Directions to Switzerland

[Marcel Dettling]

Yeah, here it doesn't look like there will be any good thermal flying soon. We just got a lot of snow this last weekend, up to 6ft in the mountains. Although today, it would have been an almost perfect sledride day. Totally calm, really dead air. But we decided for skitouring, which is much more appropriate in these conditions. Here are two pictures:


That's the view from the top which we reached after climbing 1800 vertical feet, using adhesive skins underneath the skis.


We were very well rewarded for the effort. Nice powder on the way down, what a pleasure!

We'll see, maybe I can also post some flying pictures here. After the new wing arrives (hopefully before Xmas), we may once go to the south side of the alps, where there is still very little snow.

Cheers,

Marcel

[charlieg]

Hi Marcel:
Incredibly beautiful!
But I think we've got something here in the US that you'd find really useful there in Switzerland -- they're called ski lifts! A ski lift is a mechanical tow line with chairs that actually takes you to the top of the mountain, eliminating the need for any adhesive skins and long, uphill climbs! I'm going to a place next week in Colorado next week that has 19 of them on one mountain! You must go sometime!
Regards,
Charlie

[Marcel Dettling]

I wish a happy new Year to everybody!

Here in Switzerland, it's still very wintry and no good flying is in sight. Still, nothing to complain about, since the skiing is excellent. Well, skitouring: first, we really appreciate the physical effort of the climb. Yes, that's possible! Moreover, there are numerous pluses over riding skilifts: solitude, wilderness, the beauty of the nature, etc. Check out these pictures, they speak for themselves:

http://stat.ethz.ch/~dettling/heustock.html

I have done 6 skitours so far, just yesterday a totally gorgeous (but somewhat strenuous) one with 7000ft of elevation gain, very much worth the effort.

To post at least one thing that is flying related: the old wing is gone, the new one is here in our apartment. It's never been out of the bag, though.



Cheers,

Marcel

[Spark]

I wish a happy new Year to everybody!

Here in Switzerland, it's still very wintry and no good flying is in sight.
...
Marcel

Happy New Year to you and all the folks way over yonder in Switzerland!

Great photos and movie! I am salivating. All our snow is melted and it has been in the 40-50 degree temperature range. The local skiing has not been quite as good as yours ...

But we had a great New Years Day at the Pulpit. Some PGs were getting 500' + above and P2s were soaring. HGs also and H2s soaring. Also today we witnessed the first tandem PG launch at the Pulpit, a forward launch. Very exhilarating!

Cheers,

[Marcel Dettling]

I'm glad to hear that you had great flights yesterday! Sometimes, things change quickly and I could start the new year with the maiden flight of my new wing. Corinne and I went snowboarding (at a skilift close to where we live!). At the end of the day, the conditions seemed right to try the new wing:



I had a slight tailwind and it was my first forward launch for a while. But since the terrain was very friendly, not an issue at all.



Indeed, it flies! Yesterday, only for 5 minutes and 1200 vertical feet. Enough to feel it acts like a go-cart in turns. Awesome!

Cheers,

Marcel

[charlieg]

Marcel, my friend.
You (and your Dad!) are my heros! I plan to live to 100 with my current (or slightly modified) lifestyle. You and Dad are well on you way to 110!
Warm regards, and a Happy New Year,
Charlie

[Marcel Dettling]

Well, if we want to improve our chances to become 100 (or even 110) years old, we should maybe stop such a dangerous activity as paragliding...

Corinne and I got in some surprisingly excellent soaring here in Switzerland. Check out the picture



Except for the beautiful wing, it doesn't look especially nice, does it? It's grey and overcast, with a dense layer of fog. The lowlands in Switzerland often suffer from such weather in winter. It's a sea of unstable and cold air which gets trapped under an inversion and beautiful weather above. However, this situation has good things to offer for us. First, the flying. Under the inversion, there are often quite strong northeasterly winds. So we went to this low site, it would be around 700ft vertical if you flew all the way down, but nobody does it. If you sink out, you land on the hillside just below launch and kite the wing back up. We got there, stood on packed snow and the wind was blowing with steady 12-13mph. We jumped into our harnesses and what followed was really cool. Like at the Point of the Mountain, endless soaring, playing around, touch and go's, skimming a few feet above the ground, etc. Optimal, to get to know a new glider. Surprisingly, there were thermals. You wouldn't believe it. It was cold, snow covered and without a single ray of sun. But clearly defined thermals, with at times lift of up to 600fpm! I don't know where they came from, but it must be the extremly instable air mass below the inversion. I even went to "cloudbase" around 500ft above take-off. We flew (and played) for more than 1.5 hours, then landed, visited the nearby restaurant to warm up and flew (and played) for another 1.5 hours. Almost like Torrey Pines in this sense...

So, there's a second advantage of this weather pattern. Above this fog layer (and the inversion), the weather is splendid. Warm, sunny and totally calm. Perfect weather for skitouring. Check out the following picture and see Corinne climbing above the valley of Engelberg, also a very good place to fly in spring and summer. You can also recognize the inversion in the valley below, although there is no dense fog here - it usually doesn't move all the way into the alpine valleys.



Cheers,

Marcel

[Spark]

...

Check out the following picture and see Corinne climbing above the valley of Engelberg, also a very good place to fly in spring and summer.
...

Thanks, great photos!

I went on several ski trips to Engelberg in '70 and '71. Your post brought back many memories. I had almost forgotten about the the 'grotto' in the Titlis glacier.

<img src="http://www.titlis.ch/images/content/Gle ... rk_eng.jpg">

'Spark

[tomceunen]

Marcel,

After seeing all those pictures and reading the stories, I would not come back to Baltimore....

See you soon?
Tom

[charlieg]

So Marcel:
Tell us more about the new glider! Make, specs, etc.
Charlie

[Marcel Dettling]

After seeing all those pictures and reading the stories, I would not come back to Baltimore.... See you soon?

You got it, Tom! I will be back in Baltimore this coming Sunday. However, I found a good job in Switzerland and will leave the US by the end of March. No need to mention that I'm very much looking forward. I even managed to tweak it that way that I have the summer off, i.e. I will only start the new position at the end of August. More precisely, I will go to Nepal for a mountaineering expedition in April. Then, I'll be back in Europe for the flying season. I plan on a lot of XC flying, will try to make some good flights for the OLC and also have the idea of a (private) X-alps, following the alps all the way from Southern France to Slovenia. Plus a lot more projects of course, but flying will get priority. I'm so happy that I can fulfill this dream.

Tell us more about the new glider! Make, specs, etc.

Yeah, I'll do that, but don't have the time right now. Corinne and I are going to Advance today. She won a harness in a lottery, see under News on the Advance-Webpage: http://www.advance.ch It will be handed over by skygod Nr. 1 Chrigel Maurer himself. He's also gonna show us around at Advance, then we are going to have lunch and will maybe go flying in the afternoon.

Cheers,

Marcel

[charlieg]

Too much fun!
OK -- in my next life I want to come back as Marcel.
Charlie

[Marcel Dettling]

Looks very nice, doesn't it? Nova Mamboo with an Advance Impress harness...



The picture was taken Saturday, January 14th in Meiringen, central Switzerland. Though we are in the middle of the winter and most of the terrain is snow covered, there were thermals, coming from a few trees and rocks without a snow cover. Weak conditions, but enough to get above launch and to stay up for some time. My flying time was 1 hour 25 minutes - not bad for the season. Together with this beautiful weather, it was a dream.

So the harness: Corinne and I met Chrigel Maurer on Friday. He's a nice guy, he explained us everything about the harness and we went for lunch. Unfortunately, he couldn't join us for the test flight. He has his foot injured after a minor skiing accident. However, Corinne doesn't like the harness that much - there's a chance that she'll hand it over to me definitely. The seat position is very reclined and with the pod, you're stretched out - lots of pendulum, higher risk of having the riser twisted, etc. All in all a very different style of flying. It felt ok to me in these weak winter thermals (max. 3m/s (600fpm)), but I'm not so sure how it will feel in rocking and turbulent conditions. We'll see...

Cheers,

Marcel