The video from Slovenian open 2009

Slovenian open 2009 from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

For better quality use the link to vimeo

Pictures from Slovenian open 2009

The end

So the competition has ended. We flew 4 tasks in very different weather conditions, from mild weather caused by westerly winds to more complicated flying in easterly winds. We try to use XCskies (www.xcskies.com) but it seems that their model is not very good for Posočje area, steep, rocky mountains and valley systems are probably to much complicated for those general models.
The overall winner is Primož Gričar (Slovenia), winnig all three out of four tasks. Second place was Thomas Weissenberge (Austria) and third place belongs to Gerd Doenhuber (Germany).
Two pilots, Gerolf Heinrichs and Flemming Lauridsen, showed great sportsmanship when landing in the middle of the third task to assist the pilot, who crashed landed on the hill side. Fortunately pilot was rescued by the mountain rescue service and suffered only minor injuries.
Overall we had a great competition with a lot of friendship among the pilots and organizers, who have learned some lessons, just to improve next year competition.

Fourth task

Fourth task was not that long, but with tricky first and second turnpoint, so there was a lot pilots landing at about 30 km. Gerolf Heinrichs won the day with healthy margin of 8 minutes in front of Primož Gričar who was followes by closely, just 7 seconds, by David Shields. Gerolf was realy supprised at goal field thinking he missed did something wrong in the task being so fast. After checking turnpoints he realy got big smile on his face realising he flew realy good. We are having somehow bad forcast for last day of the competition, hoping for some flying anyway.

Third task

Today we had third 118km long task, much more difficult than the yesterdays. Regardless we had 8 pilots in goal. Others also flew very well, however easteren winds were to strong for most of them, regardless their best effort. In overall results Primož Gričar is in healty lead in front of Thomas Weissenberger who is closely chased by Gerd Doenhuber.

Some pictures from today, 2nd task

Second task

Great flying conditions! The task was to short for the best pilots, however on 104km task 26 pilots where in goal - some others were getting just short of it. The fastest was Primoz Gricar (again), following by Thomas Weissenberger (AUT) and Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT). Tomorow we hope for another great day in Soča valley!

First task

Today we were able to fly the first task of our competition. There was short, 73km long task up and down the valley. We still had over development in our area so we wanted pilots to be on the landing place soon in the afternoon. The fastest in goal was Primž Gričar (SLO), closely folowed by Gerd Doenhuber (GER) and Thomas Weissenberger (AUT). Those pilots were in goal in 1 hour and little more than 15 minutes, with average speed over 50km/h.
We are looking forward to fly new tasks in next days of the competition.

Some pictures from today

Task 1 - cancled

Today we try with first task of the competition. The weather forcast was not that bad, however soon after start window opened some thunder storms start to do loud noices around the takeoff area. They really developed very fast, in less than hour and a half. About third of the field was in the air when task was cancelled. Some pilots encontured very good conditions just away of our area while others have to land in strong cold winds from the high mountians north of us. It seem that everybody is ok.
So we hope for better wheathe tomorow.

Flying, preparing

Most of pilots who will compete in our cmpetiton is allready here and flying every day. Yesterday we had very nice wheater and pilots where flying all over the Soca valley. There where a lot of smiling faces on the landing place at the evening! It was really nice to see more hang gliders than paragliders in the air.
We expect good weather today also, perhaps is slight higher probability for some over development later in the day. Today we finnaly start with official part of the competition - pilot registration will start at 5 pm.

Looking forward

It looks very promising for next week. We should have good weather all week, according to long/mediumtherm forcasts - we sure hope that is true. If things are accurate we will have an awesome flying week in Tolmin!

There is very good weather these days in Tolimin. Ukrainian team is here and flying every day. There is some thunderstorms forcasted every day, but there were no rain yet. Dutch team is on their way to Tolmin as well.
Photo by Valentin Burlachenko (all pictures).

Exact location of competition office

A lot of pilots are heading toward Tolmin these days, some are there already, flying and having fun in beatifull Soca valley.
We prepared some information about location of competiton office and campsite on Google map bellow.


Look at Kobala open 2010 on bigger map.

Weather forcast during competiton

We decided to take 1 month subscription on XC Skies Soaring Forecast (http://www.xcskies.com/). It seems that their forcast is at least roughly accurate, thought we'll have to be carefull becouse of local properties of Soča valley.
We hope that their model, with expirience of local pilots and our competiton manager Ivan Brovč, will give enough data to get the most of flying on given day.

We are getting closer

There are only 11 days left to the start of the competiton. We (the organizing team) are busy making final preparation for the registration on sunday, 15th of august.
The pre-registered pilot list is published on our official web page http://hg.sffa.org/open2009, where other information is avialable as well. We will publish results on daily basis, trying to keep general public well informed about the competition. We will also try to write information about the competition days on this blog in order to present more general information about the weather, tasks, flying.
So stay tuned on this blog - or even better join as at this amazing flying site of Tolmin as competitor or just as spectator.