Look Mom! I'm on TV!

And I thought nothing exciting happened in this sleepy little town!

A couple of months ago I got an email from a girl (Tiffany) at our neighbourhood cable TV station. She wanted to do a human interest story on a local paraglider pilot so had contacted the president of our flying club and he'd recommended me. Since I'd just gotten my tandem rating they thought that could be a good part of the story. That, and I'm awesomely cool. Heh.

The day of filming was really fun. My friend Kevin came out to shoot it with me and we did a couple of solo flights in the morning then I took Tiffany tandem. They interviewed Kevin afterwards as well which I'm sure will turn out great (he is also awesomely cool) then we did all the close ups on my gear, clipping in, and various other shots. Now I just have to wait. Have I ever mentioned my issues with patience? Waiting is NOT my forte!

Unfortunately they don't give out copies of their stories so I won't be able to post my 5 minutes of fame. There's a chance it will be on their website some day, they're working on putting a local page together with their news stories but don't have anything up yet. In the meantime I'll be watching channel 4 whenever I'm at home and hunting down a blank tape to sick in the VCR - I knew I hung onto it for a reason!

Goofy grins

How can I not smile when getting paid to have this much fun???


My passengers have been using a camera to film us during our flights and there's one consistent thing I've noticed when watching the videos. There is always a huge goofy grin on my face for most of the flight. Not just here and there like when my passenger squeals with delight or we hit a nice thermal but throughout the whole flight. It got me wondering if it's just the infectious energy from my passenger or if I rock the dorky smile when flying alone, so I took the camera out on my solo flight last night. Besides some big grins cheesing it up for the camera, it seems I have a much saner face when flying by myself. So the task at hand is to practice looking serious & professional while the camera's rolling on tandem and leave the 5-year-old-on-too-much-sugar look for just a few precious moments during the flight. I mean really, flying tandems is my job and you're not supposed to have *that* much fun at work, are you?

Flying for money

Getting paid to do something you love is even better than it sounds. Getting paid to share what you love & getting others hooked on it is even better! My tandem yesterday (seen woo-hoo-ing above) was having so much fun it was hard not to be just as excited as if it was my own first flight.

It's also interesting to see where my flying addiction is taking me. Paragliding has many directions you can pursue, and I'm passionate about almost all of them. At first my goals were simple - safe launches and landings. Then I wanted to stay up for a whole hour instead of doing sled rides, so I'd practice coring thermals and staying up in the air even when it was rough & I wanted to land. When I got better at that I wanted to try flying cross-country and thought maybe that would be my focus - flying far, making personal bests every time I flew and the overall thrill of adventure. After attending a maneuvers course I decided to try my hand at acro and would finish every flight off with a spiral or wingovers...until I went to the Rat Race and turned my attention to competition flying. The strategy and sense of accomplishment were addictive! Last summer when I started kicking the idea of becoming a tandem pilot around I wondered if I would ever decide which direction to go. Would I have to give up flying cross-country to be an instructor? Would I forget how to fly solo after doing a bunch of tandems in a row?

Not to worry. As my friend Julian in Ecuador says, "Everything is possible". While I'm still fairly new at taking people up and sometimes feel awkward flying solo again after so much focus on my tandem flying, as I gain more experience I see a greater possibility for improvement everywhere. A tandem pilot needs to be confident and choose better launch & landing conditions that they may fly in solo. That confidence & decision-making transfers over to solo flying and (hopefully) helps you become a better pilot overall. I'm excited to see where this flying road leads me, but I'm happy to say that here and now is better than I thought it would ever be.

Giving Back

While at the Rat Race I was amazed at the efforts of all the volunteers. People came on their personal vacation time from work to drive us around, be safety checkers, feed us and help out in every way. It made me think about something I heard at a Fun Run once. A runner said it was common in the race circuit to volunteer one time for every few races you do.

So this year I've stepped up and started doing more for my sport. In the past I've joined some work parties to clean up the roads to our launches and volunteered for a couple of hours here and there for certain events. But recently I've gotten a few opportunities to really give back. A few months ago I was offered the position of membership director for our local flying club. Volunteer board positions are notoriously hard to fill, and the girl in charge of this position was having trouble & they needed someone to step in. So I signed up, and through that found myself volunteering to help with our local fundraiser this past weekend too. At first I thought I would just be helping to organize & plan the event but since my tandem rating came through in time I got to help in an even funner way. Each year our club offers discounted tandem flights to the public & the pilots donate their time and the funds to the club. I was lucky enough to do 2 tandems yesterday and couldn't care less that I wasn't paid for them. The joy of bringing people into the air is amazingly fulfilling!

I'm looking forward to helping out more. There are many competitions this summer that attract a much higher level of flying than I'm at (yet) and I'm thinking about heading to some of them for a few days & giving back. Funny that it should be referred to as "giving" since you end up "getting" so much out of it.




Letting my tandem passenger take the controls :)

Rat Race Finale

Was I just paragliding all week? Looking out my living room window & seeing nothing but grey clouds & rain it's hard to believe I was just cruising around the sky a few days ago.

Quick version of the Days 6 & 7 - Friday was blown out so the task was cancelled, Saturday was flyable and final results are in. In Sport class I was 53 out of 75, a bit better than last year's 35 out of 44. Yay for me.

I wish I would have written about both days immediately as there were so many good jokes & stories to share. This has probably been the funnest Rat Race yet, I think I laughed until I cried almost every day. We also ended up having really long days, between flights (& relaunches) and mentoring sessions & dinner afterwards I probably didn't get home til 11 most nights, which is why I missed a couple of days blogging.

Lessons learned? Sit at the back of the bus so you don't get prank'd, watch Talladega Nights before the comp so you get more of the jokes, and get high high high. Not the wacky-tabakky kind of high (for shame!) but the altitude kind. My impatience was really a factor in me sinking out early in the tasks each day. I have this fear that once I'm barely high enough I might not ever get that high again & just start flying to the next point. For example, look at the above photo taken when I looked back over my shoulder while gliding across the valley - I'm ahead of the paragliding armada even though I'm lower. With a hundred other pilots in the air it's easy to see that you CAN get higher, and there's no reason I wouldn't be able to get there when they're all a hundred feet above me. So my personal task this year is to milk every thermal for what it's worth, impatience be damned!

I'm gonna go all spider-monkey on those thermals. Because if you're not first, you're last. (Thanks Ricky Bobby)

Redemption! Rat Race Day 5

Wow - it was a close one today. It was another good-lookin' day, clouds everywhere & excitement in the air. Everyone was eager to fly & we were all in line ready to go when the launch window opened. I had a great launch & went up right away...for about 15 seconds. Then it was nothing but sink, sink, sink all the way to the landing. Since I wasn't the only one and we still had plenty of time to get back up for a re-launch, I didn't lose it completely. Only a little. But some other good pilots landed with me so we put on brave faces & drove back up.

It had gotten a lot stronger but the mood was a lot more relaxed. No stress about start windows & racing, and we agreed to all help each other. Sure enough...up we all went! I took a thermal up as close to the clouds as I dared, then mashed my speed bar like Jeff taught us at the mentoring session. Funnily enough, today the bumps didn't bother me. I lead out with one other pilot & we easily tagged the first 2 points at Rabies. The rest of the gang came over & we searched around for the next thermal further west, then back to Rabies & past the start to Burnt.

There were still lots of clouds & wispies showing the way and it was definitely rough in spots. Today I really made sure to override my natural impatience and not head out unless there was a climbing glider or growing cloud at the destination. I still left lower than most people, but if I had made it to goal I might have gotten extra points for being the leader, but since I landed sooner it doesn't matter. Guess I still need more patience (sigh).

Good news - I got 4 turnpoints plus the start cylinder across the valley (half the route) and I landed at Longsword! Longsword is a vineyard where the tasting room is outside, spectators applaud when you land & the owners walk out to you in the landing field with a free glass of wine. It's the happiest landing zone on earth! About a dozen of us landed there, and to top off the fun we invented some new yoga positions getting everyone & their gliders in the retrieve van. Needless to say we were all close, personal friends after arriving at headquarters.

Funny how intensely us pilots attach our moods to our recent flying performance. After my first flight today I wanted to hop in the car & drive home. Now, it's 11pm & I'm still bouncing off the walls from excitement.

Hi...My name's Martina and I'm a paraglide-oholic.

Rat Race Day 4

I can't believe there are only 3 days left! Maybe it seems quick since 2 days were kind of a washout - Monday & Tuesday were both really windy & I didn't make it further than the main landing zone. I'm super bummed about it, but not as upset as I am about today.

This morning I felt overwhelmed before the task was even called. I guess 2 days of not tagging any waypoints made me question what I was even doing here. But I found a quiet place to sit & give myself a short pep talk and felt a little better. The sky today was showing promise of lots of lift from the big clouds everywhere and we were getting excited about the potential of the day. I launched a little later than I'd wanted to since there is a system where the top pilots get to officially "butt in" and launch whenever they want, and that happened when I was about 5 spots away from launching. The pilot in my line attempted to launch his competition wing numerous times without success and the rest of us in line were starting to get frustrated. Thankfully he finally stepped aside and let us minions huck ourselves off the mountain.

The task started out well, I tagged the start cylinder & first turnpoint and headed across the valley for the second one. I got there too low & it was rough, so I flew back & forth to the hill 2 more times til I got the height I needed. It was important to get high today because along with all the lift there was a lot rough air. People's gliders were collapsing all around-I saw someone get worked below me just before I got the 2nd turnpoint & then another pilot impacted the hill beside launch after losing half his wing. Even without seeing everyone else getting tossed around I was spooked today, I just felt nervous & couldn't shake it. Still I talked myself into attempting the third turnpoint but after a few tries I admitted defeat & skulked down to the same landing zone I've landed in every day this week. Grrr.

I was actually ok with my decision until everyone started the post-flight "How far did you fly today?" discussion at HQ. I realized that after all my hard work & tagging 2 turnpoints I got the same amount of points that I would have got if I'd flown straight down & done nothing. Of course good lessons were learned and hopefully my bump tolerance increased but part of me cares that this is a competition and sitting in last place in the women's division isn't the confidence boost I was hoping for when I signed up a few months ago & was imagining all that I'd learn.

But...tomorrow's another day - and 2 more after that to redeem myself. It's time to put together all the puzzle pieces of what I've learned so far this week. No more little miss scaredy-pants!