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Welcome to the "Australian Gradient Team" page!
Gradient is on of the largest and most successful manufacturers in the world with a production around 2,000 paragliders a year. The company concentrates its marketing on some of the world's largest markets like France Germany Italy and UK. The Australian market due to its small size shouldn't be of a huge interest - but we have an unique advantage that puts us in the spotlight; our season is in a full swing while things are pretty dull in the European winter what makes Australia a good place to test new models and it also helps to keep up the production numbers during this period. We are being well looked after and over a number of years a strong team of Gradient fans has developed here.
Most of the local pilots flying Gradient wings are experienced pilots who spent quite a time looking around before they ended up choosing this brand. Gradient has built its reputation by making "pilot friendly" gliders with outstanding performance and spotless safety record. It is also renowned for making realistic performance claims and by "down to earth" advertising style. This type of promotion certainly doesn't attract yahoos. Most of the pilots flying Gradient wings are fairly conservative people with a careful and analytic approach to flying. If you look closely at this group, you also find the average age a bit higher than in the groups flying other brands. All added together, our team is showing excellent results in competitions - and yes, we still manage to have a lot of fun.
In the Australian National Team for the Worlds 2007 out of 7 pilots 3 were flying Gradient Avax. In the Australian Nationals Gradient flying pilots are taking the top places for a number of years now including the title of Australian Champion.
As a representative of Gradient in Australia I'd like to express my thanks to all these and the whole number of other less known pilots flying Gradient gliders. Their great work helps with promoting and sales of our brand and it is highly appreciated.
Meet some of the most prominent members of our team:
Brian Webb
Brian is being considered as the "grandfather of paragliding" in Australia. He established one of the most successful and prolific paragliding schools, Alpine Paragliding in Bright around 1990. He managed it for a long time before retiring from professional instructing a few years ago. There is a few hundred of PG pilots, myself included, in Australia who learned to fly under Brian's watchful eye.
Brian is still flying for pleasure and besides being active and successful in top competitions, he is also helping the local clubs with organizing events and upgrading qualifications of their members. He also publishes an excellent weather website worth consulting before you go flying. Brian has been one of the first high-profile pilots to join the Gradient team in Australia. His sporting achievements under the Gradient flag include some top places in the Australian Open,
Mystic Cup and a number of overseas competitions.
Brian and his Avax SR7 is spending this winter in the US flying as much as he can. You can follow his adventures HERE.
Brian displaying his award after winning the Chelan Classic in the US in 2005
James Lawson
James Lawson has been a member of the Gradient Team for the last 2 years. Prior to this he was a long-standing member of Jonnie Howard’s Flying Team. A coastal pilot by trade, James was initially warned off thermal flying. But his curiosity soon got the better of him and he soon started tasting the forbidden delights of convective lift. James then went from strength to strength, and from thermal to thermal. Now a member of the Australian Paragliding Squad committee and the Australian Paragliding National Team, James has certainly ticked a few boxes in his career. Asked how he continues to keep it real he simply said, “Getting dialed at the dunes.” James also puts a lot of his time and skills in organizing event for less experienced pilots like the "Weekend Warrior".
James with his regular dinner
Occupation: Student,
Flying Since : 1998, Competing Since: 2001, Airtime: 1800 hours
Glider: Gradient Avax SR7 24 and Gradient Freestyle 22
Sponsors: Gradient, Blueye, Macquarie University
Home site: Manilla, Blackheath and various dunes around Newcastle.
Results: 3rd place Australian Paragliding Ladder 2007 – 2008, 4th place Bright 321 2008, 9th place Czech Open 2007, 19th place Paragliding World Championships 2007, 1st place Killarney Classic 2006.
Achievements: *Highest ranked Australian at the Paragliding World Championships 2007 *Highest ranked Australian on the World Pilot Ranking System (WPRS) from November 2007 to present *Served on the Australian Paragliding National Team Committee since the NT ’s inception in February 2007 to present .
Colin Jeffery
Colin has always been into aviation starting with model aircraft for decades and flight simulators. Colin booked in for paragliding lessons as soon as he heard about the sport. He had not seen one fly before his own first flight on the practice slopes. Colin, despite of his excellent skills and experience, refuses to fly any of those "widow makers" (anything from DHV 2 up) being happy what the 1/2 class has to offer. He started to fly a little later in life when reaction times are a little slower. Colin is a bit of a greenie and is often seen arriving at local flying sites on a bicycle with a purpose built trailer for the paraglider. Although teaching gives plenty of free time it does not allow the flexibility to attend all the comps so the Bright Open is the only major competition attended each year starting in 2005 along with intermittent attendances of the Mystic Cup.
Occupation: TAFE teacher Physics Electronics Computing Robotics, Flying Since: 1998, Competing Since: 2001
Glider: Gradient Golden 2
Home Site: Bright, Mornington Peninsular coastal sites.
Results: 1st Bright 321 1/2 Class 2005, 3rd Bright 321 1/2 Class 2007, 1st Mystic Cup 1/2 Class 2007
Achievements: *1st Phoenix cup (fancy dress) 2004 *SSO for the Skyhigh paragliding club
Lindsay Wootten
This is what Lindsay says about himself: Life is about adventure, creativity and love…and paragliding gives all three (I love my Gradient Avax XC2). At the end of my paragliding licence course I thought that paragliding might not keep me interested…but that was because I learned on the coast and hadn’t been introduced to the big money, glamour and excitement of XC competition flying. Luckily I quickly discovered where the beautiful people in the paragliding world hang out…and I’ve been trying to get them to let me hang out there ever since.
Occupation: Pg pilot/artist /adventurer…oh yes, I’m a lawyer too…, Flying Since 1999, Competing Since 2002,
Airtime 600 hours
Glider: Gradient Avax XC2
Sponsors: Give me a call and my people will talk to your people…
Home site: Byron Bay – home of low cloudbase, small thermals and the much feared sea breeze
Results: 1st Overall, 1st Serial Class and 1st Sport Class Killarney Paragliding Classic 2009 (Gradient Avax XC2), 1st Sport Class Canungra Cup 2008 (Gradient Avax XC2), 2nd Sport Class XC Open World Series-Manilla 2008 (Gradient Aspen2/Avax XC2), 3rd DHV 2 Class Australian PG Nationals 2008 (Gradient Aspen2), 3rd Overall Tasks 4 & 5 Rat Race 2009 USA (Gradient Avax XC2) , 3rd Overall - Task 3 Canungra PG Cup 2007 on a DHV2 wing (Gradient Aspen2 of course)
Achievements: *164 klms July 2009 Pine Mtn USA, *139 klms to goal at Australian PG Nationals 2008 on a DHV2 wing (yep, a Gradient Aspen2) *New Byron Bay site record from Monte’s launch 2/4/08 *Staying alive and relatively sane for a long time…
Ethan Glessich
Ethan Glessich, affectionately known as “Acroboy”, is a recent addition to the Gradient Team. As the baby of the gradient family, Ethan is a rebel with a cause. He began flying sailplanes at 15, but had to give up at 18 due to the financial burden of university. At 21 he discovered paragliding, but feeling rather like an air lemming soon lost interest. He was about to give it away when he stumbled across an acrobatic SAT video. Immediately, Ethan knew that ‘this’ was what he wanted to do.
After searching the Australian flying community for an acrobatic instructor, Ethan soon found that the sport was not well established or appreciated in Australia, and shortly after graduating began his search overseas. In 2006 while traveling through South America, Ethan was fortunate enough to fall into a LopezSAT course in The Andes of Argentina. Guided by Pablo Lopez, Ethan was pleasantly surprised to learn he had a natural aptitude for acro, and spent the remainder of his trip traveling through Chile with some of the best acro pilots in the world.
Since this inception, acrobatic paragliding has become Ethan’s all consuming passion, which has now formed the central pillar in his life.
Occupation (week): Engineering Recruitment Consultant / Aerospace Engineer / Entrepreneur
Occupation (weekend): Tandem Pilot / Instructor,
Flying Since 2001,
Airtime 450 hours
Glider: Gradient Freestyle 20
Sponsors: Gradient, Paragliding Headquarters
Home site: Bright
Current Maneuvers: Tumbling, dynamic SAT, SAT, loop, dynamic spin, dynamic stall, flyback, helicopter, coconut, MacTwist-twist-twist
Favourite maneuver: Tumbling
Results: 7th place junior AcroAndes 2006, Argentina (1st and only competition)
Biggest Achievement: First Australian pilot to execute Tumble * First Australian Pilot to throw two reserves, have neither open and walk away without a scratch * Reaching the age of 27