All photos by Tilo Holighaus

All photos by Tilo Holighaus

It’s hard to ignore what’s going on at the Grand Prix Final 2014 in Sisteron these days: reading OLC Magazine, browsing through the Grand Prix website, and following Ritz’s great Café reports I try to keep up with the latest news. Haven’t tried the live tracking yet… but with three more days to go there might be a chance?

This morning I was surprised to find some wonderful pictures in my mailbox: Tilo Holighaus, CEO of Schempp Hirth Flugzeugbau GmbH, is one of the twenty competitors in Sisteron. While the boss is flying, his company also a partner of the event, and with eight Ventus 2 (including his own) competing in the race Tilo probably feels a little bit homelike? After five competition days he was able to score Grand Prix points on two of them and is currently placed No. 15. Besides all the excitement and fun he regularly comments his flights on OLC, so people can read (in German) what his days were like and get a feeling for Grand Prix soaring.

Tilo explains about the good days when his Ventus 2ax can take advantage of good climbs to finally start overtaking a row of competitors on the last leg. The first day was like this: after the first difficult legs, it went very well and Tilo ended up outscoring the Australian Tom Claffey (flying in a competitive product called ASG 29) on the last few kilometers. Schempp Hirth’s boss placed 7th that day. But Tilo has experienced some less spectacular periods as well: On day no. 2, when right after releasing from tow the gaggle was fighting to stay airborne, he couldn’t keep up with the crowd and landed back on the field to follow the rest of the race via live tracking. Day No. 5 was “Mistral weather” and while waiting for the race to start, Tilo took advantage of the wave to shoot some nice pictures above the clouds and prepared the task. After a challenging race with highs and lows he found himself to be on 8th position. Points for another great day! Tilo simply summarizes “Grand Prix is addictive!”

While at home we are all curious about the news, an armada of helpers is prepared to serve the big contest. One of them is Tilo’s wife Katja. She regularly feeds their club’s facebook page with the latest news, takes care of pictures and helps with all the other “little” duties. Enjoy!