PARAGLIDING PILOTS |
www.pgforum.com
PGFORUM is the best international forum out there where paraglider pilots can discuss everything and anything about flying, from Cross Country and Competition Flying, Safety, Equipment, General Discussions to chit chat at the Cloudbase Cafe. PGFORUM also hosts Leonardo - the online database where pilots world wide can log their flights.
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| www.flyfrei.ch Dominik Frei - Amazing flying photographer and fellow distance flyer. He has added photographs of his recent Quixada adventure.
The sountrack to his home page photo slide show sums it all up. Tattoo by Jordin Sparks - Gives me goosebumps everytime I listen to the words. Thanks for posting such a great song for all of us to listen to Dominik!
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 | www.flydeaar.co.za Dessie is one of the few pilots in South Africa who is sponsored to fly competitions. In 2007 and 2008 Des was the SA Ladies Champion and is currently the South African Women's Open Distance Champion with a flight of 203kms. Together with husband Arnold, Des owns and runs FLY De Aar in the Northern Cape. They have a guest house and lease the local airfield for winch towing.
Once a year they hold a competition in De Aar, lately in November. |
 | www.ulrichprinz.de Flygirl met Ulli for the first time in Spain in 2008 although he did visit South Africa's shores in 2005 flying De Aar, Porterville and the Wilderness. Ulli started flying in 2003 and in recent years hit the competition scene with great enthusiasm. I took these photo's of his Gin Boomerang 5 in Spain in 2008. It was during this time that Ulli showed me just how very low my self esteem was and I am forever grateful for this painful insight. This lesson changed the course of my life and led me to a great adventure in 2009 and Beyond. Ulrich Prinz's best FAI ranking is curently 2nd Place in the world in January 2010. This is an amazing achievement, one worthy of a Johnathan Livingston Seagull fan :-) Ulli's site is a blend of English and German, the paragliding section being mostly German and the Alpine climbing section English. The Alpine photos are spectacular! |
 | www.ars-media.org Klaudia Bulgakow, Polands First Lady of paragliding.
Klaudia's website is in English and Polish. She was First Lady at the Manilla XC Open 2007 in Australia, First Lady in the Piedrahita XC Open 2008 in Spain and First Lady in the German Open 2008. But for more about this young lady pilot, visit her website which she updates regularly. |
 | www.woatesfly.blogspot.com Thermal Hunter Bill Oates is a relatively new pilot to the sport, and has already put together a great blog with stories, pics and links about flying in Australia and around the world. THERMAL HUNTER RECENTLY FLEW 288kms in AUSTRALIA!!!! CONGRATULATIONS! For some reason Bill stopped blogging in October - hopefully that is only a temporary situation.
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 | www.chickenstyle.ch Judith Zweifel - Lady Acro Pilot from Switzerland. When you are this good you can joke about your style :-) Great photos of women acro pilots in action! |
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| | www.doctorross.co.za Ross Hofmeyer was a recently licensed and talented pilot before he disappeared into the bottom of the world - the Antarctic. Ever wondered what a paraglider pilot without a glider does in the Antarctic? Nicknamed Dr Ross, Voidhawk and a few other affectionate names, this young man is keeping a blog in the very deeep south. We look forward to his return later this summer. |
 | www.leavesleyaviation.com
High energy Mark Leavesley is one of the UK's top up and coming competition pilots. Another pilot I met at the XC Open in 2007. Mark keeps a very informative BLOG/Forum on his website covering the competitions he enters and he is generous with his photos. |
 | www.nickymoss.com
Once upon a time the UK's most competitive lady pilot. I met Nicky in Australia during the XC-Open 2007. She was one of two women in the UK Team for the Worlds. After a series of accidents Nicky appears not to have recovered her competition spirit. That may change soon with her involvement in the organisation of the first ever Women's Paraglidign Open in Spain in 2010. I wish her the best of luck!
Nicky Moss is a full time sponsored pilot.
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| www.gravsports.com
The very famous Will Gadd. He keeps a regular Blog on his Gravity Sports which include rock climbing and paragliding. Will has lots of interesting articles about his adventures including his one time World Record flight. The info is somewhat scattered but worth surfing and coming back to from time to time for inspiration. Gravsports is definitely one to bookmark if you are Cross Country adventure enthusiast. |
 | www.eternitypress.co.za/freshair
Greg Hamerton maintains a website primarily to advertise his books, but if you click on PARAGLIDING you will find an amazing treasure trove Equipment REVIEWS, AIRLORE and good old cross country STORIES. Hammer and Tracy recently immigrated to the UK - South African Paraglidings very great loss... |
| | www.karicastle.com
Kari was free flying at my first international competition - the XC Open in Manilla Australia 2007. Being a newbie in competition flying I did not know who she was at first. Later I found out that Kari is an awesome Hang Gliding World Champion pilot with a host of records to her name and she has similar goals for paragliding, with a number of competition wins and records already in her vast collection. Kari is a full time sponsored pilot. Unfortunatley the Blog is not updated regularly and the website is fairly static with little change. Still, it is worth reading at least once. |
 | www.xceara.com.br Up until November 2007, South Africa was the Mecca for world record hunters. Last year, Brazil hit the headlines with 3 incredible flights on one day. 3 Brazilian pilots flew an amazing 461.8 kms - and landed together. Here is the website where you can find more information about this flying site - Quixada. Can South Africa take back the world record this year? YES!!! Nevil Hulett from South Africa was the man to do it - 502kms, ratified. And we thought the Brazilian record was almost impossible. What say you to South Africanmans answer? In 2009, the Brazillians took a new womens record - twice in one week. Well done Kamira Perriera at 325kms - to be ratified.
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