6th Serdivan International Paragliding Festival

Marta's video about the festival in 2011

2011-09-06T12:09:00.000+03:00

A video of memories from the festival by Churrero

2011-09-01T21:52:00.001+03:00

FESTIVAL DE PARAPENTE SACARYA (TURQUIA) from JOSE ANTONIO CHURRERO on Vimeo.

Previous years' festivals...

2011-08-15T13:41:00.000+03:00

6th festival 2011

5th festival 2010

4th festival 2009

The winners

2011-08-11T11:16:00.000+03:00

There was a tough accuracy competition during the festival. The pilots competed with each other for three days. The winners got prizes from the sponsors. And the winners are:

Hossein Abbas Gholizadeh (Iran)
Abdullah Yıldız (Turkey)
Mohammad Gharahjanloo (Iran)

The special honored prize on the behalf of our dear pilot friend Hayati Unal went to Jesus Benjamin Del Fuente Ruiz (Spain). Siamak Mokari (Iran) got a prize for his contributions during the festival.

Glen has just wrote about the festival...

2011-08-04T22:42:00.002+03:00

2011 Bogazici Paragliding Air Fest and spot landing competition

I decided to attend the Bogazici Paragliding Festival after finding a dealer in Turkey who gave me a good price on a new glider – the timing worked for me to fly to Turkey and try out my new machine at a safe site with a fun group of pilots. On July 22 I arrived in Istanbul and picked up my new glider at the airport – an Ozone Rush3. I had read as much as I could on the internet about new gliders, and decided I wanted either a Rush3 or a Nova Mentor2. I found a dealer who had a Rush3 available, and the Mentor2 was only available in 3 months, so the decision made itself for me.

DAY 1 - The international pilots met on Taksim Square in the center of Istanbul and from there everything was easy – our Turkish friends did a perfect job of organization for transportation, flying, food and lodging. We took a bus about 2 hours east of Istanbul to the city of Serdivan in Sakarya Province. We registered, received our numbers for the competition, and keys to our rooms. The hotel was great – simple but clean, and lots of places for pilots to hang out, play billiards, watch videos, etc. Then the bus took us all to the launch site about 15 minutes away for the opening ceremony. The level of political support and sponsorship was outstanding – the Mayor of Serdivan and the Governor of Sakarya were both at the ceremony and took tandem rides after their speeches. There were over a hundred spectators who came to launch to watch the opening ceremony and at least that many every day of the festival. Nova Paragliders was one of the sponsors and donated prizes for the spot landing competition – glider, harnesses, helmets, etc. There was a tent for spectators and a stage for music. After the ceremony we stayed until dusk watching a live music concert. Then back to the hotel for dinner. After the first day it was obvious that most of the money to support the festival came from the government and from sponsors. Pilots paid only 120 Euros for 6 days – almost nothing if you consider that it included transportation from Istanbul, food and hotel, and transport from the landing zone to the launch all day every 30 minutes.

DAY 2 – Breakfast at 8:30, depart for launch at 9:30. The festival organizer, Muhammed Sirali, explained the rules for the spot landing competition and opened the window for flying. 48 pilots competed in the competition which was two spot landings per day for 3 days. A group of 15 Iranian pilots had arrived by bus from Tehran and were the first in the air. Fun guys. Everything they did, they did loudly and all together. I took my glider out of the bag for the first time. That’s a great feeling when everything is perfectly clean and smells like a new car. I had wanted to kite my glider before flying it, but in the morning the wind was very light and it was either fly or wait a few hours. I decided to fly but was a little concerned. The Rush3 is EN B class, but has only three risers and the microlines at the top looked like thread for sewing socks, not for paragliding. My apprehension was unfounded, the glider launched easily and felt just like a B class glider in the air. Only the glide was different. Both the Rush3 and the Mentor2 have glide ratios above 9, and on my first spot landing I completely overflew the target and landed about 50 meters past the circle. On my second flight my glide was high again, and I only hit the circle by doing frantic turns and pumping the brakes coming in for landing. Back on launch the wind was getting strong and some of the pilots were declining to launch. I wanted to try the Rush3 in high winds, so set up and launched using the A’s and C’s in 30kmh wind. I flew straight up and only moved forward when I got my feet on the speed bar. I got about 150 meters above launch and basically didn’t move for the next hour, but got the chance to play with the speed bar and do wingovers in the smooth dynamic mixed with thermals. Down below I saw pilots set up, then put their gliders away – it turned out the wind had increased to almost 40 and Muhammed had closed the launch so I was alone in the air. After about an hour I got brave enough to follow some thermals back behind launch, but after leaving the thermals had to use the accelerator just to make it back above launch in the high wind. I caught one good thermal and made about 8 turns gaining almost 200 meters, but it put me more than half a kilometer behind launch and when I tried to glide back I realized I might and might not make it which could put me in the valley behind the launch. Quick decision, turn East and fly crosswind away from the rotor. I descended over a kilometer away into a pasture and landed near a very large (but fortunately very nice) dog who sat and watched me struggle to get my flapping glider organized enough to pack. The Rush3 has carbon leading edge reinforcements and it’s recommended only to concertina pack it which is the one drawback I noticed – not easy in high wind.

Day 3 – I was getting used to the glide ratio and hit both of my landings. Unfortunately I landed fast on one and put my hand on the ground to catch myself. I didn’t fall, but my landing was still disqualified. For me with only 50% after two days, the competition was over. But the flying remained good. Like the day before the wind got strong by mid day and we flew more than 2 hours in the dynamic lift. I got high enough to do some spiral dives and big ears with no problems. We landed for lunch then Muhammed closed the start due to the winds. The Iranians put a Persian music CD into the sound system and started dancing. Six Spanish pilots joined in and they entertained everyone else until the wind subsided enough to launch. Back at the hotel we collected 10 lira per pilot and got a bunch of cold beer. The Iranians especially were enjoying it – they said you can go to jail in Tehran if the police catch you with a single beer.

Day 4 – By then only about 10 pilots were still contending for the competition, so the rest of us just had fun. The Iranians and Spanish were dancing and singing again. I felt confident enough to try asymmetric and symmetric frontal collapses – again, nothing surprising. There were two Rush3’s and three Mentor2’s flying at the festival and we were always up with the EN-C gliders 20 or 30 meters above the others in the dynamic lift. I talked to the Nova pilots, they love their new Mentors and say they are also easy to thermal with. In the evening we went to a banquet dinner at a restaurant. The Mayor of Serdivan came and presented prizes including a new Nova glider to an Iranian pilot for first place, as well as new harnesses and helmets for other prizes. Dinner was excellent, again incredible given that we only paid 120 Euros for everything.

Day 5 – I put my glider in the bus and ran up to launch in the morning. I was going to do this every day but found excuses until the last day when I was determined to do it at least once despite the hot, humid weather. I made it to the top in the 30 degree humidity and then drank about three liters of water and poured another three over my head. It was windy again and we didn’t launch until about 15:00. Once we got up I flew for a couple of hours and only top landed because I was tired of bumping wingtips with 10 or more gliders in the air at once. At about 19:00 a Romanian pilot and I decided to fly down and pack up our gliders, but on the way down I hit a perfect evening thermal and followed it slowly up to almost 500 meters above launch where we could see the whole valley in the setting sun. Perfect ending flight in Serdivan!

Porompompero was our take-off road song during the festival!

2011-08-04T21:09:00.000+03:00

A video from Mihai...

2011-08-03T21:57:00.000+03:00

Sakarya _ 2011 from Mihai Celacu on Vimeo.

A special honored prize

2011-07-18T14:55:00.000+03:00

You may not know that we will have a different festival this year from previous years' festivals. We cannot enjoy the festival atmosphere with our dear friend Hayati Ünal this year. He was the most helpful, the most joyful, the most independent, the most enthusiastic paragliding pilot we have ever seen, met and become friend.

We miss him so much and have decided to give a special honored prize (besides the regular prizes of the target competition of the festival) to a paragliding pilot to make his name living with this paragliding sport at least during our festivals. Please join us to feel this exciting moment!

Hayati Ünal

Are youuuuuuuu ready?

2011-06-21T12:13:00.001+03:00

One month left to the festival. Have you registered from this link ? We will be happy to see you in Serdivan.

Kai Hashagen

What is your unforgettable memory to share with us about paragliging?

2011-05-03T14:45:00.000+03:00

We go different cities and meet with different people while we are on our trips for paragliding. The weather can sometimes surprise us. There are some estimation problems about landing (not much :)). May be a bird hit your canopy. Or we think we did exactly the right thing, although it was not.
We have different stories to tell about naturally because of combination of all these factors. So, what is your story?

Para-waiting, Para-eating, Para-singing or Para-gliding?

2011-04-02T23:03:00.002+03:00

Although we die for paragliding, the conditions does not allow us to do it sometimes. So, we can get enjoy from para-waiting, para-eating, para-singing, para-dancing, para-swimming etc. Well, which one do you like to do other than paragliding?

Yes, the dates of the festival!

2011-03-17T20:31:00.000+02:00

This year the festival is going to be held between July 22nd and 27th, 2011. We are very excited!

For the ONE who left us….

2010-12-06T15:56:00.000+02:00

Although we love our friends, we make them sad sometimes on purpose or reluctantly since they are the ones who can totally bear us. However then, we regret this behavior since we do not want to make our friends sad. I guess Hayati Abi did so a few months ago. Unfortunately, he left us alone while he was doing what he enjoyed most in his life – flying. He was such a good pilot that he was sharing his knowledge and experiences in any moment when he found a chance to share. He was one of the most amusing people I have ever met in my life. He was playing with the words like he was playing with his canopy. You would certainly enjoy talking to him or watching him. You could not stop smiling when you remember him or the moment you shared together. It is really difficult to describe him with the words. Our pain is as much as his family’s since he is one of the members of our family. We miss you so much.

There will be something missing in the next festival for sure…

Memories left behind the festival

2010-08-20T09:08:00.001+03:00

It was tiring but fun...

Some pages from 3rd festival's magazine

2010-08-08T00:02:00.000+03:00

BobCorn's impressions from the festival

2010-08-06T18:03:00.004+03:00

WOW!! What a fantastic, terrific, stupendous, amazing, tremendous (OK, so you get the idea--How many superlatives can you string together, anyway?!) festival. I don't know where to begin. It all started from the Friday afternoon paramotoring exhibition that mesmerised the crowd of about 400 local town folk who had gathered on the top of Kirantepe to see us 'dance in the sky'.
The local government had provided buses and loads of support and it was really just one big party most of the evening. Food vendors, kids' inflatable climbing wall, bull-riding arena, play tent...folk dancing, music, fireworks...it was all there! Mik, the Director for Sales and Marketing at NOVA, said he'd never seen such community support for free flying in his 21 years of attending numerous festivals around the world. Little did I know then, but the flying and the weather turned out to be even better than the opening ceremony. OH YES...and it WAS very, very hot!!!
I have to stop here and say a tremendous 'THANK YOU' to the volunteers that helped Muhammed put this thing together. They were simply amazing and totally professional. In fact, you'd think they were actually professionals at staging such an event...they were so dedicated, helpful, friendly, and efficient. What gems!
NOW ABOUT THE FLYING...We'll ignore my first attempted take-off (which saw me almost change my pilot name to 'Bushmaster') and look beyond the few scratches to the rest of the first day....First flight--15 minutes--nothing big. Second flight as well...a bit longer...but I was just settling in. And I really didn't care about the accuracy competition. I was there to fly and build up airtime...so that's what I focused on.
Sunday I didn't fly--my schedule and other commitments kept me back in Istanbul.
Monday, first flight, top to bottom with an ok landing, BUT......the second flight....1 hour 5 minutes, cloud base twice, had to pull BIG EARS just to get down...could have stayed up for a very long time indeed, but was tired. Third flight--only 20 minutes...but with my new-found friend--an eagle! There was something magical about that.
I only flew twice on the last day, though...once for 20 minutes...AND ONCE FOR 2 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES!!!! In fact, I only landed at that point because I was supposed to meet someone important and had got the time all wrong! Height gains three times to 550m asl, ridge soaring and thermals...and again, I couldn't get down! Well, I could...and I did...but I sure didn't want to!
SO, all 4 flying days were flyable with near perfect conditions. Of the 3 days I could fly, I flew every one with a total of over 6 hours air time and LOTS of fun. Now I can't wait 'til next year!!

....and the mission has been completed successfully.

2010-08-04T19:03:00.000+03:00

We have completed the festival very successfully. It was very tiring and hot. There were pilots from Iran mostly. Mik from Nova Team also joined the festival. We enjoyed it a lot. In this picture you can see one of the team member. She was just resting for a while with her very beatiful smile :) I would continue to share our memories from this year's festival.

The Köfte King

2010-05-05T14:05:00.003+03:00

Takeoffs are optional but landings are mandatory. Pilots in Serdivan experience different landings in Serdivan, as well as different takeoffs. In fact, what I have experienced in Serdivan was somehow different than both, what I call as "landoff", meaning an irregular landing without a regular takeoff:)

It was the second day of the festival and the wind was a bit stronger than one I feel myself comfortable with. I wanted to use my option, planned to take off anyway and take advantage of that wind by soaring. Right after take off, which made the wind get me backwards thanks to me, not so strongly resisting myself to the wind and enjoying my flight seated on my harness waiting for a cup of coffee:) Just a few seconds later I was over a stand, watching closely the hot couldron with the corns inside. I missed that one fortunately. If I hit it, I think I might have deserved a nick as top-corn:) An in a second or less, I was covering the top of not the corn but the meatball stand, which left me a nick “köfte-king”, rather.

Just a few seconds before…

..and the Oscar goes to Mr. Bush, Mr. BobCorn, and Miss Nuts!

2010-04-30T17:57:00.004+03:00

Sometimes small accidents are part of paragliding sport unfortunately. If you are rookie pilots and not careful enough, it is more likely to happen.

In the last festival, three rookie pilots -I do not want to give their names ;)- got funny rewards for performances as crashing into bushes, corn field, and a nuts tree. Hence, they got the names as Mr. Bush, Mr. BobCorn, and Miss Nuts then. Thank God that they had only small injuries. Yeah, it would have been better for them to get the rewards for getting high scores in target competition.

In this photo, you can see three of them sitting in front of the successful pilots. By this way, they will never forget about their mistakes. On the ground, there is a plate full of nuts which were collected with a canopy, just kidding ;)

Can you find Miss Nuts in the photo above? It is a tough one, isn't it?

Notes from BobCorn :)

2010-04-21T22:03:00.002+03:00

Hi! BobCorn here (Yeah...I know. It's the club's 'pilot name' for me and I got it last year at the festival. Better that than something to do with belly dancing, I s'pose...but I digress).

Just wanted to add another couple of links for all you out there who want to know/see more and do a bit of research into NW Turkey and the Festival location.

You can see some more pictures AND get a bit more info at:
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=200028#200028

You can see the location and the technical descriptions (as well as fly it on a PG simulator and GoogleEarth) at:
http://www.paraglidingearth.com/en-html/index.php?site=9986

I'll be posting some more 'blog-ish' stuff along with the author/host a little later

Joy time with Turkish folk dances!

2010-04-20T23:05:00.002+03:00

We, Turkish people like to dance with our local figures and musics like halay and ciftetelli . When we see somebody from abroad, we want them to join us. Look at the pictures! They have great talent, don't they?

The youngest of the festival

2010-04-20T22:47:00.002+03:00

He may have white hairs but he has got the youngest soul within other paragliders in the festival.

His name is Oktay Gencer. He is a 75-year-old retired professor. He actively does paragliding, skiing and takes photographs. Most of the time he is also the most popular paraglider. The press likes his story. He has started paragliding 4 years ago. He has the one who owns most of the superlative titles like youngest soul, most popular, bravest... :)

Explorers of the hill!

2010-04-20T19:44:00.002+03:00

Getting ready for the festival is not a very short period. The arrangements start months ago. You can see the explorers of the hill in this photo. There is a strong cooperation with the municipality of Serdivan and Bogazici Paragliding team since the beginning. Plan Bs, security precautions, making hill ready for the festival, posters, T-shirt designs, festival booklets, announcement of the festivals etc. are all parts of our preparation process. Believe it or not, it is tiring but fun. Moreover, the joy at the end worths for it! If you have a chance to participate in the festival, you will experience it.

These are our T-shirts from our 3rd festival in summer 2008.

5th Serdivan International Paragliding Festival

2010-04-19T23:43:00.000+03:00

5th Serdivan International Paragliding Festival

Location: Kirantepe - Serdivan - Sakarya - Turkey
Dates: July 30th, 2010 - August 4th 2010
Information about the hill -
Altitude: 240 meters
Wind: N-NE-NW
Flight: Suitable for soaring and thermals
Links: http://www.xcmag.com/2010/03/turkey-paragliding-festival/

A fresh start..an amazing experience

2010-04-19T23:35:00.000+03:00

Your feet are not on the ground. Imagine yourself like a bird that has recently taken off. You can find this feeling only in paragliding.

This is a passion. If you start once, you cannot stop yourself dreaming that you fly...

Serdivan Paragliding Festival is one of the international platform which gives you to experience this amazing sport in Serdivan - Sakarya - Turkey.

In this blog, we will share information about 5th Serdivan International Paragliding Festival and our memories from previous festival. We would like to see you with us this year :)

In this photo, you can see the contributors to the previous festival.