Red Bull Airrace Bird Collision

The fact that a collision between an airplane and one or more birds may have fatal consequences, we know at least since the emergency landing ofa Boeing on the Hudson River in New York. Less dramatic was a similar accident for the Air Race champion Hannes Arch from Austria. 

At the second station of the year's World Championships in San Diego crash Arch crashed with his Edge 540 in a pelican. Arch could continue his run. "It was an incredible noise," remembers the Pilot. No wonder,he hit the 20 kg heavy bird with around 370 km / h. 

I had no chance of the plane on the correct line to hold and had to check if everything is fully functioning."  The force of the collision ended up in a huge hole in the horizontal tail of the machine. "With the bird collision course, the race was lost. In the end, I am glad that nothing happened to me and I still finish the race admitted Arch. On 14 June, the race will continue in Windsor Ontario.

Source:www.kleinezeitung.at

Praying mantis: A day in the life of an insect

In February I decided to get a new pet. This was not an easy decision, because I am very busy and hard working. Because of my interest in Insects I decided to get Praying Mantis.

I started to pull out as much information as possible from different resources (Internet, Books, Blogs, etc). I quickly came in contact with a guy in Vienna who keeps two different species himself. Right now I have six of them and I am very enthusiastic about my new babies!!

1. Phyllocrania paradoxa: 

This species is a Ghost Mantis, remarkable for its leaf-like body. Compared to many other Mantis, the Ghost Mantis is a "miniature species" growing to only 45 to 50mm long. They molt approximately every 3-5 weeks until the 4th molt. The Ghost Mantis really does live up to its name. The eerie, ghost like figure, and the slow, creepy movements.

2. Popa Spurca

Also known as the African Twig Mantis, is a species of praying mantis native to Africa. It takes 

its common name from its resemblance to twig from a woody plant and grows up to 8 cm long if female or 7 cm long if male. This is a highly aggresive species and therefore need to be fed well to prevent cannibalization.

I decided to get the Popa Spurca, because this kind of mantis is easy to keep and therefore suitable for beginners. This guideline helped me to grow my mantis very quick:

Step 1: Place the praying mantis in an appropriate terrarium. Be sure to provide plants and sticks for the mantis to climb on.

Step 2: Keep a dish filled with a little water in the habitat. The praying mantis may or may not drink from it, but it will provide water when needed.

Step 3: Feed the mantis with live insects. A baby mantis will feed on fruit flies, you can purchase in a pet shop. Adults can live on crickets, but you should provide some variety to the diet of your pet in order to keep it healthy.

Step 4: Feed a baby mantis with fresh food daily. Adults should eat twice a week. Remove any food that is not eaten after insect is done with its meal.

Step 5: Watch the praying mantis to see when it sheds its exoskeleton. Remove the exoskeleton when the shedding is over.

Step 6: Mist the habitat with water on a weekly basis. This provides humidity for the insect.

Step 7: Clean the habitat weekly. To do this, place the praying mantis in a safe container and wash out the habitat using a solution that is 3 percent bleach, 97 percent water. Rinse the tank thoroughly to remove any bleach.

For me praying mantis are great and highly interesting pets and I am taking care about them very well. The most interesting species for me is Idolomantis diabolica. This species can grow up to 13 cm, but is maybe not that easy to keep. Maybe it is better, to start with a species that suitable for beginners because even if it is "just" an insect, it can also feel pain and stress. 

I will keep you up to date with my Popa Spurca and pictures will follow soon! Let me know if I can help you with information! Love&Peace Stefan

Bodyflight Bedford World Challenge 2009

"This is the best competition I have ever taken part in" - Steve Hamilton, XL team member and 3 time British FS champion.

For three years Bodyflight Bedford, the World's largest indoor skydiving wind tunnel has hosted the Bodyflight World challenge. Now entering its 4th year, the 2009 competition will be bigger and better. Dubbed as, "The most significant international competition for skydivers ever held in the UK" by skydive mag, the Bodyflight Bedford World Challenge is coming back.

Ground Launch weekend with the Adidas Team in Pitztal, Tirol

Ground Launching History:

The history of Ground Launching goes way back to the 1960s. In 1965 American skydiver and aeronautical engineer David Barish started ground launching while testing a single surface parachute for NASA.

Groundlaunching and Bladerunning:

Skydivers have created a new form of parachuting different from skydiving or traditional paragliding. The new form of extreme ground launching is called „Bladerunning“.

The Goal of this sport is to launch high performance Parachutes into flight in order to fly down slopes and cliffs with an average Speed of 40- 50 miles per hour with a distance of 2 metres above the ground.This kind of sport is a great challenge for the canopy pilots and therefore a highly interesting discipline.

We started our trip after Flobert and me finished work on Thursday late afternoon in Vienna. It was a 7 hour drive and we were quite happy when we arrived. The mountain area was very impressive and we enjoyed the view of the surrounding area.

The Adidas Groundlaunching Team gave us a warm welcome and invited us for some glasses of beer. We talked about the their experiences they collected during the last two years and we watched some of their videos. The weather was just amazing and we had blue sky.

On Friday morning we pulled together our equipment and the guys showed us the start- and landing area. The landing area was blocked by an avalanche and a bit challenging. A friend of Wolf came with caterpillar and prepared the spot for us. 

Flobert and Miguel launched their parachutes after a short briefing immediatly off the ground. I had some problems and crashed at least 5 times before I gave up on the first day. I was very exhausted and went to bed at 9 o´clock in the evening. Miguel once did not hit the landing area and came down on the slope. It was funny to see the faces of the people who witnessed his crash. 

My parachute was a bit tricky to start and Flobert offered me to swap our parachutes the next morning. I accepted his offer and started the next day with new energy and motivation. Wolf and Berni gave me some extra lessons and I had my first successful start. 

I will never forget the feeling when the parachute lifted off the ground the first time. The speed was just amazing and I couldn´t stop laughing after  I landed in the valley. At this day we made around 5 amazing flights and we had a great time! ;-)

The Groundlaunching Weekend in Tirol was a huge success. Many thanks to Wolf, Berni and Urmi who organised the whole trip for us and shared their experiences with us.

I really enjoyed this trip a lot and I can´t wait to go ground launching with my friends again.

www.canopygroundlaunch.com

How I started Skydiving

When I started skydiving in May 2002 I had no idea what to expect about jumping out of a fully functional plane. At this time I was completly new in this sport, I did not even have a Tandem jump. I was so enthusiastic about it, that I decided to sign up for the course without any prior experience.

I started to collect as much information about it as possible and I found out about a club (Union Linz) which was one driving hour away from my hometown. I called them up and asked them about their course prices.

They told me, that the course costs around 2000 Euro for my 8 AFF jumps (including one Tandem and Level 1-7) and around 23 Euro for my Solo Jumps as a lisence holder. My mom always supported my crazy plans, so she sponsored 50% of my lisence without letting my father know about it. I had to raise the other 50% myself and for this reason I had to do some part time work. Niko, who went with me in the Kindergarden had his lisence already and showed me everything he knew about this sport.

To make it short: I made the course, learned for the exam and got my lisence ;-) At this time I experienced the craziest 2 years of my life. I was very chaotic and I wanted to try everything out which is dangerous combination.

The luck was on my side and I became the chance to work for the Ballon company ballon1.at and heli-salzkammergut.at. It was a fantastic thing, but I had to get up early every weekend ;-)
The Ballon company offered me a free jump at every ballon trip, I just had to jump off after the start (sometimes a bit low) to be able to land back to the car to be able to pick them up. Sometimes I did not make it back to the car, so I had to hitchhike ☺
The helicopter company always needed support on their transport flights in the Austrian Alps, sometimes we also had some crazy parties with their VIP Flight passengers, I had the time of my life!

My friend Niko then started to Skydive in Klatovy, Czech Republic. On this camp we had so much fun, that it would take me a long time to tell you everything what happened.

I am very happy that I made the decision to do my skydiving lisence, otherwise I wouldn´t be able to tell my kids about the time of my life in future!

Freefly Randoms

I can´t wait to go to groundlaunch this weekend and to blog my photos and videos on my blog. In the meantime I would like to show you a nice freefly video:

Love&Peace Stefan

Carla and Nick visiting Vienna ;-)

First of all I would like to introduce you to friends Carla (Canada) and Nick (England). We studied at the same University and it was very nice to see them again. My girlfriend Marlies and I gave them a warm welcome when they arrived on Wednesday. The great thing was, that we had an amazing spring start and we enjoyed ourselves in the sun.

On Thursday we showed them the Wiener Prater and I introduced them to a dangerous roller coaster. This roller coaster looks very dangerous and I have always a lot of fun scaring them with untrue stories about fatal accidents. After I realized, that the only person who was actually scared was me, we decided to go to the Schweizerhaus and we had some original "Budweiser" Beer before we went home and fell asleep.

On Friday we visited "Schloss Schönbrunn" and we had a lovely pick nick there. From this time I called Nick "Pick Nick" because he prepared some Sandwiches and also brought some chilled beverages, no beer :-)

5 minutes after Marlies took this video I became sick and I there fore wanted to go home. 

In the evening we went out and showed them the Viennese night life. We met Andi, who also used to study together with us in England. 

We had a great time and we asked Carla and Nick to come back to Vienna, when my party cellar is refurbished. 

This is a different story so please be patient. It is a pleasure for me to tell you more about it, I know you guys are very kurious ;-)

PS: This was our song we heared about a million times :-)

Next Story: ;-)  Canopy Ground Launch weekend in Innsbruck (This story will be posted at the beginning of next week). Stay Tuned, Love&Peace Stefan