11 April 2009

3rd task: 115 km around 3 turnpoints to the east

Another long day – we flew to Vittorio Veneto today and crossed the famous Prosecco area of Valdobbiadene, a no landing zone full of vinyards of about 15 km. Mind you, cloudbase was at 2000m today. Still the crossing into a headwind of 25 km/h to Monte Cesen was not easy. After Elio Cataldi´s home city, we came back to the paragliding take and then crossed the valley to Asolo into the flatlands, 115 km.
When I got to goal, I was told that Christa had a bad landing at Monte Cesen, she touched a tree and was unconscious briefly. A French pilot who is a medical doctor landed with her, also some Belgium team pilots looked after Christa. She was taken to hospital and hopefully only suffered a concussion. At goal, another pilot hit a tree and was taken to hospital, there was also a midair between a paraglider and a hangglider, also a crash on the hanggliding ramp where the free flyers take off.
A very rough day, and I was superhappy about my safe landing at goal. Christian Ciech won the day today, followed by Manfred and Gerolf. First rigid pilot was Andy Becker again. The paraglider pilots tried to cross valleys and fly over with Feltre as a goal, and they told me that probably Luca Donini or one of the Valic brothers won the day.
Best German pilot was Roland Wöhrle, but also Andre and Christian Zehetmeyer got in shortly after. It looked as if about half the field made goal.
We expect flying days until Monday at least, so this year it looks like a fully valid Bassano competition in fully valid difficult Bassano conditions.

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