6th Serdivan International Paragliding Festival

2011 Bogazici Paragliding Air Fest and spot landing competition

I decided to attend the Bogazici Paragliding Festival after finding a dealer in Turkey who gave me a good price on a new glider – the timing worked for me to fly to Turkey and try out my new machine at a safe site with a fun group of pilots. On July 22 I arrived in Istanbul and picked up my new glider at the airport – an Ozone Rush3. I had read as much as I could on the internet about new gliders, and decided I wanted either a Rush3 or a Nova Mentor2. I found a dealer who had a Rush3 available, and the Mentor2 was only available in 3 months, so the decision made itself for me.

DAY 1 - The international pilots met on Taksim Square in the center of Istanbul and from there everything was easy – our Turkish friends did a perfect job of organization for transportation, flying, food and lodging. We took a bus about 2 hours east of Istanbul to the city of Serdivan in Sakarya Province. We registered, received our numbers for the competition, and keys to our rooms. The hotel was great – simple but clean, and lots of places for pilots to hang out, play billiards, watch videos, etc. Then the bus took us all to the launch site about 15 minutes away for the opening ceremony. The level of political support and sponsorship was outstanding – the Mayor of Serdivan and the Governor of Sakarya were both at the ceremony and took tandem rides after their speeches. There were over a hundred spectators who came to launch to watch the opening ceremony and at least that many every day of the festival. Nova Paragliders was one of the sponsors and donated prizes for the spot landing competition – glider, harnesses, helmets, etc. There was a tent for spectators and a stage for music. After the ceremony we stayed until dusk watching a live music concert. Then back to the hotel for dinner. After the first day it was obvious that most of the money to support the festival came from the government and from sponsors. Pilots paid only 120 Euros for 6 days – almost nothing if you consider that it included transportation from Istanbul, food and hotel, and transport from the landing zone to the launch all day every 30 minutes.

DAY 2 – Breakfast at 8:30, depart for launch at 9:30. The festival organizer, Muhammed Sirali, explained the rules for the spot landing competition and opened the window for flying. 48 pilots competed in the competition which was two spot landings per day for 3 days. A group of 15 Iranian pilots had arrived by bus from Tehran and were the first in the air. Fun guys. Everything they did, they did loudly and all together. I took my glider out of the bag for the first time. That’s a great feeling when everything is perfectly clean and smells like a new car. I had wanted to kite my glider before flying it, but in the morning the wind was very light and it was either fly or wait a few hours. I decided to fly but was a little concerned. The Rush3 is EN B class, but has only three risers and the microlines at the top looked like thread for sewing socks, not for paragliding. My apprehension was unfounded, the glider launched easily and felt just like a B class glider in the air. Only the glide was different. Both the Rush3 and the Mentor2 have glide ratios above 9, and on my first spot landing I completely overflew the target and landed about 50 meters past the circle. On my second flight my glide was high again, and I only hit the circle by doing frantic turns and pumping the brakes coming in for landing. Back on launch the wind was getting strong and some of the pilots were declining to launch. I wanted to try the Rush3 in high winds, so set up and launched using the A’s and C’s in 30kmh wind. I flew straight up and only moved forward when I got my feet on the speed bar. I got about 150 meters above launch and basically didn’t move for the next hour, but got the chance to play with the speed bar and do wingovers in the smooth dynamic mixed with thermals. Down below I saw pilots set up, then put their gliders away – it turned out the wind had increased to almost 40 and Muhammed had closed the launch so I was alone in the air. After about an hour I got brave enough to follow some thermals back behind launch, but after leaving the thermals had to use the accelerator just to make it back above launch in the high wind. I caught one good thermal and made about 8 turns gaining almost 200 meters, but it put me more than half a kilometer behind launch and when I tried to glide back I realized I might and might not make it which could put me in the valley behind the launch. Quick decision, turn East and fly crosswind away from the rotor. I descended over a kilometer away into a pasture and landed near a very large (but fortunately very nice) dog who sat and watched me struggle to get my flapping glider organized enough to pack. The Rush3 has carbon leading edge reinforcements and it’s recommended only to concertina pack it which is the one drawback I noticed – not easy in high wind.

Day 3 – I was getting used to the glide ratio and hit both of my landings. Unfortunately I landed fast on one and put my hand on the ground to catch myself. I didn’t fall, but my landing was still disqualified. For me with only 50% after two days, the competition was over. But the flying remained good. Like the day before the wind got strong by mid day and we flew more than 2 hours in the dynamic lift. I got high enough to do some spiral dives and big ears with no problems. We landed for lunch then Muhammed closed the start due to the winds. The Iranians put a Persian music CD into the sound system and started dancing. Six Spanish pilots joined in and they entertained everyone else until the wind subsided enough to launch. Back at the hotel we collected 10 lira per pilot and got a bunch of cold beer. The Iranians especially were enjoying it – they said you can go to jail in Tehran if the police catch you with a single beer.

Day 4 – By then only about 10 pilots were still contending for the competition, so the rest of us just had fun. The Iranians and Spanish were dancing and singing again. I felt confident enough to try asymmetric and symmetric frontal collapses – again, nothing surprising. There were two Rush3’s and three Mentor2’s flying at the festival and we were always up with the EN-C gliders 20 or 30 meters above the others in the dynamic lift. I talked to the Nova pilots, they love their new Mentors and say they are also easy to thermal with. In the evening we went to a banquet dinner at a restaurant. The Mayor of Serdivan came and presented prizes including a new Nova glider to an Iranian pilot for first place, as well as new harnesses and helmets for other prizes. Dinner was excellent, again incredible given that we only paid 120 Euros for everything.

Day 5 – I put my glider in the bus and ran up to launch in the morning. I was going to do this every day but found excuses until the last day when I was determined to do it at least once despite the hot, humid weather. I made it to the top in the 30 degree humidity and then drank about three liters of water and poured another three over my head. It was windy again and we didn’t launch until about 15:00. Once we got up I flew for a couple of hours and only top landed because I was tired of bumping wingtips with 10 or more gliders in the air at once. At about 19:00 a Romanian pilot and I decided to fly down and pack up our gliders, but on the way down I hit a perfect evening thermal and followed it slowly up to almost 500 meters above launch where we could see the whole valley in the setting sun. Perfect ending flight in Serdivan!