The Year for Gear

As a team pilot for Skywalk, I am lucky enough to get ridiculously good prices on my personal gear, and after 4 years of flying my trusty old Advance Bibeta 4 tandem wing…I am excited to be upgrading to the new Skywalk Join't 3!

What my new baby will look like :)

I am curious to see how my old wing has held up to the hundreds of tandem flights it's been on and am planning to get a porosity check done on it this weekend.  One of the other flying schools in town has a porosity meter that sucks air through the material and measures how many seconds it takes to do so, thereby letting you know how much life is left in your wing.  Watch for pictures soon here on my blog.

And after many hours of research over which competitions I could manage to get to this year, the fact that my solo harness was sadly on it's last legs kept popping up along with the obligations of a new job in which vacation days have not yet been discussed (I know, I know).  So I decided to go all in and get a new harness too.  I'm an incredibly lucky person - after asking on Facebook for harness recommendations I received so many offers of help and special comp pilot/instructor pricing that I was blown away.  It was a hard choice to make, but I made a short list after all the advice and as much reading of forums that I could handle and went with the Gin Genie Light. It was the only harness that I was actually able to sit in prior to plunking down my hard-earned dollars for (as I ambushed our new Gin importer in Canada at his house - thanks Brett - when the local dealer was out of town).   Say hello to my new pod harness:

My harness has been patiently sitting in my glider bag for over a week but the weather has been cruel on my days off.  My shiny new tandem wing was ordered 2 days ago and it should be here next week. Now I just have to cross every finger that the forecasted sun appears this weekend and you will be subject to a babbling review and pictures.  

See you in the sky!