http://www.facebook.com/tom.weissenberger?ref=ts&fref=ts

Thomas Weissenberger <<tomtom>>
writes:

We are very busy at the moment getting ready for some world record
attempts. I am here in Iquique, northern Chile with my mate Geri who is my
supporter, driver, camera man and authorized witness all in one person. A film
team and photographer will catch up with us later.

It's flyable every day with a mixture of dynamic lift, thermals and a local sea
breeze. It never rains here in one of the driest deserts in the world, so the
ridge has a clean, sandy surface going up from 300 meters to 1300 meters After
eleven years flying the Famara ridge on Lanzarote (twenty five kilometer length)
I was looking to a new challenge and found a twenty times longer ridge here in
Chile, an untouched cross country hang gliding spot which is more an experiment
for my maiden flights.

In the last four days I got familiar with flying and the local weather
conditions. I had to change my RS3.5 completely from alpine climbing to a ridge
run set up. Furthermore I carry twice as much ballast in my harness than I
usually would for competition.

Today the glider is ready, our camera equipment is ready too and tomorrow we
will start exploring this huge ridge by car driving 300 km south. On Saturday I
want to fly all the way back getting my first impressions of the first leg.

In the morning we drove south to find a suitable launch place to avoid the
airport's control zone. I mean how often can you go out searching for your
private launch place? With our 4WD we made it through this tiger land and up to
800 meters to find a perfect spot on top of the ridge. I called my launch Masito.

Back to our base we got ready to fly and doing some night shots over the city
again with a tandem paraglider (Many thanks to Chris). It's soarable till 10 pm
and we landed at the beach floated by street lights - awesome!

I got permission to pass by the airport and fly through the CTR. Nice people
here!