It's around 8:00 in the morning: you're preparing your wing on the carpet. It's autumn, the sun is just twinkling over the mountains directly in front of us.
It's slightly backwards wind, the takeoff is very flat and leading to a vertical wall.
It's the most famous paraglider takeoff in the world.

Some people on the edge are looking down and gesticulating: it's good now: go!
The first ones are taking off. The pilot in front of me has a launch failure. I'm stepping back to the trailing edge of my IBEX 17: concentrating, running.
The wing is lifting me off easily after a short sprint. I can see over the edge now: the first balloons are just rising up through the fog covering the valley. Some are climbing faster: I'm targeting to one of those. It's unusual having a target that is climbing up. The air is fresh, absolute calm. The ambience is fantastic. After a few km straight out flight I'm surpassing my balloon a few meter below. I'm looking for the next one: it's just a small distance away. I'm getting my IBEX into a steep, dynamic curve around the balloon. I'm crowing to the people in the basket. More and more balloons are rising up. I'm surrounded by many big, bright colored spheres...

Whow, what a flight! It's impression is balancing the stress we had all days in St. Hilaire' exhibition by far! On the landing field I'm counting 26 balloons over our heads! Don't miss that flight, when you're there. It's the best reason to get up early!

Jerome Sarthe shot some fantastic pics. Tony was flying our new ACRO proto with the insect design.

The first IBEXs are sold and we recieve enthusiastic feedback and the confirmation that the IBEX offers a lot of advantages and fun besides para-alpinism.

Oskar Weissteiner flew an IBEX in Wilderness (South Africa) in soaring conditions and sent us the following mail:

"I just got back from south africa, where I flew with a group of pilots in Wilderness and Porterville. In Wilderness I could do some great soaring flights with the IBEX.

In normal to strong Conditions there seems to be no disadvantage for the IBEX. If the conditions are weak you have to fly very concentrated to stay up. On a day with stronger wind I took of at one of the first pilots and flew along the whole Paradise Ridge. On the first leg I had tailwind. I was considerably faster than the other wings and soon all the other pilots where flying behind me. They always were a little bit higher than me, but I was much faster.

On the way back we had to fly against the wind and the IBEX could easily keep up with the other wings in matters of glide-performance.

Other pilots showed a lot of interest for the small wing and thought, that I had no chance against bigger wings. Most of the time I could disprove this. I'm looking forward to my own IBEX and to the first mountain hikes with this glider!"

Oskar also sent us some pictures. The photographer was Karsten Ehlers from Hamburg. Thanks for the pictures and the feedback!

Three passionate paragliding pilots - Carlos Carsolio, Monica Uranga and Miguel Gutiérrez - have come together as the Pharmaton Team to materialize a life long dream: crossing their native land, Mexico, across its volcanic axis, which stretches 1,000 kilometers from west to east.

The team has chosen Nova Wings to accompany them on their quest because of their confidence in Nova's performance and security. The pilots are flying MAMBOO, TATTOO, TYCOON and JAMBOO.

We hope, the pilots will be able to complete their life's dream!

Thanks to Erika Sastré and Gunnar Wagner for the information and the photos!

Vincent Staub and Jerome Sarthe were in Morocco and shot some beautiful photos of their ROOKIEs on the dune.
Thanks a lot for sharing these great pictures with us!





 





 


 


 


 


 


 


 








 



 

 

Last week I grabbed a lightweight prototype of the Rookie XS and went for a morning hike in Karwendel.
Here are some pictures I took:

 
After one and a half hours of walk, I reached the top of the cloud cover just
 a few minutes before sunrise. In the west I saw the fullmoon.


 
Just a little bit later the sun showed up and was shining on the cloud cover.



As the sun rose, the cloud cover showed some holes, which made me confident for my flight.



At about 8a.m., after three hours of walk, I found a nice place for take-off and enjoyed the wonderful
view to all the peaks.



Just before take-off: In the background you can see the stubai alps.


 
The air was very calm and I enjoyed my flight above the clouds.

... more days should start like this! :-)

P.M.