Blog for ZREA

CEN / TC 136 / WG 6 will have the first meeting in Paris 8th of December this year. CEN = Comité Européen de Normalisation = European Committee for Standardization. TC 136 is the group of all sports and WG 6 (working group 6) is group for Paragliding equipments.

The National Standards Organizations from almost 30 European countries is member of CEN. I have the confidence from Standard Norway and Norwegian Air sports federation (Hang- and Paragliding section) to be the Norwegian representative in WG 6. During this revision of EN 926-2 (flight test) I will try to make sure we will keep the same level of security or to increase it. I have read the suggestion from Germany, and some manoeuvres are clearly changing to less security, and there are no explanations why they want less.

I am so lucky I am running a test laboratory, Air Turquoise SA, together with Alain Zoller and we have good experience to test after EN 926-2. In fact we have certified almost 400 paragliders after this standard since March 2006. So we have a lots of information of how good (or not good) EN 926-2 is. Let’s hope we will be heard in Paris. Alain will representative SNV and SHV in WG 6, so at least we are two with two voices. Randi Eriksen

Some useful links:

Standard Norway
Norwegian Air Sports Federation
CEN
Air Turquoise SA

Ivar Sandstå, Hardanger-Norway called me earlier today and told me he was chosen to participate in Xalps next year. I screamed and cried alternately, it was too good to be true. Red Bull will officially announce the 30 lucky ones on monday. I think the race committee had a hard job to select the 30 athletics probably among hundreds of applications. Now I am totally in ecstacy. Wow, can you imagine, Ivar is in the race next year!!!!

Ivar deserve this and I am trilled that he is going to participate; he has the physics, skills, he is sympathetic person and very well liked among others. Red Bull Xalps is considered as the toughest race across the Alps only by foot and with a paraglider, almost 900 km from Salzburg to Monaco in less than 2 weeks. The athletics must count on little sleep and much work!

Well, Ivar, now is the time to prepare yourself and your supporter to extremely tough race. I look forward to see you on the start-gate in Salzburg, and I will follow “every step” you make along the route on web :-).


I think it is fantastic to finally have a Norwegian pilot in Xalps, and it is a good promotion for paragliding in Norway. Heia Norge !!!!

If I did I wouldn’t have survived…(?)
We have had serious accidents (dead) after pilots forgot to strap themselves in their paraglider harness; after a while pilots falling out of their harness when they can’t hold on anymore. These days we (Air Turquoise) are discussing with a manufacturer of harness what we can do to make “water-proof” system, so that pilots wouldn’t forget leg straps!!!
In this case we simulated a situation of forgetting the leg straps; Alain and the boys would have survived while me and one other girl wouldn’t… we weren’t fit enough to drag ourselves up in the harness.
There are many systems available today to minimize this problem, but they aren’t very practical and obviousely is not enough. I think we still need some time to think about how to… In the meantime check this video clip I found on you tube, what you should do IF you forget the leg straps (BUT PLEASE DON’T):

It is however nice to train to recover-like in the video, and I will for sure do it !!!!

It has been a while since last post, but now I am on the track again. I must say I am very excited about election of participants for next Xalps (2011), lets crossed the fingers...!

Anyway, ZREA got married for 3 weeks ago, and maybe I was the first one in the world got married in a paraglider!? Well, the dress was made of paraglider fabric, and it was awesome. It became very popular specially from paraglider pilots on the place and now I am wondering what to do about it ...making some windsocks? cheers....

I want to share some articles from XC mag for those who are interesting how Xalps athletes are preparing for the Race or about small stories from previous Red Bull Xalps.
Blood, sweat and fear
Blood, sweat and fear interviews