“Welcome to the sport of Paragliding!”
To get to the top of the sport in Australia and to earn a place on the Australian Team takes a lot of time, organisation, money and dedication. It’s also a very selfish sport that can sometimes take its toll on relationships and the workplace. However the rewards can be enormous and often immeasurable on a personal level of accomplishment.
To make the Australian team pilots have to pass the selection criteria as set out by our Hang Gliding Federation of Australia and by performing consistently in all 6 AAA sanctioned competitions on the Australian competition ladder over the last 2 years.
Make no mistake there were a lot of very good Australian pilots competing
after a spot on the official 07 Aussie team as this is the first time
ever that Australia has hosted a Paragliding World Championships. There
is no doubt at all that the upcoming World Championships in Manilla has
the potential to be one of (if not THE best ever World Championships
ever held, we have a very experienced organisational team, often brilliant
and consistent flying weather and best of all a friendly yet serious
competition atmosphere. Go Australia!
This years official team consists of a five man and two women team
totalling seven pilots.
They are: Andrew Horchner from SE/QLD, Brian Webb, Craig Collings, Viv Williams and Heike Hamann from Victoria, Craig Donnell from the ACT and the young gun of the team James Lawson and Team Leader Peter Bowyer from NSW.
Unlike in many European countries Australian pilots flying at a high level are fully self funded and have to take a lot of time from work and give up a lot of money and often promotions in order to pursue and do well at the sport that they love. What often determines how far a pilot pursues his or her flying career is the level of sponsorship support.
If you’d like to support the Australian Team with sponsorship we have packages to suit all budgets.
What’s it like to fly a competition and what do you have to do?
A brief answer:
Competition pilots often experience a range of emotions but mostly excitement mixed at times with a sprinkle of euphoria or fear and often a dose of adrenalin due to the sometimes turbulent air and important decisions that are regularly made.
In general though the experience of flying cross country around a set task with heaps of other pilots around you, climbing in booming thermals, reaching the clouds and flying Cross Country with the birds, well words just can’t do it justice, its simply brilliant and often surreal.
A World Championships competition is run over a 2 week period to allow for any bad weather days and to ensure that all pilots are tested over a range of flying conditions and tasks. Only then will you see who is truly worthy of the title “World Champion!”
A daily competition task is typically set over a fixed course which is set by a task committee of experienced pilots who are aware of local weather conditions and setting tasks depending on a great range of weather variables.
All pilots fly with a UHF radio, mobile phone and GPS’s (often 2 GPS with one as a back up). GPS is used for safety, navigation and to verify where they have flown to and how far they have flown on any given day, this is later downloaded to a computer stored and analysed for scoring. Pilots aim to fly the course each day and make all turn points (if any have been set) or make goal or very close to it,. Pilots must also fly consistently over the whole competition and quickly as pilots are timed to fly the course.
All pilots flying in the camp are members of organised teams and have retrieve drivers to pick them up from where they have landed and get them back to the head quarters or pub for a beer after a hard days flying. After 2 weeks of flying XC it gives a whole new meaning to endurance. Flying paragliders is not physically demanding at all but can be incredibly demanding mentally as the pilot is making important decisions and must react immediately and decisively to any “situations” that come to hand. All in all, very satisfying, personally rewarding and addictive.
If you haven’t already
be sure to give it a go!
(By team leader Peter Bowyer)