Back at it!

After going away to visit family and missing 2 weeks of amazing flying back home, I finally got some amazing air time yesterday. My first flight was a tandem with a pilot friend who'd never been on a tandem before, and we had the perfect flight. Takeoff was flawless, we caught a thermal that took us above launch when other people were sinking out, and ended with a one-step landing. Couldn't have asked for better. But the day kept improving!

I went back up to launch & some people were choosing to drive down instead of fly because the air looked punchy. For the first time in a long time I was actually nervous, maybe because I hadn't flown solo in almost a month! 3 of us decided we'd try to fly a small cross-country (XC) flight over the back together, so I took a deep breath & launched. As soon as my feet left the ground I was so excited to be in the air, caught a great thermal and rode it up to almost twice the height of launch & took off on my XC. The plan was to follow one of the pilots who'd done this route before, but I have a little problem with something called patience. So I pushed on ahead, leading the others along the mountain ridge.



My view heading over the back.


I tried to cross to a small hill that usually gives off thermals & lets you fly further (like across the valley) but as you can see from the next picture the sun was only on the far side, and I hit too much sink in the shade. I landed in one of the big light fields beside the intersection on the left side of the photo, quite pleased with myself. Luckily one of the other pilots came & picked us up, 3 of us ended up landing here.





We picked up another pilot who landed out & headed back up the mountain. I was pretty tired by now, feeling the crash after the adrenaline rush of a great tandem & fun XC. But Rob said he'd go tandem with me, and conditions looked mellow, so I figured a quick sled ride would be fine & get me one flight closer to being signed off. We set up our tandem, reviewed the launch procedure & I inflated my wing. Now my only instruction really was telling him to WAIT until I said run. But the problem with taking another pilot on a tandem is that sometimes they get their own ideas ;) So the wing came up crooked & I was just about to kill it when Rob started barrelling off launch! I think I squealed but all I could do was try and fly the wing as he charged off the hill. We made it (not at all gracefully) by the sheer force of will. A good lesson though, because you never know if your passenger will listen to you. So I need to make sure my instructions are very clear, that I abort the takeoff immediately if I don't like it, and stay calm & fly the wing no matter what, which thankfully I know I can already do. Our flight was fantastic though, we thermalled up over launch after everyone else had sunk out, and we had another perfect landing.

Flying Away

I'm Flying Away again. This time it has nothing to do with paragliding (shocking, I know!) so the only flying I'll be doing is on an airplane. It's a visit-the-family kind of trip, so no paragliding whatsoever for 2 whole weeks. I don't know how I'm going to survive, ha ha.

The tandem training is going well, I have 11 of the 20 flights I need to get rated, plus I had my instructor/tandem ground school last weekend. I have some good articles to read while away, and there's always Youtube to keep you updated on the latest flying techniques. Well, realistically most posted videos tend to be what NOT to do but they're always amusing.

I've also taken over as membership director for our local soaring club so there are sure to be some flying-related emails coming my way while I'm gone. It'll almost be like I never even left!

See you again in a few weeks, hopefully my next post will be that I've finished my tandem rating and have been doing some wicked X-C spring flying!

Little Tandem Video

Just for those of you who aren't quite sure what a tandem paragliding flight looks like, here's one of my launches. (I'm the pilot-in-command, which means I'm flying the glider from the backseat.) Yeehaw!

Lucky #5

Taking on this tandem adventure has taught me so much more than I expected, and that's with just 5 tandems under my belt. The biggest surprise has been the biggest compliment, which is the number of pilots volunteering to be my practice passengers. I hadn't expected so many people to offer to potentially be run over, surfed in or dragged around! Luckily all my tandems have been great, aside from a bit of excitement on the last one yesterday where the wing overshot us while launching. I slammed on the brakes to kill the wing as it had started dragging us down and across the hill, but it turns out that I didn't have nearly enough brake on originally and when I tried abort the launch it actually popped us up & got us airborne. So now I have an up-close and personal understanding of how much extra brake I need on that giant wing!

After doing 2 tandems Sunday morning I took a break to drive for others who had been kind enough to drive for me in the morning. While hanging out at launch I snapped a picture of this incredible cloud shaped like an eagle. It turned out way better than I thought (just used my iphone) and I'm pretty sure that it was a sign that the sky is happy with me :)

Tandem Girl!

Yesterday was my first tandem flight as the pilot-in-command. It was AWESOME! I'd been kicking around the idea of getting my tandem rating for about a year and now that I'm pursuing it I feel like I'm on the exact right path. Everything has been coming together for this and it's amazing. First, the tandem course was being held at a time I was actually going to be in town and secondly my friend Veronica decided to sell me her tandem gear which is my size & in mint condition (because she's a pretty girl & not a smelly boy and paragliding gear reflects that, you see). Also, my job as a personal trainer has taught me instructional skills so I'm comfortable relating information to passengers, plus I live about 10 minutes from my friend's paragliding school so I'll be able to work for him instructing & doing tandems all summer.

It's so cool when things fall into place, it seems we struggle more than we need to in life and to have something come together like this is like a gift. Ok enough hippy-dippy love talk, it's just that I'm so at one with all of this. Ha!

So my first tandem flight went off smoothly & better than I could have imagined. I thought we'd do a forward launch and have a pleasant little sledder, but instead there were strong cycles on launch so I got to reverse, kite the wing & thermal around for over half an hour! Plus we had a perfect landing thanks to the steady wind in the LZ. I couldn't have asked for anything better.





I had another fun first yesterday. On rainy days I take martial arts (a mix of different styles) and I recently signed up for the Black Belt Club. That means I get to start learning weapons and last night I got to play with nun-chuks for the first time. So fun! No pictures yet, maybe when I can do something cool with them I'll make a little video.

Hmmm....maybe I can incorporate them into my tandem flying. "I said RUN dammit! Hi-yaaa!"

Fortune Cookie

sweet.

Cloud Nine

"If you don't like the weather...wait 5 minutes."

Jim's saying from yesterday was even more relevant this afternoon. Yesterday we waited for a hailstorm to pass and then got extended sled rides, but today's dash up the hill after launch *finally* cleared brought us amazing and exciting soaring to cloudbase (and beyond!..not mentioning any names...).

Jim flew tandem with Thomm's daughter who's been watching her dad fly for years but has never wanted to try. She changed her mind and after thermalling through cloud wisps I'd say Thomm's got a new flying addict on his hands! Anyway, when we saw the tandem gain height right after launching the rest of us got ready fast and started rushing off launch. The cycles felt strong but our wings were coming up cross and didn't feel loaded. Hmm...might have been the thermals, might have been the frenzy to get in the air. I grabbed a great launch cycle, then hit nothing but sink on the way to the thermal. I could see everyone else getting sucked up to the clouds and relied on Paragliding Faith alone that the thermal had to be on the other side of this monster sink. Sure enough the lift was there and soon I was adjusting my thermals to stay in the blue holes. Sweet! The edges of the thermals were drastic - I had a 50% collapse once - and after talking to the other pilots later found out I wasn't the only one.

My last thermal on the hill drifted me towards the LZ and then spit me out into sink. I could see Norm & Jim maintaining nearby so thought I'd be able to eke out a few extra minutes if I could just get to them. I passed by the LZ at a height I'd usually start thinking about landing at but knew I had enough height to fly under the boys' thermal, try one 360 while searching for lift & still clear the trees to make a safe landing if I didn't find anything. At 123 meters (!) I caught enough of that thermal to make a whole turn. And another. And another, yay! I hung onto that sucker and got back up to over 400 meters. But the weather was changing again, so after making my super sweet low save I spiralled down (wheee!) and packed up before the dark clouds got any closer.

p.s. One thing did suck today (besides the clouds, ha ha). My camera batteries died as soon as I turned it on so no pix of the awesome flying we had.