Delta News

Schon 2 gute Online Sessions wurden durchgeführt. Das Ziel hinter den Online Sessions ist, wenn die Saison mal anläuft, dass wir alle wissen, an was und wie wir uns entwickeln und trainieren möchten. Das führt auch zu einer höheren Motivation und sicherlich zu einer gezielten und guten Leistungssteigerung. Bei der ersten ging es um gute Zielsetzungen: Wie kann ich mein grosses Ziel unterteilen, sortieren und später an den Trainings gezielt daran arbeiten? Dies hat für viel Stoff zum Denken, Aufschreiben und Organisieren gesorgt. Somit war der Anfang gemacht und eine Grundvorraussetzung für den Saisonstart ist gesetzt. Bei den Online Session #2 ging es um das effiziente Aufdrehen. Was zunächst einfach erscheinen mag. Beim Delta gibt es jedoch viele Faktoren, die variiert werden können und einfache Grundregeln auf hohen Niveau gibt es keine. Diese wurden dann in interne / externe und wettkampfspezifische unterteilt, weiter noch in beeinflussbare und von aussen gegebene. Wir sind gespannt, was die nächsten Themen bringen. Folgende Themen stehen noch auf dem Programm: - Technik: Gleiten - Taktik und Wettkampfpläne erstellen - Mentaltraining 101 / mentale Tricks

Two more tasks were flewn at the 21st European Championships. The conditions came more and more fast with quite big convergence zones beeing famous for fast flying in the area. Zanoccos fabulous comments for the last day: A memorable sunny day. An awesome situation for cross-country flying in the whole area of all central nothern Appennines mountains. In the detailed weather information, he was stateing of forming of important convergence lines over the main ridges. Petsch's comment after landing on 4th place in goal after completing task 8 was: impressive 60km of almost straight flying. Raceing under these clouds was incredibly fast but exhausting. The weather forecast for task 9 was even better. So again, as usual within these championships, no sissy days in such forecasts. Another 187km was the last task for the championships. The winner was already quite obvious, Alex Ploner did an impressive championship flying without any mistake, and did never choose a bad day. But the run on the places below him was still on. Primoz did win the day with an impressive average of 67 km/h, and this over the entire 187km one leg to the north, one to south all the way to casteluccio and back to the goal in Sigillo. Franz on our side showed his big level and could make use of the huge experience (he is in the Swiss Deltaleague since 1985!). Always landing with the top gaggle in the very front top five at almost every task - ended up at overall place 14. Unfortunately he needed a checkup at the doctor on one raceing day, but showed up that nothing bad was producing his leg pain and he could continue raceing. From Petsch we could say he would be like the German Football Team, getting stronger while the Tournament goes on. Unfortunately for him, there is no KO system with a qualifying round. Every day adds up to the total end result. He could show that he is on fire as well - landed overall place 52 after quite a catch up race. Damien 36, stable and always quite on the front did poker too much at the last task, wanting to catch up the nations ranking, landed 4km too short on task 9. All the other tasks he showed that he is able to fly with the good pilots! Jean-Daniel, on of the rookies showed a potential of flying fast when the conditions are fast too. Landed on rank 53 right behind Petsch. Ubi, stable goal reacher as we are used from him on place 65 and Simon, the other rookie on place 85. Needs to be sayd that he made goal on 3 tasks and on the others he had to land short not long from goal, doing also an impressive first appearance on the big scene! Congratulations to all the pilots performing at such a level and keep the mood high! You guys rock and we look forward to see more from you! Not only the pilots went from hell to heaven during this championships, also the supporting team did have periods of downs and ups. The Team was lead after i had to leave back for Switzerland by former League Pilot Christian "Didu" Bärtschi. A huge thank you for your support, emotions, highs and lows Lina for the cooking and driving, Beni for the driving and marvellous coaching. The whole Team did a big work in joining the championships. The preparations did start already early this year. It is important in this sport to know the selection very early, the pilots need to organise their jobs and families, some of them are self-employed so they need to manage their company well during this long absence, already this is a big job that needs to be done upfront. We did prepare ourselves on different levels, not only technicalwise but also what every ones individual goal is, how we want to appear as a team and many more aspects. Knowing that ranking goals is not the main goal an athlete sets to himself. Sure, he can have them, but he needs to set underlying goals that better tells him what to do and how to achive it. This we worked out in several meetings and flying days during the events held in Switzerland (Newcomers Camp, Club Championships, and Swiss Championships). On the technical side, its been worked out on what we use for communication gear and more important, how and what we communicate in the air, keeping in mind to be efficient, not to disturb too much and also reminding that we speak french and german. So only communicate relevant things and this in an effective way. At the physical side, when the weather is good you need a strong physical condition at a base level but also at a flying level. You need to fly a lot upfront also to make sure that the back, the shoulders and the whole body is going well flying a lot for 2 weeks. Also feeling well and "home" inside your harness and knowing your glider by heart. Franz did get the additional role of the team-captain, haveing to communicate for the team in regards to the sport-aspects. Also, the Teamleader needs a partner to discuss decisions what affects the sport performance of the gang or individual members. The whole team finally went through up and downs, which is normal in such a setup. We cannot anticipate everything. Still there is a lot to do and we need to change things that we - as a support team and competition coach - can do. We learned a lot on what we need to optimize and did also mistakes. The impact of the team is still very discussed, but i am sure if it is functioning well, a lot can be done to make the pilots do better and more important, be more happy doing it. So for us the reflection work starts and needs to be done and already start to plan the worlds 2023 for next year, Krushevo, we will be heroes once again!! Some numbers The podiums: 1. Alex Ploner, ITA 2. Christian Ciech, ITA 3. Primoz Gricar, GER Nations: 1. ITA 2. GER 3. CZE Number of Tasks: 9 Scored KM: 1329.1 km / Average 147.6km per Task Number of competitors: 95 Number of Nations present: 19 from which 15 europeans Alex did win with overall points of 8642, average of 960 points per task (very impressive!) Fastest average: 67km/h, slowest: 40.5km/h. Average average: 48km/h.

The Race and Championship is full on. Three more tasks has been flown since, 110km, 132km and 152km. Totalizing until now just under 1000 scored kilometers. Amazing what the Pilots do during this Championship every day such big flights. I would be very happy to fly a 200km flight in fiesch. Now imagine you do such flights every day for two weeks!! And the conditions are fairly fast, but not yet what it can be in this area, maximum average on tasks 5-7 of 46km/h. Such Championships are not just a bigger Open or a few days cross country flying. It is by far the biggest event in our sport. You have to show before thinking of joining, that as a pilot you are able to fly over 1000km within two weeks in a big field of the best pilots worldwide. Also it is an endurance test for the support team. They go from hell to heaven every day and i thank them all for their great support, Beni, Lina, Didu, you rock!! Franz is catching up everyday, always in goal with the first gaggle. Petsch struggled with Harness problems on Task 5 and now found his way into the competition as well. On Task 7 he could catch up from Rank 50 all the way to the front again. Amazing performance and shows what he is capable to. Damien is still on fire and the (i hope you guys apologize) rookies Jean-Daniel and Simon fight hard every day. There are two more days to go, so that means by far not that its over, now the hard work starts: Keep focussed, accept flying with aches and little muscle pain here and there and as usual, change only little things that need to be changed. Todays provisional task is announced to 180km!!! (I had to leave the championships, so thats the reason why there are less pictures and reports

Task 4 - Go Big Event tough the thermal plafond was announced lower, they expect a very good day once again. Task is set, 201km with a leg south, one leg north, one to the west and south again to goal. There are different sections, ridge raceing but also quite some cruxes. especially the leg to the west towards the town of Gubio. It turned out that there the big separation, after around 100km did take place. But event the ridges turned out be be cyclic as well, so the pilots could always catch up in between different gaggles. Franz and Petsch were at the front, Petsch always at the very front and Franz switched always between first and second gaggle. Franz did some good choices and he ended up a marvellous third place for the day. Petsch did a bad choice at a crux, when leaving the ridge for some crossing and couldn't get up anymore and landed short of goal. JD, and Damien where struggeling, since the day is running out (which is always a problem at such tasks, not only you should be fast to be better placed, you should also try to finish the task before the day ends). This speciality is something we see more often in hanggliding competitions and unfortunately less in paragliding. So finally they landed short to goal, cause they couldn't reach the main ridge within the time needed. Simon did a bad choice before the start and he was the first doing a restart. This is only permitted on Monte Cucco South takeoff and you have to land on the official landing field. Usually the Rules allow restarts, but you have to stay within the takeoff window (which was from 12h till 14h). So the Team worked well, Beni the driver was already at the landing and a team of supporters from different countries were waiting at takeoff to help Simon do the restart. 10min after arriving at takeoff, Simon was ready to go! Formula 1 Teams could have learned from that. All in all it was a big day, congratulations to all pilots takeing that challenge for that big task and keeping their mood high. Primoz did win the task before Alex and Franz, with an average of 42km/h. Today, sunday is a rest day. There is strong NE winds and very stable seabreeze kicking in. The Pilots, the Team Supporters and also the Organizing Team deserves it.

Task 3 - Turbo Boost Damiano Zanocco, the weather wizard started the day with following: A beautiful sunny day and I confirm a very interesting day: high base Cumulus (3.400 – 3.700 m), strong thermal activity, wind mainly from west of low or medium intensity, low risk of big Cumulus and risk of Cumulonimbus mainly absent. Additionally he added: I think that local pilots are waiting for this kind of flying day for a long time. So the task seemed easy, 2 turnpoints, one start one goal. The tasksetting team let the pilots go discover the beautiful area of Castellucio in the south and come back to the north of the goal in Sigillo and the goal at Sigillo on the foot of Monte Cucco, 171km. And Petsch is back on track. He was behind the leading gaggle and reached them only in Castellucio half way of the task. But then, he found that famous "Turbo Boost" button on the way back and lead almost all of the rest. Ending first in goal with almost the entire "sqadra azurra" on his back, reminding the famous chase scene from the movie "Super Max" from the 80s. The winners could fly the task with more than 53km/h average. Damien on the 19th place, could keep his overall ranking. Ubaldo on place 65, followed by Simon on place 69 and Jean-Daniel on place 71. Franz has a pinched nerve in his back and was takeing off a day. Congratulations to the whole Swiss Team, everyone made goal on this high classified competition. This is very promising for the future, cause overall the team is very young. We all are looking forward to see more from this super team.

Task 1 was set from Takeoff Tre Pizzi, since the wind is announced quite stron from NE. There was a difficult takeoff procedure, which made a lot of discussions while takeoff and afterwards. However the organizers are aware and changed quite some things. The task was set at 91km and the winner got it in under 2 hours. Congratulation to the young french pilot David Gregoire. The Swiss Team landed on super places 14 Damien, 16 Franz, then Ubaldo on 50. Jean-Daniel on 68 and Simon on 74 in their first Class 1 Event made Goal. Petsch on his side had quite a bad start, bombed out after 33km where he got a very unexpected "Spühlgang" with -5m/s. Task 2 with still E winds, the takeoff was Monte Cucco northside. Quite an interesting task was set traversing multiple ridges and flats counting 119km in total. It turned out that some places, the thermals were weak and stable, windy conditions kicked in. The forecast announced thermal tops higher than it finally was. This time, the "sqadra azurra", the italiens were doing a great job. The mighty winner, Alex Ploners comments on goal: "this was a beautiful task and nice flying". Today we had Damien in goal very fast, Franz did loose time after the start where the "Unfortunate-Petsch" again bombed out. Ubaldo was fighting at the end, but couldn't reach goal. As well as Simon and Jean-Daniel, which run out of time.

Registration and Opening Ceremony The entire city of Sigillo at the foot of the famous Monte Cucco was full of fans and competitors. A wonderful start of the 2 weeks Competition. Every evening, there is program, concerts and events at the main piazza of Sigillo. Training Day The Training Day is important for everyone, the competitors, the supporting teams and even for the organizers to change things that need to be changed. The Swiss Team flew all the 108km task, commenting: "its gonna be fast". they all did the task in less than 3 hours. Day 1 Day 1 is cancelled due to cloud coverage and early thunderstorm. Damiano Zanocco is famous for his brilliant weather forecast, so we trust his judgement completely.

Delta EM Countdown and last preparation The whole team is at the last preparations for the upcoming European Championships in Italy. The site is known as especially difficult if the weather is not good but very strong and fast if the weather is good. The Team-Handbook is set up within a few meetings, checklists are beeing made and packing started already. The 6 Swiss National Teammembers are: - Damien Zahn - Franz Herrmann - Jean-Daniel Kugler - Petsch Neuenschwander - Simon Rousselet - Ubaldo Romano Here the examples from the last year competition held on monte cucco: Animation Task 1 / 2021Animation Task 2 / 2021Animation Task 3 / 2021 There they had tasks up to 150km with averages up to 68km/h. The finals were flows with speeds up to 120km/h. So it can go fast!

Weather on day 4 looked to be very diffcult with lots of cirrus in the morning and a strong west wind. Nonetheless, a short 44.4 km task was set on the flats, which were more sunny than the Schwarzwald hills. Nobody could make goal, the best pilots completing a bit more than 20 km. Bänzli ended second of the day with 21.5 km flown, while JD, Rolf and Simon bombed out around the start cylinder, as many of other pilots. Day 5 was much better with strong thermals, fairly high cloud base (up to 2300 m) and north wind (up to 20 km/h) . A 92.4 km task was set to the east of Schwarzwald (almost on the flats), then to the south over Titisee and back to goal from the north of the valley. Bänzli came 13th in goal after taking the 1st start gate. JD, Simon and Rolf had more difficult flights. Rolf and JD made a bad decision right after the start, which put Rolf on the deck while JD had to fight a long time to get back up, and Simon had to pull a low-save out right after the 2nd start gate. Simon landed after 28 km, but JD could make his way through the task, and finally came last (and very late) in goal. After 4 tasks with 51 competitors and world-class pilots, the world champion Alex Ploner (ITA) won the competition, with Primoz Gricar (GER) coming 2nd and Gerd Dönhuber (GER) coming 3rd. Regarding the Swiss pilots, Bänzli ended up to an excellent 6th place ! JD came 23rd, Rolf 32nd and Simon 40th.

Day one at the german open the sky stayed grey the whole day and the task has been cancelle. On day 2 then, the weather turned out nicer and the thermals above the Schwarzwald started to raise. The task commitee presented a task of 114 km. It turned out that multiple lines are possible against the sw wind, just which one was it? Bänzli was the one with the fastest line and won the task! The field on this highly dotated open (which you can compare with a paragliding word cup) so well done Bänz to beat some former world champions. The third day a 55km task was set. The sky were grey at the moment, the rigid wings took of, thermals improved but some difficult sw wind stayed.

Friday looked quite challengeing wind and weatherwise. The forecast showed quite some winds from SW, so the question arised, what is doable with such a forecast. It turned out that the bowl of the villars region is perfect with such conditions. Event though, there were almost no thermals, a kind of soaring task has been set of 43 km. So again, as always at these championships, there were other affordances required than just "classic" thermal flying. Technical skills were important as well as good lines and some patience at some crucial spots. Again, Damien showed that he handles quite well the found conditions and won that task. Saturday, the task was cancelled, but free flying was possible. After some beautiful flying above the vineyards of ollon we had a nice prize ceremony. The Open and the Swiss Championship is won by Damien Zahn before Franz Herrmann and Fredy Bircher on the third place. Thanks to the team and the locals let us fly in that beautiful area. We will be back for sure.

Rankings from todays task in Villars

Today (Thursday, 19.05.2022) is cancelled: The weather forecast say föhn or/and strong sw wind with early thunderstorms in the afternoon. The Swiss Open is getting to an exiting race. Two tasks has been flown until now. Both tasks seemed all easy, but in the air it turned out to be quite the opposite. Fighting with low safes and stability kicking in got very challenging for all competitors. The needed ingredients required was something between keeping the positivity even when low, the technical abilities to fight back to the higher levels and a very good awareness of the current navigation zone. Hence a certain kind of "flying dexterity" seems necessary in order to solve this challenges. The first day, there were rain cells and the sky was changeing between grey with some blue spots. So we did a warm-up day with beautiful thermal flying and getting used to the "normal" final approach to the landing field. The second day, takeing off in Villars at 1700m after a task of 66km was set seemed easy first hand side. It showed up that a certain stability layer made it quite difficult to make it to the upper level. This layer seemed to be a mix from the valley breeze, which on the good side, "slides" up the hills toward the mountains, due to the alpine pump, didnt provoke much lee situations and the humidity from the geneva lake. So soaring this breeze was possible, but very difficult to make it to the upper level, where the thermals were predominant. The pilots were faced with a problem so solve at the start: "how do i make it to the higher level" and for the final leg, which was set in that valley breeze zone, how to solve. Once in the upper level, going to the famous Pic Chaussy and back was quite straight forward depending on the chosen line. At the end of the task, it turned out that it was very slow to solve the final leg the "classic way". A certain confidence was needed to soar the ridges opposed to the valley breeze and not to loose time, trying to gain height by circling thermals. On the third day, the organizers took us further north to the beautiful Gruyère valley. The bise was dominant that day and it was the perfect choice. A task takeing us to in the prealps towards north-easy to the Schwarzsee in the canton of Fribourg and brought us back to the first ridge and following this one south turning aroung the famous take-off of the Acro Show, Sonchaux back to the landing field in Ollon. Again, it seemed to be an easy 86km task, what was a so called "Swiss Hammer Day" in the high alps turned out to be quite difficult in the prealps. Again, stability kicked in, which lead to a lot of challenging "low safes" in this stable layer. What the pilots did that day was amazing and they showed high technical skills and a huge perseverance in dealing with difficult situations. The final leg to the landing showed once again that either choosing a good line outside the ridge or soaring some ridges makes a difference. At the moment, after 2 super tasks and beautiful flying, Franz Herrmann after winning the second task leads before Fredy Bircher showing a solid performance. Damien Zahn after winning the first task is on the third place. The next and last 2 days look promising and we look forward for another amazing flights in the beautiful swiss scenery.

After 2 runs (66km and 86km) Franz Herrmann leads ahead of Fredy Bircher and Damien Zahn. Conditions for the next few days look good.

The weather forecast for the next week looks good, the delta swiss open will take place as planned. Registration and location: Monday, 16th of may, 08:30 - 10:00 Boulangerie le Goût du pain Rue du Simplon 4 1880 Bex More infos at "competition info" (link) **Food and drinks at the Ollon/Villy landing site is open on Friday and Saturday, weather permitting. **

Die Prognosen blieben schwierig. Trotzdem wurde am zweiten Tag ein Kurz-Task von 10km angesagt. Das interlakner Ping-Ping Turnier lief. Der schellste konnte den Task in 8min erledigen, was langweilig schien und gerade 2,4 Punkte gab war trotzdem etwas Spannendes, was interessante Diskussionen lieferte. Am dritten Tag sah es besser aus. Fazit: Prognose hiess "man schaue nach oben". Es brauchte nur wenig Sonneneinstrahlung und durch die hohe Labilität der Schichtung gings auch gerade hoch. Problem an der Geschichte war, wo hatte es Sonne und je länger man wartete, desto mehr Abschattungen gabs. Ein spannender Task rund um Interlaken von rund 30km lief. Schlussendlich hat es nicht gereicht für einen offiziellen Schweizermeister, da die geforderte Punktzahl dazu nicht erreicht wurde. Trozdem gab es eine gute Siegerehrung: 1. DCI Deltaclub Interlaken 2. Deltateam Falkenflue 3. Vol Libre Jura Zu erwähnen sind Vater und Sohn Gafner, die das Team des Vol Libre Jura repräsentierten und Karl Stucki, der nach über 40 Jahren Pilot immernoch jeden möglichen Tag fliegen geht. Les pronostics restaient difficiles. Néanmoins, une courte manche de 10 km était annoncée le deuxième jour. Le tournoi de ping-ping d'interlaken était en cours. Le plus rapide pouvait terminer la tâche en 8 minutes, ce qui semblait ennuyeux et ne donnait que 2,4 points était toujours quelque chose d'excitant, qui a fourni des discussions intéressantes. Le troisième jour, les choses allaient mieux. Conclusion : Le pronostic était "regarder par la fenètre". Seul un peu de soleil était nécessaire pour déja donner du thérmique. Le problème avec l'histoire était où était le soleil et plus vous attendiez, plus il y avait d'ombres. Une manche autour d'Interlaken d'environ 30 km a couru. En fin de compte, ce n'était pas suffisant pour un champion suisse officiel car le nombre de points requis n'a pas été atteint. Néanmoins, il y a eu une bonne cérémonie de remise des prix: 1. DCI Delta Club Interlaken 2. Delta Team Falkenflue 3. Vol Libre Jura Il faut citer le père et le fils Gafner, qui représentaient l'équipe Vol Libre Jura, et Karl Stucki, qui, après plus de 40 ans en tant que pilote, vole encore tous les jours possibles.

Beim ersten Tag wurde der Task gecancelled. Der Wetterbericht wurde immer pessimistischer seit Mittwoch. Dafür gab es nach dem Einschreiben ein schönes Einfligen in ruhigen Bedingungen und danach ein Besuch bei den eindrücklichen Trümmelbachfällen. La manche a été annulée le premier jour. La météo est devenue de plus en plus pessimiste depuis mercredi. Après l'inscription, il y a eu un beau vol dans des conditions calmes, puis une visite aux impressionnantes chutes de Trümmelbach.

Der Wetterbericht wird zunehmend pessimistisch. Was am Mittwoch noch als ziemlich sonnig war wird leider zunehmend bewölkt. Trotzdem sieht es Samstag und Sonntag relativ gut aus und es kann bei solcher Schichtung erfahungsgemäss gute Flugbedingungen geben (Gurnigel / Stockhornkette). Die Bise nimmt jeweils tagsüber zu.