What an excellent week! With 5 valid tasks in 6 days of competition, the First Annual Ozone Chabre Open XC Comp was a wild success. More than 80 pilots from 8 countries attended, and tasks ranging in distance from 22 to 48km were flown from 3 different sites in the Laragne area.
First of all, a huge thank you to everyone involved in the organization, which was incredibly smooth. David and Rachael from www.allez-up.com put a tremendous amount of effort into planning the event, and their efforts showed!
The idea behind the Ozone Chabre Open was to have a friendly and fun XC competition, with the emphasis on fun. Education was also a major theme, and highly informative seminars were given by professional pilots like Jocky Sanderson and Russell Ogden. Bob Drury talked about flying in the Himalaya, and Judy Leden gave a fascinating presentation on flying with Condors in South America… and then she won 1st place overall flying an Ozone Mojo. The 2nd and 3rd places went to Ozone pilots Matt Gerdes and Russell Ogden, see www.flylaragne.com for the full daily task report and results.
There was live music and parties on 4 nights of the week, the Renegades came from Austria to demonstrate the stack and hangover maneuvers, and the Ozone Test Team demonstrated DHV test maneuvers for the crowd. Also, Antoine Boissellier D-bagged his 6905 acro glider from a helicopter alongside the Ozone BASE jumping team- Jerome, Matt T, and Matt G. Antoine`s acro maneuvers are getting crazier every day; look out for him and Herminio Cordido at this summer`s acro events.
The final night was a whirlwind of prize giving and partying- congratulations to Roy Clarke who won an Ozone Glider in the lottery, and to the 18 other pilots who took home 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place prizes for their category.
Although it was the first Ozone Open XC Comp, it will not be the last. The relaxed atmosphere of friendly competition, education, and entertainment was something that all attending pilots will not soon forget, and we look forward to sponsoring more events like this one in the future!
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