Review 2025; Donation on GofoundMe for Timo; Paragliding Gummen: An emotional rollercoaster; Paragliding analysis XC Brauneck; Spanish Kiss.
The statistics for my blog for the year 2025 show that almost every country in the world accessed it. Only countries from central Africa, Cuba, Papua New Guinea, some smaller countries and, of course, North Korea did not visit my blog. In total, 22,200 people (more precisely, unique IP addresses) visited my blog with 152,000 pages clicked on. The USA accounted for the largest number of visitors (27%), followed by Germany (22%) and the Netherlands (8%).
The average paraglider is more of an egoist, as he is flying alone, at least in the air, and often fights for sole dominance in the beard, especially when the thermals are weak. The case of Timo, who was not favoured by fate, shows that there is another way. Following an appeal for donations on GofoundMe, a considerable sum was raised so that he could afford a new paraglider. This enabled him to retire his old glider and replace it with an Alpha 8.
Austro Control emphasises the dangers of overhead power lines. The paper “Das Fokus Safety: Beinahe unsichtbar, aber gefährlich – Stromleitungen – Vorsicht bei Ballonfahrten” is written for balloonists, but is just as valid for us paraglider pilots.
Anyone who flies paragliders knows that paragliding can be very emotional. Stephano and Raphi from Beyond Glides talk about a flight from Gummen in Switzerland, their emotions, tactical considerations and experiences during the flight.
The 30 April and 1 May 2025 were amazing days that will probably go down in the history of paragliding. Many 300s were flown in the Alps on this day. With the help of Ogoy, Oldglider Jürgen has done an excellent job of recording 1 May and showing it on video. He chose flights that all took off from Brauneck, the largest group flew the Karwendel triangle, a small group flew the glacier triangle.
What happens when a vulture kisses a paraglider can be seen in the following video by Tim. Apparently nothing happened to either of the protagonists. The whole thing happened in Spain over the Sierra de Lijar, not far from Algodonales, a flying area known for the massive presence of vultures in the air.
