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As recent additions to the Hot Chillys team, we wanted to give you a quick news update on our latest adventure at the 35th annual Coupe Icare Festival in the French Alps (St. Hilaire du Touvet-Lumbin).
The Coupe Icare is the largest free flight expo and film festival in the sport, drawing over 75,000 spectators. For the fourth year in a row, we headed out to the event to perform our synchronized acrobatic sequences and to test new prototype gliders. The conditions at take off were incredible, allowing us to perform our show directly in front of the spectators, much to their delight. (Usually they have to crane their necks and blink out the sun for an eternity while waiting for pilots) The highlight of the acro show was when we pulled into a Rodeo a SAT figure, at the public’s eye level. Normally, pilots descend quickly in SAT maneuvers, but the conditions were such that we began rising while remaining in the SAT maneuver. AWESOME!
On Saturday night, my brother and a few friends decided to hike to the top the Dent de Crolle, (a 6,758 foot mountain), in order to have the first morning flight off its sheer cliff face. After hours of strenuous hiking by moonlight, we finally crested the summit of that evil towering tooth and set up camp in freezing and windy conditions. Our thoughts of being the first off the mountain were dampened when we awoke to the chatter of nearly 100 fellow pilots preparing for take-off, waiting for a cloud to dissolve. We broke camp with a vengeance, dropped our wings and took advantage of a the only cloud break, running off the cliff with camping equipment hanging off our harnesses, dragging along the grass for a hilarious and incredible flight down to the festival.
As usual, Hot Chillys kept us warm throughout our crazy adventures.
Visit (http://www.coupe-icare.org/) for more information on the festival.
Lecco
Acro Show: The 24th of July found us preparing for a D-Bag (deployment bag) jump from a helicopter high over Lago-di-Como, near the city of
Lecco
,
Italy
. Just before a huge thunderstorm rolled in, the helicopter took us to 3,000 feet so we could perform our synchronized acrobatic show for the 30,000+ spectators lining the shore.
The weather looked iffy, our show was pushed back to the end, and it was Tim’s first jump from a helicopter. We were both nervous but as soon as we took to the air our instincts took over and it was an easy autopilot flight down to the raft. Tim had a quick scare, when he freefell for about 4 seconds after jumping into the helicopter’s blade wash.
International Aerial Film Festival:
At the 9º International Aerial Film Festivalin
El Yelmo
,
Spain
, (3-6 July) we received the Public Choice award for our latest film, “lift”. A trailer can be seen at www.liftHD.com.
Flypa Festival:
Located in the
Canary Islands
, the Flypa Festival(28-6 May) hosts the most decadent paragliding festival in the sport. So, of course, we headed out to the warm
Atlantic
to begin the season with a nice tan. For the third consecutive year Flypa invited us to perform our show and shoot footage for their next film festival. “The famous twin acrobats… managed to be recognized for their good performances, which dominates the syncro, and not just physical resemblance” (Flypa website). (http://www.ojovolador.com/es/lee/reportajes/flypa_2008/index.htm)
Our preliminary Flypa Festival trailer can be viewed at: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8cGXGVZn5k). | 
