Brasil - Rio de Janeiro, Xmas and Wills Wing T2

After traveling from Foz de Iguazu (one of the worlds greatest waterfalls on the border between Argentina and Brasil) to Curitiba (Traveling with the jungle train) I end up in Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro is the most spectacular city I ever been to. Not because of the arcitectur and the city in it self, but because of the beautifull setting with the step granit peak mountains, the green forest areas, the blue ocean with miles of white beaches. And of course the possibility to fly above this amazing place :-)
Picture 1: flying on the other side of the bay from Copacabana beach (the beach above my helmet)

So after settle in at the hotel I call up Alan Morrison (local pilot) and we agree to go hanggliding on the next day. Alan is the same person who reasently set the new XC- record from the city of Rio (take-off from the Pedra Bonita launch 87 km).

The next day I meet Alan on the beach / landing area of the main flying site in Rio after a interesting taxi ride. (Picture 2) The taxi driver was more interested in telling me about the ¨local girls¨ and their attributes than driving me to the right place. So after telling me all the wonders those girls can do, I have to call up Alan and give the phone to the taxi driver so I am sure that I am going to the right place :-)

On the beach there are normally a lot of people flying and this is the place where they do a lot of tandemflights (http://www.tandemflight.com). This day is not good for flying at this sites so we end up going to the other side of the bay from Rio.

This flying sites is lower (280 mosl) but is more north so its perfect for this day. Alan lend me his new Wills Wing T2 154 and he flies his Gostbuster (rigid wing). So after a minute on the launch to get the feeling of the glider I launch and feel straigt at home! This glider is just pure fun to fly, I never flown a topless with this kind of handling (the Airborne C2 is close but a litle stiffer). This glider is even easyer to fly than a Wills Wing XC. The T2 have a nice stall charistics, easy to land. When I landed, it was turbulent on the landing, but good handling made it easy to control it down. Flying it in thermals was really straight forward. And the glide, was really good. Fineally Wills Wing have a glider wich can compete with Moyes and the others on glide.
For more pictures from Rio click here: http://foto.vg.no/show_album.php?aid=979523