by Julie Spiegler
From the first time I heard of the Coupe Icare, I
wanted to go see it for myself. What a great combination:
amazing flights in fantastic costumes and a film festival
devoted to free flight. The film festival offerings were
somewhat uneven, but we're spoiled having Paul Peck making
such great paragliding videos locally. The costume contest
and acrobatics were everything we had imagined, and more!
Watching pilots launch on stilts, in wheeled carts, and
running backwards wearing swim fins was just as entertaining
as you might imagine. Some amazing (and seemingly
impossible) physical feats were demonstrated. And the
costumes were beautiful, floating and shimmering in the blue sky.
One of the surprising treats was seeing not only costumed pilots,
but scores of recreational pilots as well. In every direction
the sky was dotted with the brightly colored fabrics we readily
recognize.
But wait. That shape is not familiar. Then the realization:
it's a paraglider in full stall!
And the acrobatics display had begun. The demonstrations
were even more spectacular (or certainly more surprising)
since they were intermixed with the costume contest. While
waiting for someone to get untangled from a bush, or set
up to launch, suddenly canopies would loop directly in
front of us (or start high overhead and spiral down to
below launch, hidden from view).
One pilot's speciality was full stalls with spins and loops
on recovery. Someone else did a horseshoe into a loop.
Two pilots would do perfectly synchronized spiral dives
and loops. After several warm-ups, their wing-tips would be
in full contact as they spiraled toward the ground.
The current French acrobatics champion was most amazing.
He is the one who was so completely, utterly in control
at every moment. His feet were straight out in front
(no apparent weight-shift on any turns) and the wing never
deformed even the slightest bit. It almost didn't look
real - he could do anything and it was always perfect and clean.
What made our hearts stop were the pilots who would do sort
of sliding loops. I don't know if it was intentional,
but their wings would almost always tuck a bit when they
looped; some even got seriously mushy on the down side.
It was much more exciting, since it looked like they
were always about to tumble!
Having never seen an actual loop before, I was quite
surprised to find myself analyzing the loops and noticing
the differences (both subtle and distinct) in the techniques
of various pilots.
What I had really been hoping to see (when people said
there would be "lots of loops") was a hang-glider style loop
going forward (since I can't really imagine anyone would do
it so casually). I guess even the crazy Frenchmen think
that's insane!
Luckily the Frenchmen (and women) are just crazy enough
to have invented the Coupe Icare festival, since it
was a fabulous finale to a great week flying in France.
