Of Pleasure Flying and Breaking Records

In Brazil's northeast one record-breaking day’s flying quickly follows the next. Verena is happy to leave ambitious distance flying to the XC Camp participants. As a result of all her travels, the German has taken on board a certain South American easy-going nature. Here, this flight instructor, who usually leads flying trips and XC advanced training courses for the Swiss paragliding tour operator, starts her vacation in Caicó, and the very next day turns out to be perfect - cloud streets and conditions like in the picture books. A whole day in the air is all you need.

Sleeping late is out of the question today; the forecast sounds far too tempting. Get up, brush your teeth, drink a coffee and off you go to the slopes. On the start line it’s this record-breaking pilot’s minimalism which you notice. The simpler the better is her motto. A two liner? Not necessarily. Her small EN-C glider goes with her on all her adventures. The most rudimentary cockpit array in the group and its discreetly-voiced vario encourages smiles. After all these years Verena prefers to be guided in the thermals by her feeling, and her favourite playlist. She gets into her flow faster with the music than her vario’s urgent beeping, so at 6:50 a.m. Verena, attached to her Sigma 11, clips herself to the winch tow rope.

With toothbrush, spare shirt and two muesli bars in her luggage, Verena gently lifts off. The experienced Fly with Andy team gets Verena and the XC group safely into the air with the pay-out winch. This works especially well when the wind at the more distant slope launch sites is already getting too strong. A few pilots now get straight down to the record business, or at least try to better their personal bests. Verena, on the other hand, leaves the stress behind on the ground, and simply gets the flying feel for what the weather gods might have in store today.

This pilot knows the terrain like the back of her hand. She feels quite at home with her glider. Flying a special wing for the cross-country flights in Brazil? That never crossed Verena's mind. Inspired by her return to the Sertao region, she can float along the lowlands without any great expectations. Helped by the strong wind, the kilometers will come all by themselves.

The first twenty minutes of the flight are challenging. For many XC pilots, this is where the greatest potential for frustration lies due to the low altitude achievable and narrow thermals. Verena keeps possible landing options in mind, but the direction of flight is clear, the wind blows from the southeast and carries her towards the northwest. Until the first proper crank up to 700 m, she manages her patience. The cloud base rises steadily. Verena reaches the 70 km distance mark, then three other pilots join her. Together they make their way from blue thermals to the next cloud street. Then comes the one thermal that separates her from the others. Verena enjoys this privileged view all to herself again. With soft music in her ear as the birds pass her by, her concern with time begins to disappear.

Verena's compass is the westbound sun. The afternoon hours pass. The clouds begin to dissipate as soon as she reaches them. At 1,700 m, the only thing that helps is the will to keep going, always thinking two steps ahead. She reaches the 350 km mark, but is now only 100 m above a forested hill. She considers landing - it may be the only option. In 2019, she had to land at exactly this distance, but not today. A bird shows her a narrow, slanting thermal. At the last moment, she feels the core to one side and cranks in. Got it! The going-down spell is broken. Verena now fights her way up to cloud base, the grin on her face now a permanent feature.

Kilometer 398, the sun is still up and the next town is in sight. Landing now is out of the question for this pilot: in the air until sunset is now the goal. She takes every climb available for the rest of the route and, steadied by the music in her ears, reaches 2,200 m altitude in the evening twilight. Verena has now been on the road for over ten hours. The time has literally flown by. Her last thermal is apologetic in character. She decides to let her glider glide and slowly begins to prepare her legs for landing, while the horizon is already blurring with the ground in a bluish grey. She has made it to sunset, and, along the way, both broken her personal best and made the longest flight ever with an EN-C glider: 458 km.

Despite everything, it is the sunset that affects Verena the most. While packing up, her smartphone rings every second. Even when she was in the air, her friends monitor her extraordinary flight. It's lucky that her cell phone was in flight mode, otherwise all the messages would still have disturbed her music.