F3F Pilots – The Thrilling Slope Flyers

We Swiss are still operating on a somewhat smaller scale, but we can rightly—and with a touch of pride—claim to have left the phase of being an F3F developing nation behind us. The season’s highlights were undoubtedly the 3rd-place finish (Eurotour Cannes) and 4th-place finish (Eurotour Toulouse) by Reto Blumer, the new Swiss record of 30.01 seconds set by Stefan Bertschi (at the Welsh Winter League in February 2013), and the national team’s successful participation in the FAI European Championships in Donovaly (SK).

In addition to these top performances, it’s also great to see the sport growing in popularity. This is evident, among other things, in the fact that 10 pilots are ranked in the Eurotour this year (with Reto Blumer in an outstanding 12th place), over 30 pilots have registered for the Swiss Championship (unfortunately, it hasn’t been possible to hold it yet, as the weather—or rather, the weather forecast—on the planned weekends threw a wrench in our plans), and the “F3F Swiss Pilots” interest group (www.f3f.ch) was founded.

We diligently explored new flying sites for F3F, attended national league events in neighboring European countries, held “training camps” in England, and documented our flying successes—and, in some cases, our failures—on blogs, YouTube, and Facebook. We traveled to Spain, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, England, and Denmark; made friends; brushed up on our language skills; sampled local specialties (both food and drink); and experienced some amazing days as well as some frustrating ones. But above all, we all enjoyed the challenge of mastering a task that sounded relatively simple as well as—and above all—as quickly as humanly possible.

I hope that next year we’ll be just as active on the international stage and, if possible, have even more opportunities domestically to compete against one another, improve our skills, and—despite our competitive spirit—have a great time on the slope in harmony with the elements. It’s up to us to make 2014 an F3F year. ■

Stefan Bertschi

Martin with Energjia.

Greg Needle.

Hanstholm.