Making life a holiday with interesting vacation and adventure ideas.

Diving takes us into a different world, liberated from the pull of gravity, but those that enjoy the freedom of the sky, harness gravity to soar like birds.

Nearly 100 entrants from 15 countries will be coming together for the first International Art Parachute Festival from March 1 to March 6, 2008 in the beach resort of Nha Trang; the capital of Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam. The event is being jointly organised by Vung Tau Intourco and the International Parachute Association.

Labels: 2008, festival, parachuting, Paragliding, Vietnam

Speed riding is a mix of skiing and paragliding, a bit like kiteboarding on snow. It was popularised by a group of French paragliders and is said to be the fastest way to get down a mountain, at least in one piece.

It still seems like a pretty extreme way to get an adrenaline rush though. World champion Liox Jean-Albert, saw in the new year at a New Zealand Hospital after crashing at Treble Cone a few days earlier. He had been hoping to compete in the New Zealand Airgames.

You can see a video of speed riding on New Zealand's TV3 news page.

Labels: Liox Jean-Albert, New Zealand, Paragliding, skiing

Pilots from around the world are gathering for the 2007 World Hang Gliding Championships, which runs August 7-19 in Big Spring, Texas, USA. Over 150 pilots will be competing, with launches expected to be at noon during each day of the championship.

Check out our listings of Hang Gliding Holidays and also Paragliding Holidays.

Labels: 2007, Hang Gliding, Paragliding, U.S.A., World Championships

The 10th FAI Paragliding World Championships gets underway today at Manilla, Australia, 24th February - 9th March 2007. Manilla 2007 will be the first ever Paragliding World Championships to be held in an English speaking country and pilots from 45 countries will be competing.

Manilla offers a variety of landscapes including a series of wide flat and narrow river valleys, rolling hills and plateau country, low ridges, lakes and a volcanic feature with a peak at over 1400m. It?s only after flying 50-100kms out, depending on direction, that you get pure text book flatlands as far as the eye can see. There are static Google pictures on the event web site.

Conditions can vary from strong but smooth 5-8m/s 3500m+ blue days with 20km/h of wind drift, to easy cruising classic 3-5m/s days with clouds made in heaven, and right back to light scratchy 1m/s inverted tests of patience with winds in different directions at a few levels and a constant issue with bombing out. Miscalculated long glides, blue holes or bad tactics in sink zones often result in disappointing bomb outs but also amazing "low saves". The latter have almost attained legendary status in Manilla, as most that visit will find out. A moon shot climb up to 3000m which started from a little beep at less than 30m over the ground just before landing can be one of the most rewarding thermals a pilot can find ? it?s the stuff of bar talk long into the night (of course the low save height gets lower and luckier with each beer)!

Mind you, these stories will now pale into insignificance, following last week's experiences. German, Ewa Wisnierska, 35, ranked number 1 in last year's world championships in Brazil, was sucked into a storm, which catapulted her upwards at speeds of up to 20 metres per second to a height of almost 10,000m; that's higher than the peak of Mt Everest and about the cruising height of a jumbo jet. Pounded by hail, almost struck by lightning, and covered in ice, she became unconscious but her kite continued flying in the storm system for 40 minutes before she came round and was able to pilot her craft to a safe landing. Her ground crew found her, about 60km from the launch site, still covered in ice.

Regrettably, Zhongpin He, a 42 year old, Chinese paraglider from Beijing who was sucked into the same storm, was not so lucky and he was found dead on Thursday, a day after the incident. A post-mortem has confirmed that he died after being struck by lightning. Zhongpin was well liked and respected in the paragliding community and the Chinese national team have withdrawn from the event out of respect. Ewa has made a full recovery and will be competing.

A daytime webcam has been provided on Mt Borah to view the championships.

Labels: 2007, Australia, Ewa Wisnierska, Manilla, Paragliding, World Championships, Zhongpin He