The Future is Here reads the coverline on a very retro-looking Cross Country magazine, the first of the new year.
It’s an allusion to what we are up to ourselves – increasing the size and scope of the magazine, making it ten issues a year – but it’s mainly about our sports: the future that we imagined not so very long ago is with us, right now. Easy, simple, and relatively cheap flying machines are all ours – and what we do with them is up to us.
This issue we’ve gone up from 100 to 132 pages, and that means more of what we all love, whether it’s paragliding, paramotoring, hang gliding or all three, with contributions from around the world.
We kick off with our usual world class Gallery of free flight photography across eight pages.
Then we dive into Base, our front-of-house section about people, gear and events.
We rifle through all the pages of new product news.
Before tracking down the figures and history behind the ‘longest’ in the ‘longest ever’ story behind Will Gadd’s and Gavin McClurg’s Rocky Mountain vol-biv odyssey. (Vote for them to be National Geographic Adventurers of the Year here.)
After that we chat to Bear Grylls about his love of paramotoring – and his new Bear Grylls paramotoring package.
Hear from Herve Burdet about his spectacular flight over the 7,000m summit of Machapuchare in Nepal.
And learn about the new hot place in Brazil for big distance XC – Tacima. “It’s windier, wilder and even better than Quixada!”
Plus we have a host of columnists on board, starting with former paragliding world champion Bruce Goldsmith’s Icaristics.
Honza Rejmanek’s regular weather column.
Our occasional look at the world’s weather as seen by our satellite eye.
A guide to preparing for a year’s alpine flying by regular mountain flying columnist Jon Chambers.
Advice on starting your motor on the ground, by paramotoring columnist Dean Eldridge.
More advice on paramotoring from US instructor and 747 pilot Jeff Goin.
And finally wave flying with Gordon Rigg in our new regular hang gliding column.
From there we dive into our main articles, kicking off with an insightful look at aspect ratio and paragliders. EN B and C paragliding wings are getting longer and thinner – editor Ed Ewing talks to designers at GIN, Nova and Advance to find out what that means for the pilot on the hill.
From the long and skinny to the steep and deep – it’s just a short tug on the brakes from horizontal to upside down in the new speedriding film The Unrideables. We go behind the scenes and talk to the star of the movie and the mountain, John Devore.
Sticking with Alaska we move from the high impact world of heli-speedriding to the low-key but oh-so-committing world of multi-day vol bivouac through some of the toughest and remotest mountains in the world. Understated and elegant, Will Brown describes flying here.
Turn the page and flick a switch – we’re in Costa Rica, following Jeff Hamman along 1,000km of subtropical coastline as he flies the Pacific side of this Central American gem under powered paraglider.
Step back in time and follow Richard Sheppard through four decades of hang gliding. From first steps to thermalling last summer, Richard has never lost the thrill or let the magic go. He opens his heart and photo albums in this priceless journey.
We love hearing classic XC tales and Mike Moore’s story of flying his first 100km in Thailand fits the bill perfectly. A relatively new pilot he simply kept turning and gliding all afternoon. Easy when you know how.
Paramotoring photographer Franck Simonnet introduces the first in a new series of our photography masterclasses. “I never just point and shoot and hope,” he says. “Always have an image in mind!”
Plus we review the Niviuk Artik 4, a sports class wing aimed at XC pilots.
We head to Spain to review the Billy, a full reflex paramotor wing from ITV.
And we try out a couple of the latest reversible paragliding harnesses, the Advance Progress 2 and the Swing Connect Reverse Evo.
And finally we end with a new regular slot for the back page – Sky Junkies, a tongue-in-cheek look at some of our favourite types of pilot in the sport. Illustrated by Steve Ham.
This issue comes bundled with a free 100 page international travel guide. At a total of 232 pages it’s definitely one not to miss.
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