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XC Days

Videos and articles

Knowledge

Here I collect what I explain about cross-country flying: videos and articles about reading the air, looking ahead and making decisions in the air. Things you can use on your next flying day.

New ones are added regularly. If you are on the newsletter, you get them a week earlier. The field for that is below.

To read

  • Is that lee or not?

    A crossing over the Lauterbrunnental. How I tell whether there is wind below cloud base, what the cloud can tell you about it and what it keeps quiet about. And why the way back carries the decision.

To watch

  • Spotting thermals with wind drift

    2:42 minutes · in German

    Where the thermal really releases when the wind comes from the side. I show the collector area, that is the slope that heats up. Above it the trigger point. If the cloud sits offset from the edge, the thermal between them stands at a slant. In the video I draw in where you aim then.

To listen to

  • Ulligunde (P)lauscht, episode 131 (in German)

    Ulli Gunde invited me onto her podcast. It is about the wind, about Valais and about flying towards four-thousanders. Among other things the crossing over the Lauterbrunnental comes up, which the article above is also about.

    Listen on ulligunde.com

That is also how I go through it at the XC Days and in the camps: in the morning the situation, in the air the decision, in the evening the track.

Newsletter

Every few weeks an email: what is coming up at the XC Days, the camps and the talks and now and then a small knowledge video or a short explanation to read. The short-notice announcement for a flying day still goes through the WhatsApp community “Spontane XC Days”. There it says 48 hours ahead where we are heading.

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Spontaneous XC Days

The community

The first announcements go out from February 2027: five days ahead the heads-up, three days ahead the plan, 48 hours ahead the binding announcement. Only I can post and the others can’t see your number.

So I can match you up in the community.

Where do you stand?

How a flying day works and what it costs is on /en/xc-days/. From 3 people a day goes ahead; with the confirmation the terms and conditions apply. What happens to your details is in the privacy policy.