Mads Syndergaard reporting back from the XC Turkey paragliding cup
In the old days, in this context that’ll be more than maybe five years ago, adventure normally came knocking through the phone. These days are over. Nowadays it seems to happen either via email or, more commonly, through Skype.
So my Skype icon flashes orange, indicating that there is a message from Bob Drury: “Hey Mads I’ve got this invitation from XCTurkey, to go and fly their event in late September, and write about it in Cross Country Magazine, only I can’t go and I was wondering if you would like to go instead?”
Tricky question – do I want to sit at home pondering my misery for not really having flown much this season due to family restraints, or do I go to central Turkey for a fortnight, to fly a number of different sites and see the central Anatolian highlands a bit from above?
“Hey Bob, tell them I’m in – just ask them to make the airline reservations as tight as they possibly can since I really haven’t got time for this anyway.”
So, I’m going to Turkey. Haven’t been there since 1997 (World Air Games in Denizli/Pamukkale) and I’m looking forward to it like a child looks forward to Christmas. It seems to be an unusual event in that it isn’t a traditional competition (for one thing there aren’t any Race to Goal tasks in it, as far as I can make out) plus we’ll take time off from the flying to go and have cultural experiences along the way.
I used to be a tourist guide in that area more than 20 years ago, and I LIKED it, so this little piece of bonus info sounds intriguing to me. I don’t actually know if Murat (the organiser) is going to be able to pull this off, after all there is something to be said for keeping grain and chaff separate, but with an offer like this I’m not going to argue – and I may just come back with the newfound realisation that you CAN actually mix culture and pilots!
I’m already spending a disproportionate amount of time discussing with my colleagues at UP International about which wing to take: will it be the latest two-liner comp proto? Will it be my trusted XD64 proto which proved so well-suited for the desert conditions in Salt Lake City last September, or should I just take a Trango XC?
There are as many opinions at UP as there are options here – I’m more for the new two-liner, but there aren’t so many of those around (errr – there is only one, actually) and maybe someone else needs that wing for the Superfinal in Turkey, running at the same time. So chances are it’ll be a Trango XC – I’ll keep you all posted here, just as I’ll be blogging from Turkey once I get there.
There are still places in the competition if any pilots out there would like to join in the fun.
Stay tuned,
Mads
More about the competition, which has €5,000 prize money up for grabs, here.
