Racon Hill, Golbasi, Ankara

Look at this exodus of students all off training on Saturday. That line of people stretches for nearly a kilometer. There were scores of them, bus-loads - all off flying! We saw five buses at least. These were students from Hacetepe and METU universities. The guy having a drag on the cigarette is the Bilkent University bus-driver. Our guys - another bus load - added to the throng. For those of you in the UK, could you imagine such a turn-out from university clubs?

The selfless dedication to teaching novices here is very impressive. Bilkent paragliding club's sole instructor Ozgun Babur astounds us by his dedication and consistency. He has been teaching Bilkent students on every flyable weekend for 2 years or so and has been a regular in the club for 5 years or more. He doesn't get paid a Kurus. He puts his whole body into his teaching and is obviously very efficient in getting the basics across. Here is the man in action.

I was hoping to get some teaching experience with Ozgun. But it doesn't look like this is going to happen. There is a well-honed system in place, and there is the language problem. I could perhaps help in Olu Deniz or if pilots are interested in entry level XC flying.

Yigit was at Racon too - with one student of his who'd just bought a new wing. Yigit was planning adventures for next summer - Vol Bivouac, and a competition that moved from one mountain range to another over the course of the week's event. Yigit is excited about the untapped potential for XC here in Turkey - particularly Vol Bivouac. I hope to get involved in some of these adventures.

We met some more experienced local pilots at the top of the hill. They enjoyed playing in the thermal cycles the skygods - Zeus, etc - sent our way just like Annie and I did. They were a little surprised to see two blondies up there on that hill, where so few westerners go. But like all Turks they were welcoming and friendly, and even offered to break off a bit of a banana for us to share. Turks love to share. It's become instinctive for them to share everything. These guys had some nice wings. One was a Skywalk Poison which Yigit said was a fantastic 2/3 - high performance, but safe with no big surging on stall recovery.

Locals off on a glide from Racon Hill.

7th International Olu Deniz Air Games Festival, 25th-29th October, 2006

Here's Annie and I enjoying this year's Air Games festival at Olu Deniz - which was fortunate considering the crap weather that came before and after it.

There were only a handful of paid acro pilots making the festival an attraction - ten acro or less -and general attendance for the rest of us seemed low, but I felt like there was a lot of eye contact and even friendliness between pilots of all degrees of ability, from the likes of Mad Mike Kung at the top of the pyramid down to aspiring but cautious acro pilots like myself with limited skills and minimal achievements.

I was most impressed, not by Mad Mike's infinity tumbles, but young Pal Takats' spectacular display which finished with a death spiral that exited mere inches above the concrete walk-way. Here's the man himself after I caught his attention, a few minutes after he had unbuckled from his harness:

He was itching to get back up to the top and start all over again! Only 21 or 22 years old, Hungarian, and already getting onto the podium in world acro comps. He came second in this September's Adrenalina comp, beating both the Rodriguez brothers. Pal Takats is the guy who put up the very popular acro website: justacro. Good luck to him in the future. As far as I know he's only fallen into his wing once.

Annie and I only got one flight during the two days we were at the festival. After getting to launch on the first day, within half an hour weather conditions had changed and there were reports coming in that it was turbulent down at the beach. I had unwrapped my glider and was considering taking off despite the uncertainty when I overheard Mike Kung talking over the radio to a famous Czech base-jumper and acro pilot Tomas Lednik who was standing behind me. I was within earshot. 'It's very turbulent down here,' Mike Kung was saying, 'I would advise you NOT to fly if I were in your situation.' It wasn't long before we were all on a truck back down the mountain. Interestingly Tomas and his friend took off in any case, thinking that landing in Lykia World would be protected from the wind. But they were wrong. Firstly they nearly crashed in the trees just below take-off, and second it was clear to everyone watching their flight that they were in difficulties as they pushed out to sea. He told me afterwards at Cloud 9 that they were lucky to make it to the beach. Another instructor who took off as I was getting my wing out told me later: 'I used all my 1400 hours of flying experience to get down safely today'.

Interesting how conditions can change so rapidly.

The following day gave us perfect flying conditions. Annie and I both flew from the very top - our first time from that take-off.

On the flight down I finally pulled off a few well-timed, energy-conserving, 'over the top' wing-overs, plus some half decent spiral dives. I can't wait for the next time to start building on these moves.