Delta News

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.

Das Wetter sieht gut aus für das Wochenende, die Schweizer Club Meisterschaft findet statt vom 06.-08. Mai. Einschreiben: Freitag, 6. Mai 2022, 07.30 Uhr –09:00 Uhr Ort: Landeplatz Lehn / Interlaken Bitte tretet der Whatsapp Gruppe per Link bei . Le temps s'annonce beau pour le week-end, le championnat suisse des clubs aura lieu du 06.-08. Mai. Inscription sur place: Vendredi 6 mai 2022, de 07:30h à 21:00h Lieu: Atterissage Lehn / Interlaken Veuillez rejoindre le groupe Whatsapp via le lien. Quelle: www.meteo-shv.ch

The elite pilots did set a task. The thermal forecast announces very stable air in the lower levels. The forecast was right, so a very conservative task was set and it showed that it was not easy at all to make goal. While pilots at upper level did big cross flights, we agreed that we learned quite a lot fighting with these conditions. On the other side, the ones not flying the task did multiple flights and enjoyed super nice soaring conditions. The Camp did end nicely with a lot of flights in different conditions, a lot of exchange between all level of pilots and a nice self-learning climate between pilots. There was no barrier between different level of pilots, so everyone could ask whoever pilot was around and could inspire him into the right direction.

We again divided the groups, one went to gurnigel with the elite pilots doing a swiss league cup task and one to the möntschele takeoff. The cup-task was a 38km one, zig zag staying on the ridge. Seems easy, but the conditions werent. Stable air and weak thermals at some crucial areas. Everybody flew nicely. Either from Gurnigel or Möntschelealp.

Day 2 On Day 2 we went with the different groups on different take-offs. The Group on the Gurnigel Takeoff tried to fly task. The same Task were set for the Elite Group within the Swiss League Cup. There was a short zig-zag on the ridge and goal was over the aaretal to Brenzikofen Goal. Unfortunately, there was stable air coming in with the strong Bise and a big thermal pause installed. Even tough there were nice cumulus, it seemed dead for quite a while. Within this long break, there was only one pilot haveing the patience to stay at the only safe place and made it later to goal. The Group on the Möntschele takeoff had to make safe takeoffs and solid flying. Not all made it then to the official landing field. Day 3 The forecast for the bise was quite strong. We decided all to do early basic flights, training starts and landings in Interlaken. Everyone could do 2 flights and the elite pilots could surf the big convergence created when the bise kicked in from the ears against the valley winds from the west.