The 96-meter elevation in Böhming marks 50 years of the club's history. The Ingolstadt Hang Gliding Club celebrated this milestone in style.
First, let’s talk about the flying area, since it’s certainly something special for pilots coming from the high mountains. It’s an east-facing forest clearing in the beautiful Altmühltal valley, with an elevation difference of less than 100 meters to the landing site. Flight time by paraglider without thermals: two minutes. This includes landing on the narrow emergency landing site just below the slope by the river, since you can barely reach the regular landing site next to the church by gliding alone. Nevertheless, pilots fly remarkable distances from here - for example, all the way to Switzerland, as UP team pilot Peter Hilger has done. The distance record from this launch site is 290 km.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the local flying club DFCI, they transformed the field next to the landing strip into a festival grounds. A large tent with a stage for presentations and a band, a food truck, a cake buffet, an exhibition of historic hang gliding equipment, a bounce house, a Testival with booths from manufacturers, a shuttle bus, tandem flights, a flying competition, additional winch launches, a paragliding introductory course, and a raffle. The restriction limiting the number of guest pilots allowed to launch here to a maximum of 10 per day had been lifted. The wind direction cooperated until around 2:00 p.m., when it shifted to north and launches took place in nearby Oberemmendorf. By evening, half the village had gathered; the atmosphere was lively, and the hard core of participants continued celebrating until 2:00 a.m.
UP was on site at the Testival, bringing along its latest models. As expected, several pilots wanted to test our new two-liner, the TORRE (EN/LTF C). The feedback was very positive. It’s great to see that both the TORRE and our 2.5-liner, the TRANGO X, are popular among the cross-country pilots here at the club. Some took the opportunity at the Testival to compare them directly, and both gliders continue to have their own fan base. We’d like to take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt thanks to the many DFCI volunteers who made this event possible! It looks like incredible XC flights from this little hill will continue for a long time to come.
Did you miss this Testival? Then feel free to check out our other events.