das Glück war mal wieder auf unserer Seite. Zwar war es sehr mühsam es zu finden, aber letztendlich hat immer alles funktioniert. Paul konnte immer starten und auch die gesetzten Ziele erreichen. Zwar war das Wetter ziemlich wechselhaft, aber Paul konnte immer gut dagegen halten. Spektakuläre Landungen in einer sehr schönen und wilden Landschaft und tolle hohe Flüge verkürzten unsere Strecke nach Monaco sehr. Auch Coconea wurde kurzzeitig eingeholt, aber diese Rennmaschine rennt um sein Leben...

Nach den tollen Flügen gestern Vormittag, waren wir am Nachmittag bei Regen in Frankreich etwas verloren, wir kennen dieses Gebiet hier nicht und sind davon ausgegangen, dass man hier eh immer fliegt. Somit hat Coconea gestern die viel bessere Route erwischt und konnte wieder gut Vorsprung rausholen. Paul ist heute morgen auf einen Berg gegangen, die komplett im Nebel hing.. Um davon wegzukommen, flog er ein Stück das Tal hinunter, landete ein und ging querfeldein Links den nächsten Rücken...

>

>

>

>

8 Tage laufen die xalps schon. Vor allem die letzten tage nach den drei

zinnen, waren sehr spannend mit vielen abenteuern. Vor allem die starts und

auch die bedingungen waren schon anders. Gestern zum beispiel gelang paul

ein super flug nach 40 km gehen. Am start hat es noch geregnet, aber es war

die wohl letzte moglichkeit noch einen flug zu machen. Auch heute gestaltete

sich die startplatz suche erwas schwierig, doch letztendlich reichte eine

kleine almwiese zum start. Zum glück!

Nach einem spannenden Tag gestern, ist es heute wichtig, die Route so auszuwählen, dass man noch zum fliegen kommt. Gestern hat es Paul an sich gut erwischt, ist immer die direkteste Linie geflogen. Nach einem Komplett Zerstörer bei 30 km/h Wind hat er kurz den Anschluss verloren. Zum Glück weiß er als Testpilot was zu tun ist.... Auf jeden Fall landete er dann am Trattberg ein, der Südwind war zu stark. Doch diese kurze Verzögerung half Paul letztendlich. Als er wieder startet, trug das...

Sara and I joined the group of Red Bull X-Alps athletes who are checking out the route.

Right now we are in Italy- but I think we crossed the boarder to Switzerland about 5 times already...I guess we didn't find the most direct way to Monaco yet...

After recovering from being sick, I feel stronger now than before.

I started to have closer looks on some parts of the route and I discovered some incredibly beautiful places- one more reason to love the X-Alps...we will get to see a lot of places other people will probably never discover.

I hope we can share some of these impressions during the race!

Two years ago I started to take part at Biotech's race series 'Bordairline'- and after winning the series in 2009, for me it was the first step to the Red Bull X-Alps.

Usually a 33 hours race, this 12 hours version of the event will be even more exciting and tactical.

You have 12 hours to get as far away from the start as possible, either walking or flying- and back. Only if you make it back, you get bonus points...

The biotech X-Alps race team with Chrigel Maurer, Heli Eichholzer and I...

Thanks to Patrick Gollnhuber, who collected and processed a lot of video material during our journey to Bir Billing this year, I am able to present you some impressions of flying in India.

Great people, interesting culture, great landscape and good flying conditions make it always worth visiting this place.

I have a lot of work right now working at skywalk, so I try to use every minute of free time I have, for some small races to goal...recently I tried to fly home from Andelsbuch after 4 days of testing gliders there.

I had a great flight, but I didn't reach my goal- but never mind, I still have 3 months left for practicing more (more flying and less walking) to reach the big goal in summer ;)

www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:paulg/19.4.2011/10:06

The daily hike to the take off with all my equipment for XC flying and the different weather conditions allowed me to improve my mountain walking and flying skills a lot during the last 2 weeks.

Besides that I could try my new arc'teryx equipment in all the weather conditions you can imagine- cold and hot temperatures, rain, snow, wind...you will probably not believe it, but every detail of these clothes is just perfect and I love it :)

After some busy weeks at home working and, besides that, preparing parts of my X-Alps equipment, I left for Bir Billing, India to fly a lot, relax and prepare as much as possible for the big event in summer.

So far we didn't have the chance to fly really far because of some over development, but I already got a good first impression of spring thermals in the Himalayas during a 2 hour, 60km triangle..

I will regularly post updates on my facebook page...

My last week was quite busy. We spent a lot of time testing gliders in Stubai Valley, close to Innsbruck.

I think that flying will be the most essential part on my way to Monaco, so I'm happy about every minute I can spend in the air- even if it's not only cross-country flying.

Sometimes the conditions became quite demanding already, with valley winds, high cloud base and strong thermals...just great training conditions!

Everything started quite exciting. You remember that in the first place, Team AUT4 didn't even exist. But somehow...it does now :)

And we are happy to be in the race!

Since then we already did a lot of work preparing for the big event. We were looking for sponsors (and found some), I started to build a wing especially for my needs and we started training a little more than we did before:)

Altogether, I think we are on the right track, although there is still tons of work to do!

Check...