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Last weekend we held the annual NOVA Pilots Team Meeting in Revine Lago and it was such a great weekend that I would like to say a few – and also personal – words about the team.

(If you want to see more photos, have a look in our Picasa album)

It was in 2006 that NOVA bosses Hannes Papesh and Wolfi Lechner decided to start with the team. At that time, NOVA had already made the strategic decision NOT to focus on open class or comp wings (in spite of the extremely successful past). They therefore put all energy and manpower into “normal wings” (in today’s words from EN A to EN C) with a strong focus on suitability for cross-country flying. Accordingly we built the frame and developed a vision for the NOVA Pilots Team.

Typically paraglider manufacturer’s teams consist of (semi-) professional top pilots who rather often change brands depending on who offers the best deal. Our vision was completely different: of course our team pilots should be reasonably good pilots, but more important: good brand ambassadors. Nice people, helpful to other pilots, with strong communication skills, with an honest desire to let others benefit from their experience, and – most important – with the ability to share their excitement for paragliding with others.

Wolfi told me that I should be the “team manager” or “captain” or so, as I am NOVA public relations person anyway. I was hesitating a bit to accept, because I felt that I didn’t have the skills as a pilot. However, one of the targets of the team is to “generate stories” for PR. So Wolfi’s idea made sense. Since then the NPT became international, we added the Juniors, and today the team has grown from a dozen German speaking XC pilots to more than 75 pilots all around the globe.

From the very beginning Wolfi had given me a lot of freedom to select the right candidates. And when I saw all the smiling faces of more than 50 (!!!) people in Revine Lago during the team meeting, I felt really proud. Kay came from the US, Max from Canada, Vago from Greece, Hans from Holland and also some of the folks from the Alps had to drive quite a bit. What a commitment!

So here is a rather long list of “thank yous”:

• Thanks to Wolfi, Hannes and the entire NOVA staff for having the NOVA Pilots Team and pursuing the concept.
• Thanks, of course, for the superb results in comps and the various online contests to all team pilots.
• Thanks to Hannes, Pipo, Toni, Mike and Mario for their endless patience to explain technical details to their “aerodynamically stupid PR guy”.
• Thanks to some of our old team heroes (such as Wolfgang Bernard, Micha Pohl, Mario Kronberger, Mario Mayr) for their advice, which helped me so much to improve into a reasonably good XC pilot.
• Thanks to ALL team pilots for their enthusiasm, their smiles, their commitment and the unique team spirit. This is it what makes all the efforts worth!

And there are more thanks concerning the team meeting itself:

• Mille gracie to Raul Moras for the perfect organisation.
• Thanks to Gago, Rinaldo, and Mario for helping Raul.
• Thanks to the local club for the friendly welcome.
• Thanks to Mik for the preparation while I was in Siberia and Mongolia on vacations.
• Thanks to Steve and Max for the “Future-X-Alps-heroes-training-event” with our Juniors
• Thanks to Wolfi for paying everything including wine and beer. You are very, very generous.

What an honour to be part of the family!

Looking forward to all future activities

Your proud “Captain Till”

And here are some photos:

SuSi stands for the super-simple construction.

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