Nigerian Trainees

KEEN TO spread the word about paragliding as far and wide as possible you can imagine our delight when we received an overseas request for more info from Nigeria, of all places. The guy seemed to be interested in one of the ex-demo wings we had for sale in our small ads on the inside back cover of our online magazine. Always happy to pass on PG news, views and advice, here's the story.

Happy to strike up an online conversation with M'Bwana B'nana III, a surpisingly keen young pilot from Abuja, we replied to his email immediately. He seemed happy to purchase our wing for the price we were asking for, which somewhat surprised us as we had expected to enter a long and winding road of negotiations. After all we believed Nigeria to be a relatively poor country, on a global scale. Of course, at this time we were unaware of M'Bwana's Royal connections, but as we later learned, he probably wouldn't worry too much about a couple of thousand for a used paraglider. After a few weeks of bouncing emails off each other we settled on a means of payment and awaited his bank transfer. As soon as it arrived we shipped the wing. We also sent the extra cash, because, as it turns out, from inside Nigeria you can only transfer 10,000 EUR minimum, otherwise they get stung with 120% taxation. Bastard governments, we thought.

A week or so later we were chuffed when our new friend and Royal Prince, got in touch with us again and asked if we would like to be involved in helping his grandfather get some of his money out of Nigeria. It seems that since the decline of a moral and decent democracy, the new junta has clamped down on anything over 10 million leaving the country. Keen to help a fellow paraglider pilot we agreed to let his frail, aging gramps use our business accounts to transfer the funds. Like you would. Fellow pilot in need, and all that. M'Bwana said his grandad would let us keep about a half a million or so as a kind of thank-you. Well, that would come in handy when the Christmas party rolled round for sure.

Well that was 4 weeks ago now and, since then, we've started to get a bit worried about M'Bwana. If anyone knows if EasyJet fly to Nigeria we'd be pretty keen to have a timetable of their scheduled flights. We're quite desperate to get a cheap flight out there, because we've been checking and it seems M'Bwana may not be fully qualified to fly the EN-D wing we sent him and the last thing we would want is for him to hurt himself. We thought we'd take a trip out there and help train him ourselves and while there, maybe take in some of the tourist sights, some local cuisine and hopefully get a bit of our own African airtime.

M'Bwana must be away from his email at the moment. He hasn't replied to our requests for info on the nearest airport to all the paragliding sites out there. Be sure though, we'll let you know how we get on.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" helmet cam video

The Heuvos

ONCE AGAIN things are looking up in the world of ACRO. Never a day passes without some long haired hippy looking pilot having a lash at killing himself and failing.

It seems that Pax Taxit, the man with bigger hair than a 80's Glam Rock band, has been at it again. This time he's invented a new move, "The Huevos", which means eggs in Spanish.

To do the "Huevos" the pilot goes from SAT on one side, through Infinity Tumble, to SAT on the other side, and the name of the move comes from the part of the body most likely to be in pain during the manoeuvre.

"It is probably the only great connection we have left that we knew about and that was still undone", he was quoted as saying recently. Not that we knew what the fuck he was talking about. Let's face it, here at Pie, ACRO is something that happens to other people, or occasionally in the lee-side when one of us has really naffed it up.

“I managed the first ever successful execution of the ‘Anti-Arrhythmic’ coming down to a SAT from Infinity”, he was quoted as saying. “Soon after the dream of the ‘Huevos’ came true”.

Obviously, we were stunned that a man with a heart condition and on such medication should choose to do such high risk moves like the 'Huevos'. Hats off to the man. Although we were a little concerned that his dreams included such things, each to their own, of course!

We tried contacting Pax for a quick interview, but apparently he's too busy with his new commercial venture, selling tickets for tandem infinity tumbling. We contacted his secretary, who said, "Pie in the Sky? You're joking right? Yeah, well he told me that if you ever called that I was to say 'sod-off' as politely as possible. So he's busy. Sorry."

Right. So there you have it reader, if you've got the huevos for it, Pax is your man.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" helmet cam video

Reviewing

REVIEWING NEW wings is a thankless task, but one we rise to with all the professionalism expected of any quality paragliding publication.

Here at Pie we are unencumbered by high-powered advertisers willing to simply give us money, or the occasional 'permanent' demo wing. We do, however, appreciate the finer details of the delicate balance needed when producing a glossy magazine that gives the paying pilot quality reviews and yet at the same time placing enough ads to give slack-arsed journalists sufficient income to take out a mortgage, raise a family and then swan off on flying holidays for the other 360 days of the year. It's a fine line between selling your soul for every last cent and producing a well-balanced review full of useful advice that let pilots know the wing is a dog and will likely kill them as soon as they touch the speedbar. A fine line indeed.

So let's get down to it and give you the latest ad-free, brutally-honest and up-front review of one of the fleet of newly-arrived-to-market world-beaters. We took the latest TopStack Floater3 (EN-C) and put it through its paces and what follows are our conclusions after several test flights and based on years and years and years of testing wings. Years!

The following report conforms to the same standards of reporting as traditional paragliding magazine tests.

"As with all wings delivered from TopStack Gliders the wing arrived well packaged in a sturdy box. The glider arrived with a rucksack, manual, inner bag, compression strap, riser bag and speedbar. TopStack Gliders know first impressions count, and the attention to detail just on getting the glider out of the box impressed us. The manual was well written and very comprehensive in both Amharic & English. Very useful. Laying out the wing in the office we were very impressed with the wing itself, it was really well put together, great craftsmanship and the standard of finish on this glider is among the best in the business. They've clearly made a perfect choice of materials, both for weight and longevity. We noticed the stitching was in really straight lines except around the curvy bits and the colour scheme went very well with the rucksack we felt.

The harness attachments seem well placed just at the end of the risers, we liked this. Pilots should take note that the risers are skinny risers, but that's standard for wings of this class, although TopStack Gliders informs us that pilots may, when ordering, specify fat-risers if preferred. All the accompanying accessories were well presented and we really liked the choice of colour for the speedbar. We found the riser-tidy bag quite useful for our sandwiches and the compression strap worked very well. We tested it.

The line attachment points seemed really strong, definitely a plus, and they use the Gibi-Rigi-Arch, plenty of Mylar and weed-wacker inserts for the leading edge. All of these technological advances are fantastic news for pilots unless, of course, someone is offering you a lift back to takeoff and you've got to get your arse on the back seat in 5 minutes. The reinforcements in the leading edge were very clever and allow the attachment of the A's to be a bit further back. Several cm's back actually. This was simply clever design we thought.

Once on-site, we test inflated the wing several times and it came overhead very easily with little effort required and very little brake needed to control the surge. So no inflation problems to report for the Floater3. None whatsoever.

Ridge soaring is a dream with this wing, the turns are flat and controlled both with and without weightshift. When at altitude we threw in a few wingovers to see how it handled and it coped magnificently. The turning was both smooth and incredibly dynamic giving the pilot the feeling of confidence through complete control. The brakes are neither too heavy, nor too light and brake travel is neither too long, nor too short for a wing in this class. The TopStack designers have outdone themselves with the control acheived through such average brake use here. It turned beautifully in thermals which we liked, as this prolonged our test flights by several minutes in some cases. Thermal centering is left up to the pilot and not automatic on this wing, a good choice we felt.

The speed system is light and easy to use. We used the full range of a two step speed bar to get the pulleys touching, but with the bar being so light it's not a problem to use it at any setting. Trim speed seems very good for a glider at this level and seems to comply with the published data. Big ears are easy to do with the split A's and they come out very quickly when released. Fantastic.

This wing certainly has an improved glide ratio over the previous model, the Floater2, and no mistake. The glide may possibly be better than all other wings in this class, but we'd shy away from such bold statements as the other magazines wouldn't like it much. But we could say it if we wanted to. When using the speedbar we felt we could maintain pretty good pitch control and we could steer it with the rear risers too if required. This is bound to be a plus when considering the target market for wings in this class. A winner, for sure.

Normally at this point in the review we would show you a pointless table of different aspects of the wings performance and manageability with the usual 5-star column on the right. This wing, like so many others, would definitely score a couple of five-star entries and the rest of the table would be filled with 4 and 4.5 stars with one 3-star entry for some obscure tested feature no-one cares about. Unfortunately, we are pressed for time with this review and would invite the reader to simply imagine the table or maybe cut/paste a table from any of our previous reviews and insert it here.

So to summarise, a fantastic glider with mid to high-level agility and handling for its class, making it a great choice for long comfortable cross-country flying and your first competitions. For the more experienced pilot this is a delightful glider to fly around with almost no effort, blending impecable handling with such high levels of performance is an impressive feat, what other wing offers such fantastic performance in such a comfortable ride.[WTF? - Ed] For pilots ready to embrace C-class wings this is a very satisfying wing that will carry you well into your early competition career and beyond."

As with all reviews, we advise pilots to test fly any wing they may be considering buying. While much time and many years of experience has gone into throwing this review together, we recognise that each pilot has different requirements and we cannot stress enough the need to fly it yourself. As such, the Pie test team cannot be held accountable should any pilot choose to buy a TopStack Floater 3 based solely on this review and find themselves stuck with a dog of a wing that does not seem to match our test pilots experiences. You have been warned.

This cut/paste job has been brought to you by Pie. The healthy choice. [WTF? - Ed]

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 2009 "A320 Hudson River" bridge collision

Remember

CLIPPING-IN, we all do it. Unfortunately, or so it would seem, not doing so makes for a rather shorter flight. Fucking short, in fact.

So please try and remember to do it.

Find a system that works for you [Yes you, Ed], then tell everyone else to sod-off when you're doing it.

If you don't, you might be back on terra-firma much earlier than you planned, and here at Pie, we'd wager the conversation you were having when you were distracted from checking your leg straps will seem much less important.

JFDI.

[not much humour, but WTF - Ed]

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 2009 "A320 Hudson River" bridge collision

French FUBAR

OUTSIDE THE French speaking world little is known about the guys down at Nervers, but all that is about to change. Here at Pie we're happy to break the news that, thanks to a little translation work and a wicked sense of humour, we could be looking at the new Blozone. Albeit without the same addiction to red.

"Nervurs?", we hear you say. "That small company that sell wings to the Frenchies?". That's right, "Nurvous". They've been at it for years, selling small volumes of French-made wings to French people, in French, in France, the French way. And good on 'em, we say. That was until last year, of course, when it seems they've decided on a new approach.

Last year, it seems, they took their first tentative step to widen their market and dabbled a toe in the English speaking world. It would seem the waters met with their approval, because this year they are following through with a full-on assault on the mainstream market. Oh yes. You heard it here first.

During 2009 they released their new lightweight mountain wing, the "LOL", and it now seems clear this was simply an early sign of their new direction. This winter, it seems, they will be rolling out a whole fleet of new wings.

The all-new Nervieous 2010/2011 lineup:

Their beginners model, the CWOT-AFAIK, already has EN-A cert & is available in all colour schemes.
The shiny new intermediate, the STFU-BTDTGTTS, is due to be one of this years top sellers.
Their sports EN-C wing, the FTBSITTTD, is already flying off the shelves. Red is sold out.
Their serial class wing, the WTF-DILLIGAF, is due to take the comp scene by storm this year.
The open-class, MTFBWY, has Blozone worried as it has more carbon than a Chilean coal mine.
Their tandem, the RUUP4IT, is due to become standard place at beach resorts all over the Med.
Last years mountain wing, the LOL, is already due to be replaced with their new ROTFLMAO.

So there it is folks, a short list of this winters new releases from those MOFO's down at Nervurs. Get AFK, go AWOL and take one for a test flight. It'll probably be a head-turning son of a bitch.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 2009 "A320 Hudson River" bridge collision

Finding Pie

WE ALL know how to find things on the net right? Just pull up your old friend google and get searching, we all do it. For many of us it's part of our job, sitting there day after day using the google search engine to help us with technical issues or find reports that let us do the job of two people for only one salary. Long gone are the days when you phoned down to the office clerk and he or she looked up the details for you and called you back.

These days, if it's worth knowing, google and friends will have it indexed, cache and referenced for you. All you need to know are three or four key words that will get it on the first page of the search results. Let's face it, when did you last read the second page of results? You just refined your search terms right?

Well, it would rather seem that many readers are simply too daft to save a bookmark and have to google us when they fancy a slice of Pie. Unknown to many surfers, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, these search terms are available to us here at Pie. Yes, that's right, we can see what you [Yes, you - Ed] typed into google to find Pie. So we've taken a sample of your search terms and here's what we've found.

Quite frankly, it beggars belief that the second most popular search is "latin jocks", and it's the number one search used by Canadians. Whatever these girls (or guys) are looking for, we're pretty confident their not going to find it here at Pie. Likewise, "naked figures" features quite highly, and we're a little worried for those who've been using the 17th most popular search "xxs condom". The consensus here in the office is that we'd be pretty quick to clear our browser caches if we had to search for a pack of 3 using the phrase "xxs". Again, we can only presume that the guys who were looking for "blonde marketing" may have been a little disappointed to discover paragliding satire, rather than a Wonderbra ad designer. The least said the better about those who were searching for "pie in her face" as we also felt it rather suggested an unhealthy interest in something left-of-centre.

You couldn't make this stuff up. And we didn't.

We would also guess that someone has been looking for old friends, when we spotted the search "Thomas Pie", which we concluded was our old friend and part-time wedding photographer, Avian Lomass. We're also confident that top designer Hands Pampas has been looking for us as several searches for "Sky Vings" resulted in a visit to Pie, or maybe a group of travelling German pilots have been trying to find the BPHA online magazine. Of course, we hope they eventually did.

There are some more abstract searches that have led the casual visitor to us, "things could be worse", for example, is a rather strange search and we hope they eventually got in touch with a self-help charitable organisation that could be of more help. Google has a strange way of relating their results too. For example, some visitors were searching for "skypax", a FedEx type parcel service, and yet Pie appears fourth in google's search results. Go figure.

3 years ago when releasing our "Manilla 2007 Mini-Special" celebrating Bruce Goldchain's victory at the Worlds we, among other lighthearted endeavors, defined the verb "Brucin". Of course, at the time we never imagined we really were in the process of defining it, but as it can now be found as the fifth definition on wordsdomination.com clearly we were. Please do try and keep this in mind next time you're playing Scrabble and are down to a few difficult letters.

So there you have it readers, it really is a strange world-wide-web and clearly the all-seeing, all-knowing, internet God does not, in fact, know it all. Let's face it, when your start out in business calling your new enterprise "BackRub", would you really expect to become the worlds biggest provider of internet search results? Just google it, they really did!

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 2009 "A320 Hudson River" bridge collision

Outed

HERE WAS an unusual issue we thought, upon receiving a letter recently. The letter described how a pilot has clearly been having some local issues with, shall we say, his personal lifestyle choices. Now here at Pie, we're proud of our open-minded attitude towards anyone and everyone. Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you're from and whatever you choose to do in the privacy of your own leather-studded underpants is your own business. This is our attitude towards just about everything we do here at Pie, and it's served us pretty well so far. We do, however, understand that there are people who take a dim view of others who don't agree with them or who choose to live life differently from themselves. The Spanish Inquisition could be a case in point, for example.

So we were happy to offer what help we could for poor old Charlie when he wrote to us saying that he'd been quickly outed at his local flying sites and has been having some problems with his gear ever since. We could imagine the small-minded locals getting upset with someone they thought as different to themselves. We could imagine them making some last-minute adjustments to his harness when he was taking that final piss on takeoff. Something to scare him off perhaps. Something that would help him decide to find another flying site maybe.

Bastards.

We decided against phoning in advance or emailing, instead we headed on over to the coastal sites south of Barcelona where we thought we would just roll up and try and witness some of this bigoted behaviour first hand. After checking their sites guide we headed over to the Ginebra-Rosa takeoff and sat down waiting to witness some of this unacceptable behaviour towards a fellow pilot. After a couple of hours or so, a small guy rolled up with a big glider bag and an even bigger smile on his face. Perhaps this was our man, we thought. We chatted for ages, asking him about the site, the local conditions, what to expect, when the sea breeze kicked in, all the usual visiting pilot questions flowed forth. Carlos seemed really happy for the company and more than willing to impart what seemed to be years of local experience. After an hour or so he seemed to think this might be about as good as it got, and started getting his kit unpacked. While doing so, he turned to us and asked a question.

"I 'ath been a wondering, ever thinth I got thethe new mothquetoneth wether they are thetup right.", he said in heavily accented English. "I 'ath been a 'aving thome ithues with them. I 'ath even thent thome letterth athkin' for 'elp, you know. Perhapth you could 'av a quick look. You guyth theem like you ith well travelled, tho perhapth you could thee if I've inthtalled them right. Would you mind 'avin' a quick look at my thetup?"

"Of course", we said, happy to assist in any way.

"I ith uthin' thethe new Charley Quickly Outed'th, and I jutht can't theem to get them to thtay in correctly. Maybe therth a thpethial thing I needth to do.", he said.

"Charley Quick Outs you say?".

Bugger.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" video

AN Other

YOU MUST be kidding, they want to what? This seemed to be the general reaction around the office when news started coming in that the Assian Paragliding Union (Do-APU) were planning on setting up another parallel testing regime and certification standard. For those with short-term memory problems, let's have a quick refresher course in how not to set international standards, shall we.

Many years ago in a land not so far far away there were two groups of people, both had the interests of pilots at heart and both wanted to see good, repeatable testing performed on paragliding and hang gliding equipment. There was a group called Le-AFNOR and another called Za-DHV and they constantly battled each other on the fields of Europe for years boring the shit out of paraglider pilots worldwide with their inability to actually agree on anything.

In the blue corner we had Le-AFNOR who were promoting a "laissez faire" pro-EU, live-and-let-live testing regime and in the red corner Za-DHV were chaffing at the bit with hundreds of years of demonstrable engineering talent and showing signs of having spent rather too long in a Schardenfreudian Dominatrix Dungeon in Munich.

Several battles were fought and they even continued on after Le-AFNOR had renamed itself Le-EN and it's testing had been renamed LTF (dubbed Less Than Fair, by many). Eventually Za-DHV, found itself with its back against the ropes, it's trousers round its ankles and trying to stem the bleeding from its nose. The fatal blow to the famous proboscis arrived when the relatively local manufacturers ganged up and organised themselves into an association. Certain pronouncements were made, and they were made in a tone of voice most of us will remember from childhood.

Most memorable among these declarations was the one beginning "For fuck sake, stop acting like overpaid, spoiled assholes and join the EN testing regime or we will stop using your testing facilities you twats." This seems to have done the trick as within a year or so, Za-DHV modified its testing and finally came in line with the rest of Za-World.

So it was with great trepidation that the world of free-flight opened its curtains on an overcast Monday morning in September, took a big yawn and uttered the words, "Bloody hell, not again".

It would seem that Do-APU seem set to try and repeat history, but this time in Asia and they're calling their shiny new tests AN. Very imaginative.

Luckily, of course, we can examine history, learn from our mistakes as a mature, wise sport and ensure they're not repeated at the expense of Joe Pilot.

History gives us a few pointers so we can know what to expect. Looking carefully, we can see plenty of examples of western cultures treating middle-eastern and far-eastern groups with the respect and courtesy one would expect from mature societies. The Westerners have almost never simply ignored local wishes and ridden over the people and their culture without a care in the world. Neither have western civilisations invaded these parts of the world and massacred entire populations at the whim of a cretinous inbred hereditary monarch with all the mental prowess of a 4x2 piece of Nordic Pine. Oh no.

So... good luck with that then Mssrs. Do-APU and Co!  [Or should we just call you Steve - Ed]

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" video

White Wash

WHITE IS the new black! It would appear that some manufacturers have begun running out of certain colour materials and are being forced into producing one-off colour combinations to satisfy demand for their best-selling gliders. According to industry rumours, one manufacturer has almost entirely run-out of white cloth.

We can imagine that it's pretty difficult to predict the demand for specific colours when a new glider is released, and we'd like to assist the manufacturers by asking pilots to be as patient as possible when waiting for their new baby to arrive. Pilots should also try to keep in mind that it's not just the customers that are suffering. The latest gossip suggested that demand is now so high for white cloth that top management at some PG manufacturers are being forced make changes.

"This is no joking matter!", said Calvin Cavanaghgogogoch, chief head of Blozone.

"I haven't been forced to make changes like this since I was in my 20's for god's sake, and trust me, that was a bloody long time ago sweetheart", he told on-the-spot Pie reporter Maribel "Rose" Culottes.

"It'z just zee white colour, yes? Zo zee zituacion can't be zat bad, can it?", enquired Rose.

"Listen love", he continued, "When I showed up at the office last Monday, did anyone say 'Good Morning', 'Salut', or 'Fancy a coffee Mike?' Did they fuck!"

"I beg your pardonne?", replied Rose.

"They just asked me if I was wearing white kecks and then proceeded to frog march me to the lav's.", he continued. "Before I knew what was going on, they'd locked me in the cubicle and had chucked a pair or red Y-fronts over the door. They said that we all have to make sacrifices when running a small business and now it was my turn. They then informed me that they'd all being going commando since week last Tuesday, and the entire production department has been completely naked under their overalls all month."

"Last I could work out, my pants were last seen as part of the upper cloth of a DHV-2 wing being loaded into a DHL van and heading for Scotland.". He continued, lowering his voice somewhat, "I'll let you into a little secret, there's a pilot in Holland that's actually quite happy with his new glider and he's totally oblivious to the fact it's entirely made of the R&D departments shreddies. We called him to ask how he was getting on and the feedback was actually very positive. He told us that his early morning flights are significantly improved, so maybe this is something we'll look into in the near future."

"Of course, that's assuming Russo or Luc don't get frostbite in St Andre. You know, our boys are over there right now proving our outright domination of all things waypoint-driven, and they're doing it without their lucky pants!"

Here at Pie, we openly admit to knowing less than sod-all about wing design, but we know a fair bit about underwear, and we're sincerely hoping these revelations can assist with future wing design in some way.

Let's face it, wouldn't it be great if you could just throw your wing in with the whites at 40°?

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" video

Lonely Ad Sense

NOT BEING blessed with powerful advertisers here at Pie we simply rely on visiting readers choosing to click on the occasional ad. Although we know good advertising when we see it [Look right - Ed], we're not experts in the field and so rely on those who know what they're doing to place ads on our pages. We couldn't help noticing, however, a slight typo in some of the ads that have been appearing.

As a well reputed, and occasionally respected, "international magazine", Pie is dedicated to our fantastic sport in all it's forms and tries to promote paragliding in any way we can. We're always pleased to see others doing the same too. Therefore it was with some considerable surprise that we noticed a major typo on the part of our fellow journalists over at XC-Rag.

We've tried to contact them to point out that they might consider purchasing a new dictionary but, as summer's not quite over yet, we're presuming that they're all out enjoying the skies rather than replying to the emails, voicemails and literally hundreds of answerphone messages we've left. Hopefully one of their hacks will read this, realise their mistake and fix it.

Enclosed below is a quick snapshot so they can see the error for themselves:

The word "lonely" is not spelled "only". Simple mistake, anyone could make it.

After further deliberation, we concluded that by inadvertently using the word "only" in their online advertising they are making a completely different statement, albeit unintentionally. They may not even realise that this single word changes the way the entire sentence reads.

Obviously another typo in the busy day of a bunch of professional PG journo's and here's hoping they can find the time to make the quick fix.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" video

Off Bar

AFTER THE July investigation into speed systems, how deployment may be improved and the brief, and somewhat painful, discovery of the 101 ways to hurt your private parts with velcro, it seems one of our intrepid reporters has been giving the whole concept more thought. It's common place, for those flying without a stirrup, to stow the bar under the seat with velcro or a strap of some description and releasing this during the first few minutes of flight has been a constant, consistent, continual, consecutive, continuous and continuing difficulty for pilots worldwide.

Last weekend, while hanging about launch at a comp, Vilhelm 'Big Bill' Schlönginhänd, Pie's Scandinavian reporter, was struck with an idea. Knowing what it's like to try and stop a 2m tall, 125Kg Swede with a plan fixed firmly in his head, we decided to let him do whatever the hell he wanted. So we reached for our cameras and stood back.

Big Bill's idea was simple enough, although as it turned out, not to everyones taste.

"Böth händs äre pretty büsy ät täkeöff änd böth legs äre üsuälly döwn döing söme sört öf rünning, jögging ör simply fläiling äröund wäiting tö be cälled intö äctiön düring äny ünexpected impäct right?", he said. "This döesn't leäve müch in the wäy öf limbs äväiläble för detäching ä speedbär, döes it?"

"I suppose not.", said Wendel our head of all things technical.

"Sö why nöt üse äll yöür nätüräl resöürces?", he pressed on.

"Err....", we said collectively.

"Ärse cheeks", he announced.

"Err....", we said collectively.

"Ärse cheeks", he repeated. "Why nöt simply clench the bär in yöür cheeks änd releäse it when äirbörne?"

We paused, uncertain where this was going. Images of naked, middle-aged Swedish men running from saunas and rolling in the snow briefly flashed though more than one mind in the office and Silvia Sudds, personal assistant to the Chief Editor, actually put her camera back in her handbag.

"Clench the bar between your cheeks?", enquired Wendel. "But surely just sitting on it would be good enough? To release it you'd just need to lean forward and it'll fall down, right?"

"Nö, yöü dön't ünderständ. The bär isn't between yöür ärse änd the härness! The bär is ünderneäth. Belöw the härness.", he wasn't giving up.

"I give up", said Wendel, "You'll need to draw me a picture or something."

"Nö need!", announced Big Bill, "I've älreädy mödifed my härness änd given it ä few test flights, see."

He reached behind one of the desks, dragged his harness out and flipped it over. And there it was. The modification that would keep several of us from sleeping for days. Right there in the middle, he'd cut a 2cm diameter hole.

Miss Sudds just about fell off her desk, while the rest of us simply grabbed our jackets and went to the pub, several of us with eyebrows that would take several days to come down.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

FurryBird MightStop

ANOTHER DAY, another safety report.

Here at Pie, we think it's great to see the manufacturers putting safety first and issuing warnings about their duff kit, thus protecting pilots from themselves and maybe from the crap gear they've inadvertently bought. No matter how iffy a manufacturer might be, how shoddy their products might turn out or how flaky their marketing service might seem, it's good to see them standing up and saying, "We've naffed it up", or as it's officially known, "Issuing a safety report".

So it would seem the "Innovation of the Year" down at FireBrand is in fact not the "Lift Off System" or the "Catchy Air Pockets" of their top selling Turbo MightStop reserves, it rather seems that their latest innovation is in fact the new improved reserve container that now comes out when you pull it.

It would seem that some pilots who've been trusting their lives to a MightStop reserve may be somewhat surprised when pulling the handle during any desperate last chance at the rest of their lives. It seems that, when in dire straits, pilots could be faced with less MightStop than they would have expected. In fact, looking at the design changes, it seems pretty clear that some would have been faced with no MightStop at all and most likely be faced with a handle, 10cm of tape and some rather straggly looking threads. Not what one might hope for when spiraling in at 15m/s and looking for a last chance to kiss the wife goodbye.

Luckily, FieryBird have stepped up and offered replacement internal containers to owners who might be worried they paid their hard earned cash for some under-seat ballast, a cool logo and a poorly stitched bracelet for the missus.

Well done FieryBride, keep up the good work, and here's hoping all those punters get in touch for a free replacement container with "reinforcements all round". Obviously we're hoping extra attention has been given to the reinforcements around the bits that were crap.

This innovation of the year [Safety Notice - Ed] comes from FurryBird - No Bushwa.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

Carrier Pigeon Downed

IT SEEMS that wikileaks.org are so busy publishing classified US Army documents, commonly known as "the truth about deaths, murders, mistakes and random shootings in far-flung places no-one gives enough of a shit about", to publish leaked corporate documents. It rather seems that people are turning to regular media outlets to distribute illicit information and clearly some see Pie as a suitable outlet.

Here at Pie we're professionals, we expend every effort to try and authenticate all information we're given, no matter how slim the details might be. However, we're also a bunch of headline-grabbing, fame-seeking, shit-peddling, drama-queens who'll just about publish anything and be damned. It's in our blood. Besides, we don't have expensive advertisers to piss off, so why would we give a shit?

This was uppermost in our minds when we were listening to a micro-cassette we receive anonymously in the post last Thursday. It took us some 45 minutes to find something to play the tape and a further 2 hours to convert it to a useful format, but eventually we had a mp3 file that we could listen to and work with. It rapidly became clear it was an illicite recording of part of a mobile phone conversation. After putting our technology expert, Wendel "Grepit" Gardner, to work cleaning up the recording we could transcribe parts of the conversation. Some parts are simply undecipherable though, but what we could understand is transcribed below.

For the sake of simplicity we'll call the voices A and B, but please don't read anything into that.

Copy:

[BEGIN]
Voice A: "...GARBLED... between them with soap. [LAUGHING] It's the best one I've heard in years."
Voice B: "...GARBLED... [LAUGHING] Well yes so would I, if I were in her position. [LAUGHING]"
Voice A: "Thinking more on the subject, another 4 months is ridiculous! I'm flying a borrowed Blozone right now, for God sake. Christ, is there nothing we can do about it?"
Voice B: "Not really, we're making efforts to at least make the 3-liner look ...GARBLED... probably not notice"
Voice A: "For me though, the most important issue is to get them to agree to remove the you-know-what's"
Voice B: "I know, but they've had them for years."
Voice A: "Well that's as maybe, but they're completely useless and they spoil the layout. They defeat many of the advances we've been making with clean designs and we'll have to re-model certain parts in software. Honestly, they have no place being there."
Voice B: "I know what you're saying, I agree. We've always agreed on this point you know we have. Listen, I'll do my best and ...GARBLED..."
Voice A: "I know, I know. But they just don't exist in nature, certainly nothing like that. There's just no call for them, some larger primaries do affect the tip vortices, but they're actually claiming to significantly reduce the induced drag. It's bad science, you know that, and I just don't like it."
Voice B: "Well that's as maybe, but we might just have to go along with them regardless. Let's face it, they've got all the ...GARBLED... thousand or two."
Voice A: "Well just let them know that if they want access to the tunnel they've got to keep us happy. It's worked for years and there's no changing a winning formula. Ok?"
Voice B: "...GARBLED... complete bollocks. You know that right."
Voice A: "Don't talk to me about him, no-one gives a shit about tumbling. It's just publicity. Nothing more."
Voice B: "All right."
Voice A: "I'll call you later in the week."
Voice B: "Ok. Salut."
Voice A: "Bye."
[END]

Make of it what you will. In all truth there's no confirming who the voices belong to, or checking if the recording is authentic, but in the interests of general openness we're happy to publish.

(and be damned)

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

Pax ACRO

AN ATTEMPT to infinity tumble a tandem paraglider took place over the past few days and we were well chuffed to be invited to witness this special moment. The worlds press were invited to witness it over Lake Waitnsee in the land of milk chocolate, rubbery cheese and small red pocket knives. For those not in the know, an "infinity tumble" is what is known in other forms of aviation as a "loop". As paraglider pilots are kool, rad, free-flyin' muthas we've tended to rename shit to make it sell well. Not surprising given that 99% of the worlds media thinks we're towed up behind speedboats. Of course, based on recent reporting it seems we still have some work to do. Consequently, here at Pie, we wandered along to do our bit and see if we couldn't even get an exclusive interview with the loons involved. After all, no-one had ever done one of these with a tandem glider before.

The pair are using the latest in tandem technology, an XXL U-Burn Driller ACRO wing from the German geniuses down in the Black Forest. Although we couldn't secure an interview with Tom Tosseler, the Chief-head of U-Tern wings, we have it on good authority he said, “It’s going to be thrilling!" Right then. Thrilling.

Arriving at the make-shift press heliport, we joined the queue of fellow media professionals waiting to interview the stars of the day. When we reached the front of the queue Pax Taxit, senior accountant and part-time ACRO pilot, and Gator Karzi, tandem passenger and part-time Mark Wahlberg lookalike, were looking like fully fledged Hollywood stars doing the biz. After a surprisingly short wait, we found ourselves sitting opposite the guys where we got to ask them our four searching questions.

"Hi Pax! Are you looking forward to this?", we asked.

"Oh yes. Very much so.", he replied with a friendly smile spreading across his face and an even broader hairstyle spreading across his head.

"And howde Gator! How do you feel about all this, is this your first taster flight then?", we asked.

"I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm quite confident I won't be sick.", said Gator, looking ever so slightly nervous.

"Pax, we're told tandem tumbling's never been done before. Are you looking forward to getting into the record books today?", we asked, deciding that a little bit of flattery goes a long way.

"Well, there are no records for this sort of thing. The guys down at Guinness Records don't seem to take us quite so seriously as those trans-atlantic, global ballooning billionaires you know.", he replied, visibly losing some of his initial cheerfulness.

"So why are you doing this? Why?", we asked, getting down to the nitty-gritty.

"Why? Hmmfff...", were the only sounds picked up by our handheld mike. He then proceeded to stare at us for several moments with a puzzled look on his face after which he stood up slowly and wandered off back to the organisers tent making more than one questioning look over his shoulder and shaking his head.

Slightly confused at the rapid end to our interview we made our way to the press tent where they were handing out free energy drinks with straws that had little red and blue paragliders and a mad cow, or something, printed on them. How cute, we thought. We started asking around about the upcoming stunt and it turns out it takes quite a lot of strength to do a loop [Infinity Tumble - Ed] with a PG and it's expected to take much more for a tandem. In fact, it seems the passenger may have to assist otherwise it could all wind up with a giftwrapping from hell and a rather watery end.

Some journo's were saying the pilots will undergo similar levels of "G" as those experienced by fighter pilots and others were even suggesting it was unfair on these PG pilots because your average fighter pilot has a pressure suit to keep from blacking out. We thought this was a little absurd though. Let's face it, those fighter jocks have to keep their eyes on an artificial horizon, an incoming enemy, the SAM alarms, their countermeasures and the readiness of their AIM missiles. Hardly a fair comparison with pilots who have to check their leg straps are done up and the batteries are fully charged in their vario we thought.

Witnessing the event was a bit of a let-down, we have to say. All we could see from where we stood was a dot in the sky and even using our bird-watching binoculars, which we brought especially, we could only just about make out where the wing was. They made it though, according to the live commentary fed to us on the ground from someone in a helicopter who must have been much, much closer. It would also seem that Gater had the taster flight of the century too, even though the gossip on the street is that he chucked up just about everything he'd eaten since last Christmas.

So there you have it folks. Like most sporting events, just stay at home and watch it on TV or youToob. You'll get to see a whole lot more and, if you're lucky, the press interviews might even make it seem worthwhile.

If readers wish to write in and suggest answers to our last question we'd be most grateful, because we're at a bit of a loss. As it seems, was Pax.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

Scorchio Recordio

FANTASTICO NEWS is coming in that a new record has been set in Spain. It would appear that the countries distance record has been smashed and a new site record set for that well-known hangout, Piedrahita.

Details are sketchy at the moment, but it would appear that Frenchman Thomas "DM" Putain has covered over 310Km, flying from Pena Negra, the local take-off at "Pied", as it's known to visitors. For years pilots have been flying north-east, following the convergence while keeping within a glide or three of the never-ending ridge and almost always within 10Km or so of the straight, fast retrieve roads. Thousands of kilometers and many distance records have been set by repeating the world famous and surprisingly simple mantra, "Follow Steve". It seems that Thomas, however, has bucked this 20 year trend with his shiney, new record and gone off in a new direction, so to speak.

Hopping on her bike, Pie reporter Silvia "Encima" de Ella, freewheeled her bike the 50Km down the road for an interview. Unfortunately for us, Silvia arrived the day after the record was set, so was a little too early to interview Thomas. It seems that having flown most of the way to the beach, he simply wasn't going to waste the opportunity and decided to stay for a few days and soak up some sun.

Not wanting to waste the trip, Silvia hooked up with local free-flying guru and Gillette rep Steve Jamon Serrano for a quick chat about this new record.

"Steve, it's fantastic this new record isn't it?", she said.

"Absolutely Silvia. This is great for Piedrahita, great for paragliding and great for Thomas", replied the Jambon. He continued, "There's nothing like setting a new record to encourage people to come over and fly one of Europe's top free-flying sites."

"That's definitely true", she replied, "it really is great that this record has been set here, what with the Worlds coming here in 2011"

"I know, I know", he replied, "It's free advertising really"

"So our readers will be keen to know Steev, did you meet Thomas before his epic flight?"

"Well, I bump into most pilots when they stay here, or even if they're just passing through", he continued, "Most people pop in at some point during their stay. I get through 10 Euros of Nescafe every day during the season you know"

"Wow, that is a lot of coffee. Did you meet Thomas?"

"Err, not exactly. He seemed pretty confident, his groundhandling skills were up to par and both him and his friend seemed to have their own ideas about what they wanted to do and I'm always great with that"

"But he didn't follow the standard advice for this site though, did he?"

"I don't want to talk about it", said Esteeeve.

At this point Silvia realised there wasn't any point chatting much longer. After all, Thomas was the record breaker and he wasn't anywhere to be seen. After some asking around and the swapping of a few favours she did manage to get Thomas' mobile phone number and called him up.

"Hi Thomas, Pie in the Sky here. Great news about your record."

"Ello. Yes, great newzz", he replied, with a slight accent.

"Where are you?"

"On zee beach at Alicante."

"How do you feel?"

"Fantaztic sweetheart. Never felt better. New record. New tan. Fantaztic."

"Esteve Jamon says it's great to have a new site record at Piedrahita."

"Did he?"

"He says it's just great."

"Did he?"

"Yes"

"He told the pair of us we were suicidal maniacs if we tried flying over Gredos."

"Really?"

"Oui, and he zaid we should stick to zee tried and tested routes zat have been zo successful for 20 yearz. Head north east, he told us."

"Did he really? But you didn't, did you?"

"Ze fuck we did. We 'ad a practice run to zee south a couple of dayz before and made 240k, and az we woz a lookin for a record, we went south again."

"Fantastic. Ok. Well have a nice time on the beach."

"Salut"

So there you have it folks, a new record, an old mantra and a change of direction at an old favourite.

[312Km. Wow. - Ed]

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

Handz Back Home

WE ALL like happy endings, and it would seem that last months "Missing Persons" request has greatly assisted in finding a poor lost soul. It would seem that Hands Pampas has been found fit and well and is back at work where he should be.

We received a very nice thank-you note from NovaBling International m.b.H thanking us for our help with the search. It's enclosed below so you can all see what a great idea this internet-www-thingy is in keeping people connected and helping out brothers in need.

Quote:

"Herr Editor,

Zankz wery much for publisching our reqvest for help last month it seemz to haff vorked. Ve are wery wery reliefed.

Hands rolled into vork ze ozer day and iz back to hiz usual zelf. He haz been bringing za bagels and za cofee in for breakfast and everyzing, just like za good old dayz.

Vee zink he may actually haff been on a course or somezink vizout tellingk us, because he seemz to be efen better zan before at za marketing stuff. Alzough he haz only been back for a few dayz now, he iz already makink za numberz zound good and haz been publisching all kindz of fantastisch statisticz.

He haz brought viz him a vonderbar new dezign for za veekend vombatz viz hiz new-and-improofed Mental-2 EN-B ving. Hands iz zo good at zis, he iz already up to hiz nutz in remarkable claimz und outlandisch glide ratioz for our new littel baby.

Vonce again he iz uzing hiz old chestnut, 'Never in the field of free flight was so much owed, by so many, to so few. With this one small step for wings and one giant leap for L/D, we got it through the load test'.

See... zingz are back to normal again.

Vonce again, zanks for all your help in zis matter and if zer iz anyzing vee can do for you just let uz know.

Volfi Lecher,
(Repairz Dept) "


So there you go reader, another happy ending and another mystery demystified. And it's nice to see Hands back to his usual self too.

Oh... err... come to think of it... In terms if return favours, the Chief Editors Mamboo is winging across Europe as we speak, so if you could service it and fix that bloody great hole in record time I'm sure he'd be most grateful ;-)

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

Gravius Painium II

AFTER LAST months unexplained anonymous email in latin, we've received a few comments and suggestions from Pie readers. Most seemed to make a reasonable stab at translating it for us, but one of the follow up communiques appears to be in latin, confusing us once again.

So, with apologies to our readership, we'd be most appreciative once again of any assistance in translating the following into English.

Quote:

"Gratias ago vos de publicata mi reviewum de Windtecum Zephyrium. Ego quo modificarta mis commentis del est wingum parvus minor.

Ils bastardums de Windtecum exertus a assasinato mihi. Quo unto I. Pobreum.

Il wungum eram non Zephyrium, absolutatum non. Il wingum quo testimi eram il prototypicus valde periculosus e valde, valde dangerousimus. Ego sum valde, valde, mucho, tutto fortisimus habeo vita e futurus quod ma headicus e duos legicuses.

Commodo dico todo pilotums como es los mater copulatoras de Wintecus eran transporto est prototipo en errori a mi. Non ego un pilotum testigo. Ego pilotum normalamisium. Ego infantia inum domicilium e um donna belissimum, non me promptus verso morior.

Secumdus magnum tiempum ego receptalis el Zephyricum Serialus com cartas authenticalis de certificatum. Finalmentimum. Ego operorum il wingum e il commodicamentimum como ils totos equalis de ils altras EN-B'sicumsi. Equalamentum e mismicus.

Commodo dico todo pilotums como normalicus is illa wingum del ils copulatoris.

Luvum e etc,
Veni, Vidi, Vici - en vita propia."

Once again, anyone chipping in with a traslation or offering suggestions will receive our everlasting thanks. Nothing more sadly, as we've emailed all our coveted "Pie in the Sky" coffee mugs.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1933 "Graf Zeppelin No Smoking Sign" thefts

An Indian Sunset

HOT NEWS is coming in that Sunni paragliders are not relocating from wet old South Korea to sunny India in no attempt whatsoever to solve specific corporate issues they've been having.

Hung Li KaMule, chairman and chief executive of Sunspot PG's, was quoted as saying, "It did not become too much for us, to be honest. We can get DHL to understand it, and we expect everyone else to get it right". He went on, "After many years we've not given up, quite frankly, and have not relocated ourselves to India in an attempt to get things flowing smoothly. It is good for us, the future is blight."

The original story posted online has not been taken down to avoid further confusion.

We like confusion.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1972 "Robert Livingston Seagull patio door" accident

Painium Inum Arsicus

LATIN IS a fantastic, historic language and it's great to see it being kept alive in some circles. It's still in full use in certain groups around the globe, medical doctors use it to give clear and precise instructions to patients, catholic priests occasionaly raise their cassocks to give a choir boy a lesson or two and recently we've noticed it being used in some conversations on paragliding forums. Amazing!

Of course, it's only amazing if you actually understand it. Which is why we were left a little confused when we recieved an email recently in this amazing, but dead, language. So.... if there are any formally educated types out there who learned Latin while studying, or maybe a doctor or a priest, we would appreciate your assistance with the following. We simply don't know where to begin and have no idea what it's about, so would like to open it up to the community for assistance.

Quote:

"Id Windtecum Zephyrium est absoluta maximus.

Is est optimus wingum umquam flownum inum mi spiritus vita. Il designmator est a genitor. Commodo tellum como super il isum.

Il glideum lapsus est optimus in mercatum procul 10.2 l/d mas maximus da illas Novatums. Il colori cultum es perspicuus especialus in redum mas da los Blozonums. La linea es cleanium e crispium como est no tenen wingleticuses como los feisimus Advancicums. Autem no ni necessitas RigiFoilicus como ilis Ginisantimums.

Il wingum riseum facile quod adveho overum vestri headum capitis sinum nullus problemums. Landum facilinious a humus est smoothicus e softicus. Comum il slightimum flareum.

Commodo dico todo pilotums como fantasticus is illa wingum.

Luvum e etc,

Veni, Vidi, Vici"

Anyone chipping in with a traslation or offering suggestions will receive one of our coveted "Pie in the Sky" coffee mugs by way of a thank you. By email.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1972 "Robert Livingston Seagull patio door" accident

G'n'T'n'Safety

G'YN GLIDERS released a safety notice a few days ago relating to a couple of wings in their product range. Clearly they are concerned for their loyal customer base and are taking steps to ensure the safety of the pilots. Once again it's good to see a manufacturer being pro-active in helping pilots to "stay safe".

Please find below the full safety notice just in case you missed it. To assist the reader we've added a few notes [Editorial Notes - Ed] especially aimed at those for whom English is not their ferst langwage.

Quote:

"We strongly advise you not to fly in the rain on the BoomBoom GTi and the BoomBoom Seven [No shit - Ed] These high performance gliders are very susceptible to deep stall in the rain." [No shit - Ed]

"The development path of modern high performance paragliders (etc, etc) bears no allowance for these kind of gliders to fly when wet." [No shit - Ed]

"If you see a shower coming during a flight, even a light one, we strongly advise you to go to land immediately." [No shit - Ed]

"If you do fly in the rain, and if you enter a stall, which generally happens when you enter lift, do as follows. Do not perform any actions with your brakes, do not steer the wing, push on the "A" risers. [No shit - Ed] If this is not sufficient to recover the flight, push the speed bar and maintain the action". [No shit - Ed]

So there you have it reader, some good solid advice: "Don't fly in the pissing rain".

No shit!

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1972 "Robert Livingston Seagull patio door" accident

An Indian Sun

HOT NEWS is coming in that Sunni paragliders are relocating from wet old South Korea to sunny India in an attempt to solve specific corporate issues they've been having.

Hung Li KaMule, chairman and chief executive of Sunspot PG's, was quoted as saying, "It just became too much for us, to be honest. If we can't get DHL to understand it, how can we expect anyone else to get it right?". He went on, "After many years we've just given up, quite frankly, and have relocated ourselves to India in an attempt to get things flowing smoothly. It's going to be good for us, the future is blight."

After many years of missing wings, failed DHL deliveries and a FedEx van delivering 25 rolls of SkyTex-39 to Pyong-Yang by mistake the Sunshine Team appear to have simply given up and relocated. It seems that (Gwandgju City, Gyeonggi-Do) is too difficult for the worlds delivery services to understand.

So here's hoping their problems are behind them and, here at Pie, we wish them all the best in their new location. For pilots wishing to contact Sunshade PG's please contact them at their new address: Warehouse 24, Utkarsh, Mahaveernagar, Vakharbhag, Sangli.416416, Maharashtra.

Paragliders have also asked us to quote their full postal address to ensure nothing goes astray from now on:

Good luck Mr KaMule.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1972 "Robert Livingston Seagull patio door" accident

Eclipsed

IMAGINE OUR delight at being invited to witness the total eclipse of the sun last month on the Easter Islands. It's not often we get invited to witness celestial events by paragliding clubs, but we got one 5 weeks ago and included with the invite were two first class air tickets. Can't say no we thought. So we didn't. We looked it all up on Google Maps, checked out the news stories to see if it was a big wind-up and started packing. Imagining a week or so soaking up the South Pacific sun on a tropical island while mixing in a bit of local culture, some sight-seeing, plenty of coastal soaring and then maybe witnessing one of nature's great events. Wow. What a nice bunch of pilots they must be down at the old Easter Island HPGA. Or so we thought.

Collecting his luggage and his secretary the Chief Editor headed off for the South Pacific Island Experience. With a look of "This ought to be fun" on this face.

That was before the 3 days of hell we went through to get there, of course. A trip during which we lost one glider, had one piece of luggage misplaced and another stolen and took a wrong connecting flight to somewhere god-forsaken place inhabited by three crazy biologists and a quarter of a million puffins. Eventually, of course, we arrived. 36 hours later than planned and somewhat bleary eyed we rolled into MataTodo International landing strip, which seemed to be the only place in the entire island that had worked out what to do with tarmac. Flopping down on our beds we slept for 24 hours straight to re-charge our batteries and get ready to meet the local pilots.

Tepano Makemake introduced himself as the chairman and founding member of the RNHPGA and fourth cousin, third removed from the ancient King of Easter Island MakaMakaBigFun InumAgua. He wasted no time with the frills and we soon found ourselves hiking up to takoff with a Pina Colada in each hand and a garland of flowers round our necks. Everything looked good so far. Even Miss Sudds, our secretary, was begining to relax and let her hair down. Which was a shame, as it rather covered things.

Arriving at the summit, a healthy 500m ASL, we prepared ourselves for takeoff and once again, thanks to the airline baggage handlers, it was me and Miss Sudds in the tandem again. Shame.

"Where's the rest of the club?", we enquired. "Conditions look great, surely they would all be out today?"

"The rest? Excluding you two temporary members?", replied Tepano.

"Uh-huh", we shot back.

"You're looking at him", he answered while tying some form of rope around his waist in what looked like a poor immitation of the worlds first rock-climbing harness.

"Ah. Ok. Right then", said Miss Sudds looking at the Chief Editor in the way one chicken might look at another when feeling a wall behind and backing away from the fox.

"Just in time for the eclipse too", said Tepe.

"But what about the sea breeze and the thermic activity", we said, "Surely it'll all shut down?"

"Nah, mate", he shot back, "The breeze here will keep you up, no problem."

Then he took off. And so did we.

We had some great fun. Soaring and thermalling out, flying way out to sea, gliding back and then thermalling our way back up again. Just what we came for. In fact we were so busy taking photos and enjoying ourselves that we totally forgot about the impending solar eclipse and we were cruising at well over 2500m ASL when we realised Tepe had landed and seemed to be chilling out on takeoff. This seemed strange given that conditions were stable and unchanging, no clouds in the distance or other clues to an impending change of fortunes. Within two minutes, however, we remembered.

Because in two minutes we were flying in the dark. Yes, the dark. The black stuff. Not a twinkle. The vario was informing us that the lift hadn't shut down, just as Tepe had said, so at least we were maintaining our altitude. Unfortunately, the GPS was warning us that it must have gone katabatic, synthetic, adiabatic or even diabetic or something down there and although we were flying towards the island we were in actual fact travelling backwards at 50kph and quite rapidly being blown out to sea. In fact the moving-map page was showing us well offshore already. So wingovers or a spiral it is then. Let's face it, it's better to pitch up in the water a few hundred metres out to sea rather than find yourslef 10k offshore. Damn! We were flying the tandem and I'd temporarily fogotten about Miss Sudds reasons for being there, which ruled out wingovers, unless of course I wanted another couple of black eyes from her not-so-fixed-in-place upper-body appendages. Nice, but not right now I thought. As I thought more about it, spirals were not on either, hitting the water at 18 m/s wouldn't do either of us any good, regardless of how large Miss Sudds airbags might be. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced that altitude was our friend as long as we were unable to see the land or water. Holding back the panic, I made a decision! These volcanic islands are in chains I thought, so I guess we'll just have to hope for another one. We turned and went with it. Of course, this turned out to be a big mistake. As they generally are.

They found us 3 weeks later on Sala & Gómez Island, an uninhabited rock with nothing more than grass, ferns and plenty of puffins, some 400km ENE from where we'd taken off. Miss Sudds was looking rather the worse for wear, more so than yours truly it has to be said, mainly due to the fact that certain parts of her had acquired more sun than is generally good for you. At least we'd survived though, all be it on a diet of small fish, crabs, eels and other assorted seafood. In point of fact, we'd eaten just about anything daft enough to swim into a 38D cup.

If anyone knows of a good secretary currently looking for work, we may have an opening.

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1972 "Robert Livingston Seagull patio door" accident