www.paragliding365.com
offers a huge amount of information on flying sites. It integrates and offers
all important information for paraglider and hang glider pilots and makes it
available in one easy step to access sites. The database includes more than
5,000 flying sites with pictures, which give a quick look at each flying area.
1,200 flight schools worldwide are listed, and the site is accessed by over
1,000 paraglider and hang glider pilots every day, providing descriptions for
10,000 launch points and landing zones, 7,000 photos, and 13,000 ratings from
flight buddies. And it's getting bigger every day!
With that, the freshly presented homepage rewards "friends" with the most
beautiful flight zones, training schools and the most exciting trip reports of
the week. Further useful information on current events is available as well.
All 5,000 sites and 1,200 schools and clubs are linked to each other based on
their co-ordinates. They are presented in relation to one another in an easily
operated interactive map form. Hence: all details in reference to that
"surrounding area" are automatically updated as soon as new sites, schools and
clubs are added to the database.
The most important information is presented following the motto "important
things first" using graphic ICONS indicating GPS, IGC, Walk & Fly, Soaring,
Cross-Country flights, cable car and towing options. There is also current
weather data with corresponding air pressure variations and wind directions per
flight zone just as all country information is available - from the currency to
the embassy address.
A clearly described routing leads the visitor directly from his hometown to the
site, school, or club, or into one of the 52,000 vacation homes or 20,000 hotels
throughout Europe. The information has been refined by
www.paragliding365.com with GPS data
and therefore stands in relation to the flight zone. That is, the user can
select a flight zone and is able to locate vacation homes and hotels directly in
the area.
The uniqueness of the portal comes from, among other things, the consistent
possibility of "searching the area": 2.8 million towns throughout the world
captured in the database are hooked up to each other by GPS data. This data is
used to simplify the search for a site, a flight training school or lodging.
When submitting the name of a place, all countries in which the town name exists
are shown. The user selects his country and is now given a map in which all
towns are indicated.
After selecting the sought-for town, the user receives (as indicated by the
user) a list of all flight zones and schools within 25, 50 or 100 kilometres of
the town. After that, the question becomes simply: "which flight zones are
within a range of XY", and the portal provides a result! Further highlights that
make wwwparagliding365.com an incredible enrichment for the flying scene include
the Community Concept, the integration of Google Earth, downloads of IGC flight
files, in addition to that the new offline PDF site GUIDE (flight zone
information in PDF format) - and all of this is available FOR FREE!
The Community Concept - Adoption and Rating System: Each registered user can
enrich the paragliding and hang gliding scene with their own trip reports and
experiences from the most beautiful sites, or the worst ones. In addition,
especially committed members of the community can adopt sites and there with
receive the godfather responsibility for the description of the sites content
page. Other users can contribute further information, stunning new pictures, or
can rate the quality of the site description. For the activities of the
contributor, 'points' are given and 'hits' are counted. Detailed profiles enable
a view 'behind the scenes' of the contributor.
The adoption concept for sites introduced at the end of 2004 has successfully
been established. More than 900 registered users have adopted several hundreds
of sites, adjusted many descriptions, added several awesome pictures and traded
experience with other pilots from all over the world. Sites are kept current and
up to date and pictures are available for others to rate and comment on. As
commented by Stefan (alias [wurznsepp]): "it's a lot of fun to work on an
adopted site. It's perfect for the rained out Saturdays!"
Linking of Google Earth: Each site with its pertinent launch pads and landing
zones as well as schools and clubs can now be found directly in Google Earth.
Expanded with information for lodgings, this helps, among other things, to
provide a first impression for unknown and unfamiliar sites. As if that was not
enough, all sites and schools for a country, a continent or for the entire world
also indicate themselves. Current banned flight zones for Germany, Switzerland
or the entirety of Europe are available for Google Earth as a download.
Flights in the IGC format with download in Google Earth: Beside the description
of launch pads and landing zones in Google Earth via a direct connection to the
Leonardo project (www.paraglidingforum.com),
worldwide submitted IGC flights to the respective flight zones are linked and
displayed in Google Earth. Crossing the valley and thermal hot spots can be
found and analyzed at home.
The "hummer" function - site GUIDE in PDF-Format: Directly at the beginning of
the year, the newest and most exciting function ever to be introduced into
paragliding365.com was implemented. "The 'hummer' function" (original quotation
of user [skyscraper0815]): the automatically generated booklet in the PDF-format
designed for printing on the domestic PC which enables you to bring it along to
the site. On the basis of a desired area (in the vicinity of a flight zone,
flight school, a village or any GPS coordinate), each user can generate himself
his own personal booklet within seconds.
All essential information for the selected site and flight school is available
in a handy offline form. Beginning in February/March the PDF site GUIDE can also
be individually generated for sites and schools saved in the user profile as a
favourite, as well as for travel specials. Check out this sample
(http://www.paragliding365.com/download/paragliding365_siteGUIDE_Michaelerberg.pdf)
or generate your own by just going to a specific site an click the obvious link
"PDF site GUIDE erstellen".
www.paragliding365.com will be
attending FreeFlight 2006 for the first time this year, on April 7-9 2006 in
Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We look forward to many visitors at our stand (number
404) in the entrance hall.
Gerry writes:
www.paragliding365.com
has provided us here at the Oz Report with the data for all the launch points
and landing zones in their database that have been pinpointed with GPS readings,
discarding all the ones approximated to the nearest towns, but not actually of
the launch or landing. After manually removing ones that we already had
recorded, it leaves us with 978 new place marks in about 23 countries! Or about
2,500 sites (launches and LZ's)
Gerry asks for an explanation of how tasks are run at
competitions.
Gerry asks:
The turnpoints seem simple, just record at least one track log
point within 400 meters if it (at any altitude?). Finish is probably similar
(your time ends as soon as you get within 400 m of the goal point?).
The start system seems more complicated, a circle some place other than launch
but also not the first turn point? What's that about start times, your flight
time doesn't just start whenever you leave the start area or cross into some
area? There'd be some basic strategy involved because of that, you mention
things like that in your articles, but I just haven't been getting some of it.
We used an entry start circle at the Bogong Cup. The circle was
centered around the first turnpoint. You had to go to within 400 meters of the
first turnpoint in addition to entering the start circle at the right time.
The start time might be at 2 PM, and you had to be outside the start circle at 2
PM or a little after and then enter it to get the 2 PM start time. The start
times were every half hour, so you got the start time closest to but just before
you entered the start circle.
The entry start circles were set so that the entry point was about five
kilometers or so from the launch point. This gave you a good position on the
ridge line where there was likely to be lift just outside the start circle.
The goal, of course, is to get to the goal in the least amount of time after you
start. Starting with the first clock and getting to goal thereby earlier than
those who take a later clock also gives you additional points.
The rope looped around the wire and formed a knot. There is a
picture of the rope and the knot and I have examined it with Zupy. To form the
knot the rope had to go completely around the wire, then the end the rope with
the carabineer had to go through the loop just formed. The rope then had to be
pulled tight to form the knot at the end of the rope next to the carabineer. The
carabineer itself did not connect to the wire.
It is not clear when the rope looped around the wire. From Chris Smith's
description, the rope would have been bowed substantially after the tug came out
of the thermal. The weaklinks on both ends of the rope were broken and the pilot
landed with the rope tied to the wire.
We have noticed that there is considerable movement and differences in altitude
between the tugs and the hang glider pilots on the tow rope. Often the tug has
been way above me or below me with bow in the rope when it is below me. This
seems quite a bit more extreme than I have experienced aerotowing previously.
While I think that it is fine that we want to open up the national parks to hang
gliding and paragliding (that should help out a few paraglider pilots in Jackson
Hole), I truly wonder if this is tuning the fiddle while Rome is burning. We
soon won't have any pilots to fly in these parks, so what will it matter?
When is the USHGA BOD/EC going to turn it's attention to the crisis at hand and
realize that the meager funds that they have need not to be spent on conference
calls, but actually, really supporting instructors.
Subscribing and Unsubscribing to the e-mail version
You are in charge of your e-mail subscription to the Oz Report. If you wish to unsubscribe or subscribe, click: Subscribe.
Credits
Gerry makes the Oz Report portal much smarter. He is a web consultant and a PHP expert. He's the brains behind the Oz Report, so contact him for PHP programming services. David Glover heads up the Oz Report Radio
The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.
