 Minutes to reach 2200m. Very slow, but I was happy about still flying. Some thermals later Stefanie radioed that I was directly above her. She was fine so I continued vs. Madalena. The roads here are view and bad, Madaleina is the first good road after 60 km.

Reaching Madaleina I was very low, but I still had hope. I had flown over a big area with wood, and now i was gliding over dry meadows towards a lake. "This has to be a trigger point!". I was directly over the lake when my vario yelled +2m/s. I had to stay careful not to lose it, and it brought me back into the game from 300 m AGL to 2500m.

I tried to reach the clouds with some weak thermals, but with the rising ground my altitude decreased rapidly. I felt it was getting late. I made a stupid decision to try to fly back to a good cloud against the wind, and it brought me nothing. After four hours of flying I went down near Monsignor Tabosa. Within 5 Minutes the lonely dirt road was filled with people who were asking me things. It was funny, they knew I didn't understand a word but still they were talking and asking and talking and asking and talking and asking. Very very nice people!

I was very lucky, because after one hour on the back of a motorcycle (mototaxi) I was picked up by the swiss guys.

I didn't know adventures still exist. But they do.

Xcontest