Grounded on the Big Island

I just returned from a week on the big island of Hawaii. I got the worst advice in the world before travelling: Contact Chris Langan. 3 weeks before my trip I started calling. I left messages and never got a call. I started emailing. No response. Finally I found a guy in Hilo that flies: John Ivey John@ThermalUp.com.

I can't say how to fly the big island as I never have, however, John is the best contact I've found so far. That's for certain. Here's what he said:


I would be happy to direct you to the right people. I own and opperate Thermal Up Paragliding on the Hilo side of the island, about 1.5 hours drive from North Kohala where C. Langan lives and occasionally teaches as the Paraguide. I am relocating to Woodrat Mountain in the Rogue Valley, so you caught me at a bad time. We have closed for the season and shut down towing opperations. If you are interested in free flight, the only site is on the Kona side. Due to cattle relocation, three sites on DHHL land are closed for the rest of the year. You can contact the following club pilots for a site introduction to Kealakekua:

Charlis Crocker
Neil Morriss
Shawn Baker for tandems

On the east side, you can contact Yeti Deffebach for PPG lessons and guided PPG tours. He runs a school on this side and has rental powered gear.The visiting pilots that I heard feedback from have found learning powered PG easy and he takes visitors on a guided powered tour over a local 300 foot water fall by the ocean. Very beautiful. Yeti@IslandPPG.com


I love the big island. It's my favorite. I'm posting this info for myself when I get a chance to return. However, we've already decided our next trip is to Maui. All I've got on Maui is Proflyght Paragliding, 808-874-5433. I've got a few months to plan this one. I'll let you know what I uncover.

There must be a better way to plan a paragliding trip.

P3!

I got my P3 today. Hooray! That means I from now on I no longer need to fly under instructor's direction at Torrey.

Bill gave me the written test last week. There's a great website here that helps you ace it: click.


Bottom line: Advancing now in paragliding for me is all about getting to mountain sites and cross-country. I love the ridge at Torrey, but I need to get in situations where wing control and making decisions about conditions is paramount.

It was light air when I arrived, perfect for finishing and reviewing the written P3 test with Bill. I didn't know what a parachutal stall was. A parachutal stall is a nasty little bitch: you descend vertically while the wing is still fully inflated. To exit you push the A-risers or momentarily accelerate with the speed bar.

After the test I helped Bill aid a 3-time kidney transplant recipient land with Ki on a tandem flight. Her brother and father were there, very loving and excited about the flight. She couldn't walk so it was important to keep an eye on them in low wind conditions that they didn't land on the beach without help. I would gladly fly down there and carry her back up on my back. They landed without a hitch. What a wonderful experience.

Flight 99 -10 minutes

Today was my day to fly so I didn't mind going to the beach. In fact, I planned my flight so I could go find my glove. I was never above the ridge after launch. I held on for a few minutes on the north ridge, scraped a bit, then headed due north to look for the damn thing. After walking around and sniffing just about everywhere I gave up. That issue's over.

Then the long walk back up. 10 minutes of flight, 30 minutes of scanning the beach and a 15-minute walk to the top. I never mind the walk. That's the only exercise I get paragliding. I enjoy it.

Back at the top the wind was on. 6 o so paragliders were flying the north ridge. I was eager to get back up there.

Flight 100 - 5 minutes

I wanted to do a quick launch / land just to practice my approach. I got up, turned around, waited for a good entry and came in. I made a classic mistake: too much brakes on approach. You really shouldn't have any brake on in your landing approach. Slowing down reduces your wing's ability to maneuver. I was far too slow as I came in. I turned into the wind and dropped like a rock into a PLF, hurting my left heel. I knew instantly what I did wrong.

Now I was thankful to be at Torrey. Little lessons like this can be learned here without breaking a leg or taking a week off to heal.

I rested for a moment and got back in the air. I had no idea that was my 100th flight.

Flight 101 - 50 minutes.

My longest flight of the day was a beauty. I actually started off trying to do another launch and land, but the LZ was too busy. I went far north. The tandems were in action dominating the ridge. I just wanted to get out of the way and enjoy my flight. After 30 minutes the wind started to soften. I came in to land but couldn't get up above the ridge. Oh no, not another beach landing. Well, I tried and tried but could not prevail. I'm starting to wonder if it's my wing. Probably not. I am sure I still have a lot to learn.

The liftband of my people

I've learned so much in the past 3 days. It's wonderful. Without knowing it Gal created a mini-clinic for me that at least doubled my skills.


These are my people.

Now that I've got over 90 flights I'm preparing for the written P3 test. It's going to be nice to be a P3 as I won't need permission from an instructor any more to launch at Torrey. There are still clearly a few more things I need to know before that happens.

The problem with my approach to getting my next rating is I'll only study the stuff that's required from the book just before the test. I did that with my P1 and P2 and I'm doing it again on my P3. I never looked at the USHGA requirements before yesterday even though they're clearly written right inside my student's log. I'm going to try to change that for my P4 by continuing my book study for the next few weeks. In fact, I'm going to go back and redo all the tests. They're online here: click

In fact, it's a bit difficult. The information is given pretty much without narrative in the book. For example, one of the most basic questions concerns detecting stall. The book says something like: "Using a lot of brakes and very shallow turns to get the best possible sink rate can induce a stall." It couldn't be more casual. I might say something like that followed by. You could fall backwards into your canopy and die. That would get my attention.

In fact, the only way to get some sensitivity to that is to soar in the mountains. You need to thermal which you just can't do at Torrey.

Most of the P3 test is about mountain conditions: reading sectional airspace maps, terrain and cloud conditions, active piloting.

One thing I need to start keeping track of is hours. Most of the folks at Marshal talked about their flying time, not flights. That makes a lot more sense. More like piloting an airplane. I'm going to go through my blog and estimate where I'm at today then add it to each blog entry from here on.


Gal in new wing and harness.

Gal has a new harness that I wanted to try on for size, a Woody Valley. I have been feeling less and less comfortable in my harness and want to check out some new ones. The best feature of the Woody Valley is the airbag. They've eliminated the need for a bulky foam protector under your ass by installing a self-filling airbig. I tried it on but it didn't feel that much better. It was a large. I think my whole problem is I need an extra large.

I hooked my harness up to the simulator and started making adjustments. Jerome, a phenomenal acro pilot, saw me struggling and came by to make some adjustments. He pull the shoulder straps way down. I didn't even know they were there. It did feel much better in flight, but now on land and launch I feel like I'm being squeezed. I can't even stand up straight. I'm not sure what to do about this.

As I was hanging there struggling in the simulator Gabe joined Gal, Jeremy and me, and soon after Eric and Megan. Eric and Megan are the most interesting couple I know. They're both good-looking (Megan is a knock-out), awesome pilots and they make glass eyes for a living. I had only heard this from Gal so I asked, "Gal told me you guys make fake eyes." "Yup" was pretty much the response. They are easily the coolest couple I know. Joe DeBriyn soon arrived. That made it a full house. These are my favorite paragliders at Torrey.

7 flights today.

Flight 93 - 27 minutes:

Bill said, "You're going to be a P3 now so I want you to start watching the traffic and judging for yourself when you're going to launch and land. Cool. I took off and flew the north ridge for a half hour.

Flight 94 - 2 minutes

Bill asked for some spot landings so I ran out, lost some altitude and came right back in. I got a pop at the ridge so it was easy.

Flight 95 - 19 minutes

I wanted to do another spot landing but the air just turned on. After I launched there was a line of paragliders taking off. I made my way north and optimized for lift. I tried making slow efficient turns. I never made it to 500, but it's good practice. Before landing I went way out over the ocean dropping from 425 to 350 for my final approach.


My glove is here somewhere. Do you see it?


Flight 96 - 30 minutes

Now I headed north to find my glove. I lost a glove on a beach landing. Ki saw it drop and I knew exactly where I landed thanks to my new gps. Of course, the question was if I saw it from the air was it really worth a beach landing to go get it. It's a yellow glove so it should be easy to spot. No luck. I had tons of altitude though and the whole north ridge to myself. I saw Eric doing some awesome wingovers into the canyon at the north edge of the golf course.

I took lunch and talked a bit with Gal and Gabe. Gabe described how he was hit by an RC plane once doing a tandem. He was giving a large high school student a tandem when a plane went right trough the left side of his wing. "I knew I was in trouble when I looked up and saw the sun right through the wing." He stalled and re-inflated the right side to make a straight path to the beach. On landing the kid knocked Gabe's head and Gabe went out cold for 20 minutes. When he awoke the kid was saying, "I thought I killed you dude!"

You've got to wonder why the RC mound it right in the middle of the action there. I suppose it's because they want to be seen.

Flight 97 - 33 minutes

Before launch I grabbed my camera. I went on another search for my glove this time taking more daring runs over the sand. Still no sign. I did catch Megan carving out the valley at the end of the golf course with some awesome wingovers. I was thinking she's going to love this video. When she finished her run I looked at the display on the camera. It said, "No card present." Hmm. I must have left it in the computer.

Then I wanted to do some wingovers. I wanted to be in front of the window so I could come back in when I was done. I didn't know you weren't allowed to do wingovers in front of the window. I'm still not sure about the window. I thought the window extended to the ocean. I was well over the ocean, but Bill still warned me. I'll just avoid the window entirely from now on.


Torrey LZ on landing approach.

Flight 98 - 50 minutes

I put down my wing to go get the card out of the computer which was in my car. I wanted to get some more photos of Gal. It was his last day after all. After landing I ran to my car to get my camera and launched right away. I chased Gal a bit and got a few shots. But he seemed to keep going in the opposite direction of me. Joe DeBriyn was pulling some good moves with his orange Merlin. I caught a few shots of that. For the most part I was just enjoying my last ride. It was a perfect day.

Marshall

I've been eager to do some mountain soaring ever since I started paragliding. The Marshall LZ is only an hour and a half from my home so it was an obvious first place, but I didn't know anyone there. I was never available when instructors from Torrey went up.



I contacted Jérôme Daoust of expandingknowledge who's raved about Marshall and invited me up at the thermals clinic I took in Baja nearly a year ago. He directed me to Rob McKenzie. After a few emails back and forth we were unable to book a tandem lesson. If you want to book a flight with Rob I highly recommend you call him: (909) 883-8488.


Rob McKenzie.

Gal and I made the trek up to San Bernardino from clear and sunny Carlsbad and noticed a range of differences. San Diego is pretty much smog-free. The sea dominates. You can smell ocean salt in the air all the way in the hills 5 miles inland. You know you've passed Temecula when you see the piss-yellow traces of smog starting to color the sky. San Bernadino is desert. As you approach through Riverside it's flat and dusty. We also passed the March Field Air Museum a worthwhile stop for another day. We passed by mega-warehouses full of all the crap that people in LA want to buy. It's easy to get cynical in such a blighted environment.

Being from the east I could never understand how suburban LA towns that looked so nice could be so crime-ridden. Everyone has a nice yard, there's plenty of space between buildings. In New York the bad neighborhoods look like bad neighborhoods. They're crowded, dirty. People look at you with anger.

San Bernardino is clean and well-maintained. The murder rate is 25.9 per pop. 100,000 in comparison to Los Angeles' 13.9. You'd never know it to look at it.

As we arrived at the Andy Jackson Airpark I felt like we were on the edge of the moon. The mountain is dry. I couldn't help but think the thermals must be outrageous here. First I met Rob's wife Diane. She was cheery and friendly. She pointed out Rob who was folding down a hang glider. I introduced myself and we had some lunch. Rob and Diane run a shuttle service up to the launch. They've been doing this for 15 years. This is a unique couple. You could see a lot of love and synergy between them.


Gal surveying conditions on the Marshall LZ

At launch Diane helped me hook into the tandem. The wind seemed about 12 mph or so. I didn't have an anemometer. I'm so used to the gentle conditions of Torrey I had no idea what I was in for. The air was dense with smog. You could see well into the basin, but what you saw was hardly beautiful. It was urban sprawl. I don't have many nice things to say about the environment at Marshall, but let me at least say this: I'd love to see it on a clear day. I'd love to see the whole LA basin from Crestline, another launch a few miles away. I'm sure it's an awesome sight. There is red clay mixed with the green oaks the cling to the valley crevasses. It's a bit like Phoenix, it has that kind of rocky beauty that brings the geologist out in some. Today we saw a few miles of piss-yellow smog. I'm sure that day of beauty will come.


Soaring above LA's piss-yellow smog.

Rob gave a quick lesson: "The most important thing is to control your pendulum: keep the wing over your head. When the wing falls back: breaks up, when it surges forward, apply breaks. There are some exceptions. Suddenly you may feel like you're free falling, apply some breaks right away." That last part was a bit contrary to my teaching. I didn't question it at the time because I figured we'd just encounter it in the air. I think the bottom line is keep in touch with your wing by keeping some constant pressure. I plan on returning in a few weeks to check that again.

He added, "I think of the wing as a 4-wheel drive vehicle where each wheel is trying to keep hold of the road. The 4 points are the 2 breaks and 2 carbiners." I liked that analogy and it added a lot to my understanding of what he was getting at. The bottom line: this is an active piloting site. All active piloting techniques will be used here.

We waited for the end of a thermal cycle and took off.

This was my very first tandem ride. It was amazing to take off and be in the passenger seat, a lot less pressure that's for sure. When you're riding a mountain site you get more lift on the ridges than valleys. We rode the house thermal from the ridge that leads to the launch and spotted a hang glider circling so we went over the see if we could catch his thermal. There must not have been much lift as he seemed to break his pattern as soon as we arrived and gave a loud "Hello!". We continued down the ridge.

Rob explained that there's not much lift at the ridge or worse you can end up getting some sharp turbulence at low altitude there. The better thermals are down below at the foothills. This is difficult for many visitors to understand, especially Europeans who are used to mountain soaring.

After a minute or so he gave me the controls. You need twice the pressure to control a tandem wing and it didn't take long for me to feel it in my arms. He asked me to head off to another ridge where we found our first thermal. I turned, but not aggressive enough. He took the controls again and we found it. Within a minute or so we were well above the launch. I had never ridden a thermal up before. It was amazing, a bit scary, but nothing less than amazing. The thermal weakens at the top and you don't so much need to leave it as it gives up on you. There's a lot of sink at the sides.

This may be stating the obvious, but for me it was all new and exciting. I still feel it right now just recalling the experience.


Okay, these thermals fucking rock!

The turbulence at the edges of each thermal was disconcerting to say the least. At each encounter with a thermal the wing surges back – breaks up! Then surges forward - breaks on! We counted the seconds to make sure it was worth riding and began the turn. You're kind of just gliding along, then all of the sudden: pop! The wind picks up, the wing is partially collapsed in 3 different ways. You need to know what you're doing. I don't have that confidence yet, but that is the whole point of a lesson.

These collapses were completely different from the self-induced collapses I practiced at the SIV clinic. They were completely dynamic. It seemed there was always something to do, that is, you went from one collapse to the next.

Gal wasn't launching, and Rob noticed that he was packing up his wing. He radioed to ask what was up. Gal said the gusts were far too strong for him to feel comfortable launching. I felt bad Gal wasn't getting a ride.

We continued on and 15 minutes or so later we were getting closer to the LZ, with another 1,000 feet to go. I started asking about landing approach alternatives. Then all of the sudden: pop! This was a big one. We circled, the wing collapsed and popped back out at the edges of the thermals. We were climbing about the height of Torrey with each circle. This was a strong thermal. Then something else unexpected happened: the turbulence went away. We were climbing at the same rate, that is to say, very fast, but it was a clear and calm as a sled ride at Torrey.

At the center of the core it's calm. It's beautiful. Completely unexpected. It's something like the eye of a hurricane. I have an altimeter in my watch that said we were at 6,100 feet. We went from getting ready to land to the inversion layer. Nothing less than completely amazing. I felt like I was on some kind of drug.

We continued off on our former path. We were not losing any altitude at all. 15 minutes later I looked at my watch. We had been flying for over an hour. I looked down and saw Gal sitting on the fence. He still wasn't flying and I was having the flight of my life. We hit many smaller thermals including one very lumpy one after that, but none were as strong and smooth.

We headed over to a new housing development hoping for another thermal, but there was nothing there. Then we made our landing approach. You've really got to look at each of the wind socks at the Marshall LZ. They could be blowing east or west within a few seconds. At one point I saw the two edge socks pointing towards each other. You've got to use great care.

We hit some sink just 40 feet above the LZ which took us down hard. Rob was very apologetic about that but to tell you the truth I was numb from the excitement of the whole experience. It was wonderful. I checked my GPS. We were in the air for over an hour and a half. We had at least 2 strong thermals that took us to the inversion layer. I heard Rob tell someone on the ground that we only left 1 deliberately.

There was a new group forming for another run to the launch. This was my chance to fly on my own and I took it. I grabbed some fruit for Gal. I was sure he was hungry. The food we bought at Whole Foods was pretty much disintegrating in the heat of the SUV.

The truck we took up was owned by Mike and Linda Meier the folks who run Wills Wing . It's a great community there. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. They were flying some new test models. It was amazing to see them assemble their gear and take off, with absolute skill.

Gal and I talked and measured the wind (He did have an anemometer). It was still gusting to 18. He said it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground. I admired Gal's patience. I described the experience I had a Baja last time where I failed to launch 3 times and grew very frustrated. I should have done then what Gal did that day. It's stupid to launch just because you don't want to walk down the hill. I tend to forget that paragliding is dangerous.

I don't paraglide because I'm a thrill seeker. I do it because I think it's beautiful. Regrettably, I think that perspective could be just as dangerous as seeking thrills. Both tend to downplay the danger.

Gal's example is one I'll return to. I'm sure it will save my life one day. He said, "What makes you safe isn't your skill in the air, it's your skill on the ground reading the conditions, knowing if you should take off at all."

Flight 92:

After an hour of good conversation the gusts were slowing to 12. I told Gal, "If I can kite I'm going to take off." I inflated my wing and all seemed well. I ran towards the ridge knowing that the compression there could blow me 100 feet in the air, ready to lay off the brakes, but there was nothing there. I eased into my harness and enjoyed the ride.


The ridges at Marshall

The flight plan was to have a fun sled ride. I was going to ride the house thermal down the ridge to where it was very safe. If I found a thermal I'd try it, but I wasn't going to go looking or scrape. Within 5 minutes I was at the LZ. I did the same approach as Rob took and had a simple, gentle landing. A icing finish on a cake of a day.

I saw Rob preparing to leave in his truck. I ran over and thanked him one more time. I can't recommend a tandem with this guy stronger. He doesn't talk much, but everything he says should be committed to memory. He's a great teacher.

Gal finally launched. I watched his quick flight. 4 hours of waiting and a 5 minute sled ride. The lesson here is you should prepare for anything at Marshall.

I offered Gal a great steak dinner at a French place I like in Temecula. He refused to go to a French place. We probably weren't dressed for it as well. Over the phone Gal's wife, Cheryl, googled "steak in Temecula, CA" and came up with a few alternatives including a Brazilian steak place one of my nannies, Andrea, raved about.

We should have known when we approached the address. It was a mall. Not a strip mall, a big-ass, "Spencer Gifts" type mall. Anyway, we were hungry and I could still hear Andrea say how much she wanted to take me and Allison there. It sucked. There was nothing Brazilian about it. It was a Sizzler with tropical decor.

I love Argentine steak, not a Texas steak prepared in an Argentine style, but meat from a cow who lived in Argentina. If you've ever had Argentine steak you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, you may never, unless you visit Buenos Aires. There is a ban on exports of beef from Argentina: click . I don't know much about Brazilian beef, but my curiosity was high. I was more than flatly disappointed.

Avoid – at all costs – the Rodaviva Brazilian Steak House in Temecula. It was the worst meal of our lives. We kept the windows wide open the rest of the ride home to avoid vomiting.

What a shitty day for Gal. All that waiting at the top then a sicking meal at the end. I wished there was something I could do. Suppressing my gag reflex, I was still on could 9.

GalQuest 2006 Begins!

17 flights in one day. Amazing. Here's the story.

My lifelong friend Gal, the guy who got me into paragliding, has come to visit. He only had 1 requirement: I take the full 3 days off to paraglide. No problem. Actually it's a huge problem with work and the kids, but priorities must come first.


Gal pointing out the sights on Black's Beach

We had breakfast in Del Mar. It was cold and foggy this morning. It didn't look like it would be a good day, if I didn't know better. A quick stop at Whole Foods for some lunch and we were off the the gliderport. It was just starting to turn on there.

We met Bill who was happy to see us. I asked about a flight plan. He said to do some more spot landings, this time approaching from well below the ridge.

Flight 74 - 79:

The wind was north so first flight out I headed south and immediately returned for a spot landing. I didn't turn in deep enough when I got lift just over the ridge. It's a bit hard to do that as you move very quickly. That was the biggest issue with all my practice moves. 4 more tries and it got better. It's really just a matter of getting comfortable with what your wing will do.

Flight 80:

There were a few other students on the deck that Bill wanted to give some time to. He asked if I'd head north and just fly for a while. I headed way out north past the golf course towards bath rock. Along the way I started noticing strong lift off of certain ridges. I did some figure-8s to get more lift. I was regularly 500 ft. up. I nailed this landing and popped right back out again.

Flight 81 - 3:

3 quick spot landings, all under Bills guidance. He pretty much shoo-ed me away again.

Flight 84

I headed south this time. This was my first run of the day to the pier. By the time I got back to the LZ I was way over 500. I ran far out over the ocean to lose altitude. What a great feeling. The water was turquoise-blue and clear today.

Flight 85:

I quickly headed back out for another spot landing. This time Bill asked me to start well below the lifeguard station. I rode the ridge without committing to a landing then came right in.

Flight 86:

I flew far north again. Now Bill was taking his hands off a bit, letting me fly and land mostly on my own. I wanted to enter very low as Bill and I had been training. I had to circle a bit to approach the LZ this time, missing it completely the first time. Then I came right in.

Flight 87:

This was pretty much my longest flight of the day. I headed south and found a lot of lift at the ridge before the pier. I just did lazy figure-8s over and over again.


One of the mansions south of Torrey.


Flight 88:

I did a quick run to land again and approach from below the lifeguard station. I pretty much nailed it.

Flight 89:

Gal and I stopped for lunch. I asked Bill if I could set my radio off of the instructor frequency. This was a first. Quickly after launching I saw that my speed bar lines were not right. I came back in to fix them.

Flight 90:

Then Gal and I headed out to bathtub rock. We hit the beach and walked back up. We saw the largest fake tits I've ever seen in my entire life.


Gal over bathtub rock

Flight 91:

My last flight of the day was very long as well. I went south as everyone was cramming into a small place up north. I had the whole ridge to myself there. I started getting a funny feeling that I should get down. I think I was getting a bit light-headed. I needed to come down but I couldn't find my place in the order. Everyone was coming in at once.

Cross Conditions

I bought a Garmin 76csx GPS on the strong recommendation of Gal. I don't really think I need this thing, but as a gizmo it kicks ass, especially when you tie it into Google Maps. More of that later.

The conditions looked ideal at Torrey when I arrived - A little south, but not that bad. I showed Gabe my 76csx which I bought at West Marine. He pretty much assured me that I could not have paid more for the unit. Megan was there and her boyfriend Eric. A paraglding couple. You don't see much of that, though last night I had dinner with a hang gliding couple. I wouldn't dream of getting Allison in to this.

Eric had a very cool t-shirt. It had a picture of a paraglider and the words: Paragliding. It probably won't kill you.

I was excited about my GPS and kept it on and on me the whole day, from West Marine to my flights all the way home.

Flight 71:

I got my gear out and did some kiting. Once my wing was in the air I could see how south the wind was. No one was flying the north ridge which is rare. I launched and got strong immediate lift. I decided to circle around to do a quick landing just to see how difficult the approach and landing would be in these conditions. After leaving the ridge and simply turning around I was up pushing 500. I went over the ocean to burn some of it off. When I turned back a parade of tandems was passing by. I couldn't do my landing approach without cutting someone off so I just got in line and followed the north ridge. By the time I turned I was back up at 500.

I pulled my big ears and came in for an approach. To my great surprise I lost a lot of altitude very fast, so much so that I turned early over the RC mound to land, which isn't permitted (or recommended, I'm not sure). There was a guy there who didn't seem to mind that much.

This was surprising air. I had a lot to learn here.

Flight 72:

On my next flight I headed straight south. I had heard that the best lift was in front of the mansions and that's where most of the pilots were. I could not get the lift on this flight that I just experienced. I turned to get a bit closer to the ridge but remembered all the warnings I got last time flying there not to get so comfortable with so little altitude. In fact, I need to learn a lot more about flying over spines and spires. It's rather obvious that there will be turbulence but the fact of the matter is at Torrey it's not that bad. I started falling into the 300's. There are a few ridges that face due south on the south side and I expected to get my lift there. I kind of said "fuck it" and pulled in the ridge to scrape. There was a lot of turbulence – no full collapses, but I felt unstable. I moved back out.

I noticed some birds flying the ridge which was a good sign, but I was still sinking. Finally I realized I was going to the beach. I lined up for a south landing. No problem. I would much rather land safely on the beach that get stuck on the ridge because of turbulence. The lifeguards rushed over to me in their jeep to see if I was okay. I thought they came to give me a ride. I'm not sure why they were so concerned. Anyway I was perfectly fine. If anything I was playing it way too safe. I bundled up my gear and started the trek back. This is furthest I've ever landed from the trailhead. I wasn't upset at all really. Black's Beach is one of the best nude beaches in the USA packed with UCSD students baring all. Most nude beaches are gay, and this has a lot of gay guys, but to my experience there are more and better looking women on this beach than any I've been on. And I was not disappointed with my walk.

As I approached the paved beach entrance off of La Jolla Farms Rd. One of the paragliders was trying to get my attention and pointing to the road.

He was trying to tell me to go up that road. I started towards the road but I didn't really trust it. I wasn't sure what he was trying to tell me. I found on my return that it was Tad, one of instructors. He said in the future he or anyone who noticed, could land and drive over there to pick me up. If it weren't for the spectacular scenery on my walk back I would have been upset at myself for not going that way.

Flight 73:

I didn't have much time left but I wanted to clear my wing of sand, check my lines and play just a bit more with these cross conditions. I launched and got the lift from my first run. Very cool. I head out over the ocean doing some broad s-turns, turned back and landed. Quick, simple, successful. Nice way to end the day.

I've been working on getting a competition fold going. That's where you pack your wing without disconnecting the harness in such a way that when you return to the ridge you can just unpack and fly. I got a decent fold this time but it was a bit awkward zipping up my bag. When I get this down I'm going to make a video for you.

The Extremes at Torrey

I arrived at Torrey at 10 today, just in case. The wind has been awful lately. There's massive heat wave now in California which has equalized the pressure inland and with the sea, eliminating the wind. Today was different. I had a feeling it would be. Still, I had to wait until 11 to get flying. It was south, but blowing 10-12. I'm certain some gusts were 15+.

Bill asked what I wanted to learn today. The truth was I just wanted to fly. You've got to have a flight plan at Torrey. I told him I wanted to practice a big ears landing. He said, "It's a great day for it." It was.

Flight 66:

I launched and got nice lift right away. By the time I hit the top of the north slope I was at 513 on the vario. I turned out into the ocean, pulled my big ears, lost altitude to 400 and started in. I did a pretty good landing IMHO. I looked at Bill and said, "I'm just going to fly a bit." He said, "Okay!"

Flight 67:



Scripps Pier in La Jolla. The southern extreme at Torrey

I headed south to La Jolla. I've heard that you could fly all the way to the pier at Torrey, but I never had. I was determined to get there. There was tons of lift. I made it past the 1st few dream homes and found a ridge that I never new existed. An apartment building and, lo, the pier. I felt like I could keep going but I didn't want to push it. There may be some restrictions I don't know about. It was fun. Then I turned north.

I was playing a bit with the bowls and spines that jet in and out along the coast. Which provide lift? Is there sink? I passed the LZ and continued north. Some guys were searching for a golf ball off the ridge which I spotted. I informed them it wasn't playable and they all seemed amused.

As I continued along the Torrey Pines Golf Course. It starts to get low as you head to bathtub rock. Whenever I've been this low I've always felt I was going to the beach. I did a few turns by the ridge just to make sure I could get lift. I did.



Bathtub Rock. The northern extreme at Torrey

I really had no concern about going to the beach or hitting any kind of rotors. That's not good it turns out. After returning to LZ a paraglider I had been leapfrogging the whole way north came over to me in desperation and told me he was very concerned for my flying. He said I was going far too deep over the ridge, especially along that far north spine. It was far too close to the ground for his comfort.

My first thought was how well he presented his criticism. It can be done: you can see someone do something you don't like and talk to them about it without insulting. He said his name was Tom. I thanked him for his concern and comments. It did freak me out a bit though. I have to admit I was not concerned at all before he said something.

I check the time; I had been up in the air over an hour. It sure didn't seem like it.

Flight 68:

Before I got ready for my 3rd flight Bill informed me that David was going to instruct. He asked, "What's your flight plan?" I told him I was exploring the extremes of the ridge. He said, "No, that's no good. You'll do some spot landings here then some 360s." Cool.

David is much different in style. I had to do my first landing quickly just to turn down the volume on my radio. He's sure of what he wants and assertive in his instructions.

Flight 69:

I had to wait for the other students to get into position before I could do my moves. I circled the north ridge a bit then it was my turn to do some spirals. As I flew out over the ocean it reminded me of the SIV clinic. I was pretty excited. I wanted to see my wing below me again.

I went into the spiral and didn't quite nail it. I was a bit too slow, too underpowered and I came out of it all wrong. David asked me to come it to talk about it. He said I need a lot more weight shift, "Your leg should be hanging way over the side and you should only be in your seat by a bit of one ass cheek." OK I thought. Also, when you come out of it there's a bit of action on the opposite brake. You kind of evenly bring the brakes back to level. I was ready to try again. Second time was much faster. I lost 300 feet in 2 spirals. I flew back to the ridge and we had a sit down talk.

Flight 70:

David went over a number of things including how a P4 paraglider died 6 weeks ago at Blossom Valley getting locked in a spiral. The way you get out is to brake on both sides. The leading edge actually gets lock below you, you need to slow it down to get out. The bottom line was all about safety: know your limits and stick to them. It's easy to get cavalier about what we do, especially at Torrey were the conditions are so gentle and consistent. Reading about the accident has me a bit freaked out.

Anyway, a few of my friends showed up after David's lecture and I got distracted in conversation. When it was time to go back up the skys were crowded, too crowded to try to get in another spiral. I headed south and just enjoyed the ride. After 30 minutes I came back up to the LZ. I touched down at exactly 4PM, perfect timing.

Falcons at Torrey

The wind was strong and south today. Thunderstorms were even predicted which is very strange for July in Southern CA. I was passing by the gliderport and just dropped in to see what was going on on a day like this. Quite a bit to my surprise.

Robin's son Max was ripping it up in the 15-20 mph winds, but that wasn't the main attraction. A new student at the gliderport is a falconer and brought one of his new birds.



Jim Tigan from the West Coast Falconry Academy told us quite a bit about how these animals are protected in the USA, and some of the ways those laws work against the birds. It was very interesting. He's learning to fly to fly with his birds.

He told us he's an old hang glider who's going to dark side. I told him we're having a lot of fun in the dark.

Here are two more amazing photos:




In other news, I spent the afternoons today and yesterday with my new wing in Mission Bay, kiteboarding of course. Here's a picture of the wing:



There was no way to paraglide today, far too cross. It was nice to be able to kiteboard instead.

Power Zones

There's a nice power zone illustration in my new kite manual:



The interesting thing about the illustration is how there is only power at 45˚ directly overhead. It's not clear why there wouldn't be power at 0˚.

Apron landings and relationships

I arrived early at Torrey today, around 10. Bill and Ki were milling about the office eating breakfast and preparing for the day. Jackie offered cheery Hello. Suzie, the new girl, offered the same. She always very warm and welcoming. The wind was far too light, 4 mph.

I mentioned to Bill that it's been a long time since I had a lecture. I'm certain I've had every lecture they offer but I feel like I need a reminder. He said, "You can always go back and read the book." "RTFM" I said, and we laughed. He put a video on about alpine thermaling which was very good. After that I opened up my laptop and went back to work. There was a noticable wave of warm air, then 15 minutes or so later the wind started to pick up.

I took a break at one point to hang out on the ridge and just admire the ocean. There were 4 whales playing out in the water, just playing. It was beautiful. Robin's son was there doing all kinds of crazy maneuvers in light wind, 4-8 mph. He always seemed to get back up.

The main thing is I'm working on my landings. Bill drilled me all day. I probably had 12 flights, but they were literally launch, turn, land.

I worked on an "apron landing" which is more of a mountain landing. The idea is to turn in and ride the ridge. If you're high, come in deep, if you're low, ride the ridge without committing, then turn in and back to the wind to land. Sounds simple, but it took nearly all day to get it right. I got it towards the end of the day. I got in at least a dozen landings. I was counting on my vario to record everything, but the batteries went dead. I need to some extras. I noticed Antonelle's arrival as i was doing my landings, but for the most part the LZ was empty.


Launch, rinse, repeat.

Towards the end of the day it got light. I was the only one on the ridge for a very long time. At one point Bill told me to stay aware of the airspace. Even though no one is up with you you don't want to get complacent. I went to the far north over the golf course then headed for the beach. I landed near a knockout beautiful nude blonde on the beach. It made me wonder why I'm so reluctant to land on the beach.

My buddy Joe DeBriyn showed up late in the day. He brought my HDV camera back from his SIV clinic. One of the guys on this clinic fell in his canvas and 2 threw their reserves. I can't wait to see these tapes. I'll post them when their up. You can see the video from the last SIV clinic here.

I found a worth reading article with Gabe here.

My friend Gal directed me to a fall into a tree that didn't end well here at ifilm. It's worth a watch. The bottom line is fly within your abilities. It's been a day of multiples: multiple landings and multiple relationships. It's been a great day.

Kiteboarding in San Diego

I haven't always been obsessed with wind. Now I'm unknowingly drawn to it in all it's forms, even in my casual reading.

I picked up "Ruling Your World" by Sakyong Mipham, an excellent (so far) presentation of his meditation experiences and training. He describes the energy of the basic goodness of the world as "lungta", which translates from Tibetan directly as "Windhorse". Having wanted to kiteboard for some time now and finally taking my introductory course I can say that's exact what the kite feels like when you do a power stroke: a Windhorse.

I took my girls to the beach yesterday. It was an ideal southern California beach day: warm, sunny, surfers and boarders of all kinds playing in the open waters. We call Trinity our sea turtle because she is drawn to the water like a baby Olive Ridley. When I went with her into the surf I experienced the beauty of the clear water under my feet, the smell of salt air and the gentle draw of the breaking waves returning to sea. On a board you lose the stability of land. You need to work with the currents and the waves. You can fight it I suppose, but you won't do that long. If you're going to have fun boarding you need to get in sync with the flow of the water.

Similarly, Sakyong Mipham explains how solidity is an illusion in this world, and the primary illusion, the cause of all our experiences and suffering, is the illusion of "me". I may well be obsessed with wind and water, or perhaps I'm obsessed with losing solidity.
Kiteboarding adds another dimension to my love of the elements and especially the wind. On a basic level kiteboarding is water skiing without a boat: you use a kite in the wind in its place. There's enough appeal there to keep my interest. As a teenager I was a water skiing instructor in the Poconos. I loved it. I skied every morning. I had no money of course so getting that experience in took some ingenuity. I worked on a gas dock at the White Beauty View resort on Lake Wallenpaupack most days. We kept a tank on that dock for "extras" sometime just the drip left in the nozzle from the end of filling a tank – that can add up when you're filling tanks all day – sometimes late at night we'd siphon a gallon here and there from boats docked in the slips.

Water skiing is noisy and polluting. Even as a 13-year-old in 1973 I sensed there was something fundamentally wrong with what I was doing. I remember the anger of fishermen as we went whizzing by their boats, 90% of them tanked at the crack of dawn. I felt these issues all resolved today as I got up on a kiteboard for the first time. Let me back up and give the basic information.

I googled for kiteboard instructors in San Diego and came up with a few options. This isn't exactly as easy as you may think. "Kiteboard" brings up a lot of crap in google – it looks more like the result of a myspace search. I narrowed it down to 2 options and sent both an email. Paul Lang of West Coast Kiteboarding reponded. I'm lucky he did. When I showed up at Fiesta Island in Mission Bay, the primary spot for kiteboard training, the other guy was there. I didn't know who was who and drove right up to him and offered a cheery "Hi! I'm Kris." He spotted the West Coast Kiteboarding email on my passenger seat and dismissed me. He was a real dick. When I asked what was up he pointed to a black truck as said, "You're with Paul." My luck.

I signed up for the "New Rider Package" which promises a day of kiting and all the essentials you need to get started. It makes no promises about being able to get up by the end of the day, in fact, it lowers expectations.

Paul was happy to greet me and did so in a relaxed SoCal way then pulled a small whiteboard from the back of his truck. His calm presence was welcoming. Enchanted Cove at Fiesta Island is a beautiful place. Fish were jumping out of the water so frequently it was hard not to be distracted. Paul went right into the basics. Safety, site selection, the fundamentals of the "window". I'll describe a bit of what I learned.

You can only kiteboard when the wind is cross to your shore. When the wind is coming straght in or straight out you're in too much danger. This is perfect as there are many strong days where the wind is cross at Torrey. On those days I'll kiteboard. The lines on the kite are 100 meters (and everything is in meters). The basic rule is never allow anything to get between you and your kite. Too many kiteboarders use too little care and end up hitting people on the beach or obstacles which end up shutting down beaches for kiteboarding.

Some of the best local sites are Belmont Shore and Seal Beach, Enchanted Cove (aka: Stinkies), Sail Bay , Silver Strand State Beach and Tourmaline. Paul has a place in San Quintin, Baja where he says there's 13 miles of kiteable beach. Cool.

The "window" is a quarter of a sphere with all the possible places where the kite can fly. At the zenith of this window the kite has the least pulling power and has maximum pulling directly downwind at the water (or sand if you're practicing on the beach). The manuver that gives you all your moving power, the power stroke, goes like this: You position the kite almost directly overhead at the window edge, turn hard to one side making the kite go straight down, then turn hard the other way so the kite makes a hard U-turn. It may look like a figure-8 as well.

We took our equipment over the ridge to a large sandy area on Fiesta Island and practiced these moves, first with short lines on a small wing, then with full-length lines on a big wing. The wing connects to your body with a harness that looks like something a professional wrestler would wear. The center line that connects to the harness is attached to the upper edges of the kite and the control bar to the lower edges. This enables it to steer much like a paraglider though it's much more crude. You can adjust the wing's angle of attack with the control bar by sliding it forward and back. The line where you slide the line back and forth is called the "chicken loop" as the further forward you hold the bar the weaker the power – you chicken!

After mastering these control skills (it really wasn't that hard at all) we went into the water to body drag.
Body dragging is to kiteboarding what kiting is to paragliding: it's how you develop your kiting skills. You launch on land, take the kite to the window edge, position it over the water, then start doing power strokes. You get pulled right into the water. In the water you maneuver the kite.

Paul brings a little boat to recover you from the other side of the bay. The big deal here is keeping the wing in the air. It's difficult to re-launch from the water. To the way I think about these things the kites need A-risers. Paul mentioned that some wings have a 5th line to aid launching from the water. I'm sure it's in the A-position of a paragliding wing.
After 2 drags I'd made a lot of progress in keeping the wing up and fully powered. A few times I jumped right out of the water like the fish I was admiring when I arrived.

Then it was time to put on the board. A kiteboard is a lot like a wakeboard. It's much easier to get up on these than a water ski which is a quarter of its width. I launched the wing, walked a few feet to the water, sat my ass down and put my feet in the board. Then, a power stroke to the left. Bang – I got right up. Of course, then I went right back down.
I got that experience a few more times. It was really mellow, not at all the kind of thing I'd put to a Rancid soundtrack which is pretty much all you see on TV of kiteboarding. When I mentioned this to Paul he said my wing was a 12m and I really need a 19m or 20m. I suppose the Speedcore soundtrack is coming.

At the end of that run the wind really died. We tried for 20 or so minutes to relaunch. The wing keep collapsing on itself from lack of pressure. Paul said it was time to call it quits. I looked at my watch. It was 5. We were there from 11 to 5. What a day. I had the impression this was a 3-hour gig. My guess is Paul pretty much does what he likes and he made a day of our lesson. I'm grateful.

I really got to know Paul on this lesson. I can't express enough how much he reminds me of my older brother: very calm, patient and with a lot to say.

I'm eyeballing new wings now. You can't rent these things. I like the Cabrinha Crossbow with the seat harness.

One more thing, you might think this sport is for kids. There wasn't one dude under 40 at Fiesta island when I was there. I think it's more about who's got the time and the money. Paul is an editor for Kiteboarder magazine and was proudly handing out a few copies. I was looking at some of the pictures of the kiteboarding women with one of the older guys there who said, "Women that age look my way look my way, but they don't see me!"

Scraping for lift

The week after I praised Torrey for consistency – consistently excellent lift – the wind died.



Savannah and Trinity practicing with my harness on their playset.

I checked conditions at Torrey online all week and saw they sucked. I didn't even bother having lunch there. Friday looked a bit more promising. I wanted to just feel the lines, even if it meant going to the beach.

I said "Hi" to Ivan who said today looked promising. I got my wing up and started playing. I've been getting pretty good and kiting back up the hill,l to the left and right, and pretty much getting whereever I want to be on the hill. At one point I was kiting where the tandems take off. Some dude yelled over to me to get out of the area. I was agitated. He obviously wasn't paying much attention to what I was doing. Without being too much of an asshole I kited out of the area.

I've been thinking a lot lately of how distorted my view of life has become. I like having a clear mind - to see things as they are. I don't like feeling insecure about money or sex or security or (fill in the blank). And, I suppose it goes without saying, I've been feeling insecure lately. My first reaction seems to be blame. I blame my wife for everything, then my friends. I'm in control enough not to say anything out loud, but I act like I'm blaming (because I am). It leads to many uncomfortable situations.

So, big old fat ass starts telling me to move my wing out of the tandem area and I start blaming. Oy! This isn't right. It's a blessing though. Let me tell you why.

My nuts have been twisted in a gordian knot for a week and it didn't occur to me what was going on. Everyone else in the world was wrong: politicians, my wife, the market, you name it – everything but me.

The world is my mirror. When that mirror is dirty that's all I see: the dirt. I don't see my friends, the beauty, the love. Ass monkey with his loud mouth got me thinking about this: "Should go over to this dude and educate him on how to treat me?" Then I thought, "Actually, he's right. I shouldn't kite there." The knot began to unfold.

The world isn't the way I want it to be. I'm not milking all my opportunities, the phone is not ringing off the hook. If I told you the details you would say "What a whiny rich guy." And that's what it is: whining.

It didn't all fall apart at once, but over the rest of the day I began to breathe a bit more deeply, relax. I reintroduced some care and spontaneity into my moments.

Flight 53:

Some stronger winds started coming in and I jumped on this opportunity. I kept one eye on my vario as I approached the end of the north ridge: 480. Not exactly soaring from the LZ at 330, but I can stay up if I like. Two or three more passes and I came in for a landing. I did a south approach and turned late. I hit the ground running: not good. Ivan said I needed to crab in. I knew that but I wanted to get in deeper. Anyway, it wasn't a good landing.

Flight 54:

After the LZ cleared I got back out. Fat ass petty tyrant was launching right in front of me. He had an orange wing. My intuition told me to stay away from him. He went south, I went north.

Again I tried to practice a spot landing. The wind was dying. When I turned to approach on the south again I was at 380. It felt too low. I was hoping for venturi as I approached the ridge, but it didn't materialize. I think the wind was dead. Regardless I didn't feel comfortable so I turned back out to the ocean at what I felt was the last moment.

Heading north my suspicions were confirmed. I was sinking. Ivan said, "Keep your brakes up when you're sinking, and light brakes when you're getting lift. Cool. I liked that. Actually, I liked the fact that I had to scrape. I'm getting much better at judging what the wing can do.

I scraped for almost 15 minutes. At one point I got back up to 380, well above the ridge, but I was at the end of the north ridge. When I was back at the LZ I was below the ridge again.

I had heard that the bowl where the trail leads up on the south side was better for light lift because of the gradual slope. I headed over there and gave it a try. 250, 225, 200, 180 okay, I'm not getting back up there. I turned out again, further south, positioning myself to land right at the trailhead. On this score I did very well, a spot landing indeed about 10 feet from the trailhead.

I enjoyed this hike up. I usually do. They've fixed the trail and it's a much easier hike.

It's all about the moment paragliding, the moment of spontaneity. It doesn't matter if you're para-waiting, soaring, scraping for lift or hiking back up. It's beautiful. The point of paragliding is the moment. There's no particular moment, but there are moments to talk about. Everything about the sport puts you back in the moment.

"There is no point to a song", I heard Todd Park Mohr say in his philosophy podcast. It's just the beat: each moment puts you in the ecstasy of that moment. "The point of a song is not the last note." Similarly, I don't know what's going to happen each time I put my wing in the trunk and head to the LZ. The point certainly is not the landing. The point, if there really is one, is the ecstasy, the aesthetics, the truth and beauty, and the occasional kick in the ass that brings you to your senses.

Everything we need is in the present moment. Why do we look elsewhere? The present moment alone is real. Everything else is a shadow.

Flights 49 - 52

Four flights today: 3 on the top, 1 on the beach.


Ki inspecting my reserve chute.

One of the amazing things about Torrey is the consistency. I dropped by the gliderport for a late lunch with no real intention of flying. I did have an intention of flying, but at Marshall, about an hour and half from where I work. I fought that urge all morning as I payed bills and checked charts.

When you read paragliding blogs of europeans they're always complaining about the conditions: rain, no wind, or great conditions all week, then the weekend is a washout. When you show up at Torrey it's pretty much perfect every day; a little cross perhaps, but no threat of rain and the wind is just perfect.

After my sandwich I couldn't take it. The conditions were just so good I had to pull the wing out of the SUV and go.

I was wondering what my objectives of the day would be. Altitude was definitely one. A lot of people were getting very high. I thought I could do some wingovers as well. When I saw Bill and asked if I could fly he suggested spot landings. Oh yeah, that's right. I'm still a beginner.

That said, spot landings are exactly what I need to work on. I still make some incredibly dumb mistakes coming in for landings, and my first 2 tries where glorious examples. Wind was a bit north so I landed from the south.

Flight 49:

I used my vario today in record mode. I "competition packed" my gear last time with the wing still attached to the harness. I have a fantasy about pulling everything out and just flying one day. It seems like it still takes as much time to check all the lines and get the wing up, which I did. As I was setting up I thought about Gabe's PWAIT check list. It's something I don't normally do at Torrey. I got stuck on the 'P'.

I didn't feel personally good about flying. My intuition wasn't saying anything was dangerous, just that I should go back to work. Work seems so daunting these days. I need to get back my focus. I'm still reconnecting.

With this uncomfortable feeling I went through the weather, air space/alternatives, indicators, terrain on my most familiar of flying sites.

I went north and came right in for a landing from the south. My turns were too abrupt. I came straight in. I needed to crab.

Flight 50:

Next time out I got a lot of air time. The LZ window was full of people taking off and all kinds of contraptions from hang gliders to huge RC devices. One looked a lot like a 747 and kept coming very close to my wing. When I came in I did my best land of the day, pretty much right on the pylons.

Flight 51:

Another quick flight to the north. This time I got a lot of altitude, nothing record breaking, just to about 550. I felt confident enough to keep going north to the golf course. When I returned there was a lot of traffic. I can only imagine what this place is like on the weekend. When I came in for my landing I turned to the wind too quickly. Traveling with the wind you move very quickly and lose a lot of altitude, then you turn and suddenly you're motionless and far to high. This is pretty much the big thing I need to get over. Practice will make perfect.

Flight 52:

There was long wait to the next flight. The wind nearly died, a few folks went to the beach. I didn't mind kiting. I've been having a blast going up and down the hill controlling with the A's and D's. I even simulated a B-line stall. Suddenly Bill flagged me on for a launch. Cool. I took it.

Again I got a lot of altitude. I was feeling pretty good but again had a long wait to get in the LZ due to all the take offs.

Then the air died and the tandem was coming. You have to give way to the tandem. I went from 500 to 375 in 1 pass of the north ridge, and then started coming down wind. I started scraping for altitude. I'm getting better at that. I feel a lot more comfortable with what the wing can do. I survived a lot longer than I expected. Bill was encouraging me to land on the beach but I got 2 more passes before that was necessary.

Finally I came in for my north landing on the beach. It was beautiful down there. I gathered my wing up into my ruck sack and asked the nudies if there was a trail on the north side to the top. There is and it's a lot quicker than the south trail. This was a nice find. It's very direct and steep, but that's fine. I timed the walk up. I started at 3:25 and got to the top at 3:30. What! 5 minutes? That can't be right, but that's what it was.

I'm never going to complain about that climb again.

In fact, it's another 10 minutes or so from the top to the LZ, but it's a nice walk. The sky was full of paragliders again. It was a temporary lull.

I befriended another guy with a Merlin packing up and a woman who's got easystorecreator.com written on her wing. It's a good group of people at Torrey - entrepreneurs, bums, millionaires and students. I love it.

Disconnected

Today was my full day at work after a 3-week vacation in St. John and NYC. I couldn't help but feel remarkably disconnected.

With nothing happening in my startups all that has taken place without my hands on the wheel was, well… nothing at all. I need to reconnect. I started working with my charts, annotating and digging in. However, there's nothing to do just now, too many unknowns, nothing over-bought or over-sold. I dug into kapsize a bit. The code to be written there is staggering. I'm hoping to merge that project with another in SF with some highly-talented programmers. We've got a meeting next week. Still nothing to hold on to, or move forward on.

I felt "in orbit" : close to earth, not really part of it, spinning in circles.

Perfect antidote: head to the gliderport.


Photo of me kiting by Antonelle Zampolli

On arrival I met up with Ivan (pron: EE-van) who remembered me by name which cheered me up right away. I certainly remember him. He's a great pilot and teacher. I also met up with Antonella whom I befriended at the SIV clinic. She introduced me to a new guy named Joe who was leaving for tomorrow's SIV clinic in Lake Chelan, WA. Joe told me he read my blog with some care as he purchased the same equipment as I and was heading to the clinic.

The wind was light – Ivan warned that a flight might be to the beach. It was quite south and shifting. I said I was happy to kite. Ivan joined me for most of my kiting, showing me quite a few new things. He showed me how to grab the D's to drop the wing in an emergency, quite useful. I spent an hour or so just launching - trying to keep the wing perfectly above my head - and kiting back up to the top of the hill.

My wing's starting to show some age. The red is fading. It's a great color and I think I'll stick with it on my next wing, though I'm sure that's at least a year out.

Flight 48:

At one point the cycles started picking up. Ivan encouraged me to take a run and I eagerly accepted the invitation. I was kiting for so long that I didn't do the usual "checking in" with my intuition. As I was running for the ledge I did a quick check. All systems go.

I've had quite a few experiences with my intuition lately that seem to indicate that I'm getting a better read. Nothing ground shaking but worth sharing.

The other day, all of the sudden and for no reason, we couldn't find Trinity, my 3-year-old. She was playing with us as we were unpacking our suitcases. Then after a short time there was no sight or sound of her. I started walking from room to room calling "Trinity!" No response. My wife saw me and the search became a bit more panicked. As I finished looking in the garage I checked in: it's mostly a feeling in my heart. There was nothing wrong.

I went to our neighbor's home to see if she wandered over there and heard my wife calling me back, "I found her!" She was soundly asleep under the sheets in our bed. She crawled up there while we were busy, cuddled up and fell asleep.

I'm not saying that the intuition is a genie or a magic device. It's just that when something's wrong you can usually feel it, or you somehow know it. I seek the advice of my intuition daily and trust it implicitly.

Moving on… I bought a watch with an altimeter: the Suunto x6. I used it for this flight rather than my vario. There's far less information, it's harder to read and doesn't beep, but in general I was glad to have it. It's one less gizmo to worry about before launch. The readings seemed accurate or at least in line with what I know about Torrey. I like it.

The wind was light and lift came in bursts, puffs actually. I noticed a number of crows sitting it out on the ridge and took that as an indication I should probably head back and work on my kiting. When I came in for my landing I turned into the wind a bit late and ended up over compensating as I approached the ground. I kind of did a pendulum drop. It didn't look or feel that great. Lesson: start the turn into the wind earlier and keep it consistent.

Some comments about my blog: this is a beginner's blog. I don't try to be anything other that what I am here. I have found a few blogs by some serious acrobats and competitors and I have to admit I feel a bit embarrassed when I return to my own site. However, at this point in my life, with work, family and other demands I know I can only do so much paragliding. There's a limit. I love it. It's a passion, but I don't think I'll be anything but a part-time warrior. (I say part-time as I never paraglide on weekends. That time is reserved for my girls.)

So unlike Brett Hazlett and few others I've found along the way I won't be cutting too many leading edges. I suspect I'm much like most paragliders though who do this for love but aren't going pro. I hope that I can maintain some degree of interest in this blog expressing my growth as I progress.

One more thing – I suspect tomorrow will actually be my first full day of work. ;-)

Digg at Legoland

Did I ever mention that I'm a digg freak:



So I'm at Legoland today in Carlsbad, my girls both gleefully playing palenontologist when I notice this at the cashier. I couldn't help but photoshop this and post.

Flights 44 to 47

I heard it was going to rain on Thursday – which may very well be the last rain of the season here in southern CA – and decided to head out to Torrey on Tuesday this week. The winds were very light in Del Mar. I didn't think there was enough to fly, but I drove out to Torrey any way just to check in and perhaps attach my speed bar.

When my wife bought my harness for me I had only been taking lessons for a few months. There was no need for a speed bar. It's a great harness: a ki2fly, made by one of the instructors at Torrey, Ki. What could be better than buying a product you can return to the actual designer, not just the reseller.

Another cool thing, I was up since 5:30 this day working my ass off, starting at a computer screen for hours. By 2 o'clock I was fried. I can't think of any better antidote to software development fatigue than getting up in the air.

When I arrived it looked weak, maybe 5 - 8 mph. My friend Daniel was there and some other rogues that I've been noticing around the joint lately. Bill was happy to see me. I stated my pessimism and was met with stares. Then Daniel said, "Look at that guy." Sure enough, there was more than enough lift. Why am I such a pessimist all the sudden?

When I told Ki I had no speed bar he ran out to his car and got one out of his trunk. I asked Bill if he'd help me attach my speed bar before I got going. Of course, as my instructor, Bill walked me thorough all aspects of not only attaching the bar but how to use it an things not to do.

When I got my wing up conditions were no different, light. I didn't want to go to the beach, but nobody seemed to be doing that so I swallowed my pessimism and launched. The air was great, remarkably smooth.

I've been wearing a vario lately. I bought a FlyTec 4020 pro at Gabe's recommendation. It's already helped me quite a bit. First of all it's a kick to know how high you actually are but far more importantly you begin to develop a sense of what's happening with your flight: how much altitude are you losing in turns, when are you in sink, what is your change in altitude when you feel different things, especially turbulance.

Flight 44: Torrey is 330 MSL ( mean sea level ). I adjusted my vario accordingly and took off. Right away I got 30 feet of lift and when I hit the north ridge I plateaued at 400. That was about all I got for the whole day. It wasn't the strength of the wind but it's consistency. It was just plain easy to do everything, calm, peaceful.

I stepped on the speed bar to see what would happen. It turned out I had tied up much too loose. It really didn't have much of an effect pulling down only an inch or so fully out.

As the wind was slightly north I landed from the south and caught up with Bill again to adjust. This time Ivan, an instructor visiting from Italy joined us. He was doing some acro moves out over the ocean when I was gearing up. I told him that he inspired me last time he was here. It was another light day. He was just kiting, but he was ripping the shit out of his wing. Very cool. I never looked at kiting the same again. I pull asymmetric collapses and just dick around with the lines all the time now, often violently, just to see what will happen, all because I saw him kite one day. I thanked him.

Flight 45: Another trip up with the tightened speed bar and gave it another go. Much different this time and I really got a lot of value out of the vario. You could see the slight loss of altitude when I pressed on the bar and just visually I could tell I was going faster. I dicked around a bit, braking for some time then stepping on the bar. I want to bring it in another 2 inches to get the full use out of it.

Flight 46: was just pleasure. There was no one in the sky, no one went to the beach, there was just no one there. I flew this time around the south ridges. There's a double rimmed ridge just to the south that I'd never really played around on. Again, I always had 1 eye on the vario. I didn't lose much altitude when I thought I would, or rotor, but I was starting to get low. With no one at all in the sky I scraped up to the ridge right in front of the LZ and by the time I was on the north side I was well above MSL. On the north side I really got some good lift this time, heading up to, but not quite touching 500. When I came in for my landing I went way out over the ocean to lose some altitude. I did my best to spot some whales, but just saw the clear blue Pacific.

I've noticed that 370 is a good altitude to come in on the south side. I did a nearly perfect pinpoint landing.

Flight 47: was just for fun. I think of the Sons of the Pioneers song sometimes, "One More Ride", when I'm taking my last ride. I suppose there are a dozen others that could take it's place, but that frontier feeling is strong here on the ridges in California. This was just a normal ride, looking around a bit more casually than usual, plenty of crows as partners. I swung south and started my landing approach when something told me, "Stay up."

I've mentioned before how important my intuition is. I never ignore it. Even if the consequences were huge I would never go against it. And, when I tell most people that they tend to think "Safety First." Well, in fact, I would never fly when my intuition told me not to. But, the other side of this is that sometimes that little voice tells you when to rip it up, or just have fun. This was such a time.

I headed back to the north ridge and got some real lift, well above 500 to nearly 600. I dove out over the ocean doing some s-turns, not quite wing-overs. I was just in love and having fun. What a great time.

Finally the watch told me I had to get down if I was going to spend any time with my kids tonight. I pulled in for another south landing and a moment of bliss.

As I made my way up the hill to fold my wing I thanked Bill. He asked me to pull 2 more inches of slack out of the speed bar. Will do.

When I got back home I hooked up my vario to my pc, correction, my daughter's pc. This software/hardware combination is at minimum 10 years old and requires a serial port. I haven't had a serial port on my pc since I ran windows 95. What a piece of crap!

I installed and tried to enter my registration information, failed over and over again. I gave up. When I contacted flytec via email the next day they said to use a dot not a dash as was shown on my authorization card. Like I said, a real piece crap.

This software, and the whole protection model is so old it's laughable. I can't imagine this is as good as it gets. This thing will accept input from a gps and make a pretty map, but that's not on my list yet. When I start doing some XC flying I'll get to that. Perhaps I'll write something for the web that shows your charts in google maps as well. What a joke!

Paragliding in the New York Times

My father-in-law forwarded a clipping of an article about paragliding in the April 28th New York Times: Click and Click. The paper version has some great photos. Online it's just text.

I wonder who does the PR for the Eagle Paragliding School in Santa Barbara?

P2

As I was driving to work this morning I was thinking about my experience in Baja, and how much I wanted to fly: not to go flying but to be in the air. Baja was 2 hours of torture and 15 minutes of ecstasy, more than enough to make it all worth it (obvious comments about sex withheld ).

At about 8:35 my very supportive wife called to ask me to get quarters for our cleaning lady who would be in my office all morning. Hmm, I can't work with the cleaning lady in Del Mar. That apparently was all I needed. I dutifully got $20 worth of quarters for Venusia and, with all my equipment still in the back of the SUV, booked to Torrey. It was just before 9 when I arrived and I spotted 2 pilots in the sky as I approached.

My intentions were very good: I was going to work on my laptop in the dining area of the Torrey cafe using my ev-do connection for the 2 or so hours Venusia was cleaning our condo. When I saw those wings in the sky that went out the window. Bill was instructing. As I walked out on the hill he told me they'd been flying since 8. Amazing. What a morning.

Bill asked me what my goals were: I said landings. There were 2 other guys there that day getting their p2's. He asked me if I had mine. I said no. He said "Why not?" I said, "Because I'm always flying with my friends." He said he needed to see big ears and some s-turns and I was good for a P2.

The reality is I was P2 months ago, but I don't really care about the rating. It doesn't hold back anything I do at Torrey or in San Diego. I'm almost always flying with Gabe. Still, the thought of getting the rating was exciting. Bill asked, "How long will you be here today?" I hesitated and said, "I'll be here until I get my P2."

What does one do when the early morning conditions are near perfect at Torrey: Log 12 or so flights in a few hours. I'm tempted not to list this entry as flights 32 to 44, but that's what it was.

The air at Torrey is remarkably consistent. It comes off of the ocean in a near perfect liftband with very few rotors on top. My last half dozen flights have been at extremely challenging sites - La Salina really kicked my ass – and I wasn't used to how responsive my wing was in light conditions. I took off of that ridge like I had 10 feet of launch space, aggressively pushing to the ledge. Bill politely called it a "bunny hop". OK, I know better than that.

Back in the air above Torrey so early in the morning was a wonderful experience, like the first time you have a massage first thing in the morning (obvious comments about sex withheld ). I noticed some sort of carcass on the the beach. It turned out the be a beached seal. Poor thing. The local fauna was taking care of the remains.

The sea air was fresh and clean. It was very overcast. In San Diego we call that marine layer "May Gray" and "June Gloom" as that's how just about every morning starts for two months. Nothing changes that dark experience quite like getting lift.

I did 2 north landings and 1 south. I performed some spot landings for my P2, pulled my big ears and did some s-turns. I was tempted to do a wing-over, but I withheld.

After 5 flights Bill asked all the students to come in and he showed us how to throw our reserve. Having been through the SIV clinic a lot of the information was redundant, but it was very useful to strap into the simulator and actually pull and throw the reserve.

Then we did some parachute landing falls (PLFs). Having done martial arts for 12 years doing a PLF is really no big deal. It's pretty much the way you always fall: like a wet rag. The major difference is when you roll out you grab control of your wing.

After that Bill signed all my paperwork. I still need to mail in the certification to the ushga. I also had to sign up for p3 training which gives me a right to be on that hill as is my current addiction. I also got a Suunto X6. I wanted to have an altimeter I can get wet for the next tow clinic.

After some lunch I took 6 flights just to get practice. I turned the record button on on my vario - a flytec 4020. The air was getting a bit softer and and one point I had to scrape for lift. I've never recovered from going below the horizon at Torrey. I've always been too fearful of controlling the wing so close to the ridge. Not today. I got right in there. Of course the lift is so consistent here, especially compared to La Salina, I was really able to trust myself and my wing. After just one pass on the ridge I got back over the top and came in for a button-hook landing.

I took another small break to check in with my phone messages. I had been in the air pretty much from 9 to 1. As I sat in the cafe solidly on ground I still felt like I was moving in 3 dimensions. I'm not sure what that experience is called, but it was almost making me sea sick to be on solid ground.

My only obligation of the day now was to pick up my girls from school at 3:30. I got back in my harness and had 5 more flights.

My goals of the day were better landings, and my landings got much better, but it's hard to really say I got 12 flights in. So many other days each single flight was a lot of work. These all seemed so easy. Oh what the hell, there it is. I'll count this as 12.

Baja Solo

I drove down to La Salina, Baja today to meet Gabriel (on his day off) and a few others from Torrey. It's not easy for me to get days off lately so this was a real treat. I left my home at 9 and arrived at the LZ at 11. It's a quick run considering you cross an American border.It started raining as I was passing through Rosarito. My daughter had a dance recital at 5:30 that evening and I knew I was going to have to fight rush hour traffic to get there. If I wasn't even going to fly I had no reservations about going straight back. I called Gabe and asked if I should turn around. He said, "No way dude. It's going to be epic." I've learned not to second guess Gabe. FYI: Verizon doesn't work in Baja: I have t-mobile. Gabe has Cingular so the advice here is to have a GSM phone (t-moble, cingular) if you're heading to Mexico.

After hooking up with the crew at the Baja Seasons Resort and taking on Eric and Megan as passengers we headed to the LZ. It never even occurred to me to go to the top. Gabe said he was waiting for me to follow him off the highway ramp to the launch. The conditions looks so awful I figured I would only have a sled ride, and I was not missing that recital. It turns out I made my passengers hike when they didn't have to. I loaded up my back and hiked up about 400 feet. I consider this a pessimistic move on my part. That's not good form.

I enjoy that hike. It's the only rigorous exercise I get these days. I suppose I shouldn't impose that on others. I should mention that Megan was yet another hot paraglider chick. Interesting that the men/women ratio was about even, again.

When I got to the top Gabe was beginning his PWAITT lecture. We made it to the first T when someone overhead called him out. Someone took a fall. The first T is topography. Gabe was explaining that we shouldn't scrape the rock ledges here for lift as they have a way of sucking you into them. That seem to be exactly what happened to this poor guy.

There was a group of paragliders visiting from San Luis Obisbo. I believe he was with this group. I jumped in the truck with Gabe and booked over to where they said he was down. When we got there he wasn't moving much. Another paraglider was trying to get him out of his harness. Gabe suggested 4 of us just pick him up by the harness and carry him to the truck, which we did. His legs were bloddy, pants all ripped up and he had a huge bloody gash over his eyes.

From the way he was lying I guessed he broke his collar bone. He was unable to move his left shoulder. He couldn't walk either. His knees were bloody and really looked fucked up. We got him into the truck and Gabe took him to the hospital.

Danielle and I walked back to the launch site. She was not eager to fly, especially without Gabe's guidance. I asked Gabe before he took off if I should fly without his advice and he gave a big yes.

Everyone that had launched was really high. The conditions seemed ideal. However, just about everyone had trouble getting their wing stable at launch.

On the walk back with Danielle she said that she had trouble launching recently and after 2 frontal collapses Gabe asked her if the wind was trying to tell her something. Sometimes you should just opt out.

I took my time setting up my wing, getting out some tangles in the lines and then took it up. The wind pulled me straight up in the air and I flipped around from my reverse inflation position. I couldn't check the lines and didn't want to fly without a stable wing and visual check so I pull the brakes and came down. It all happened in a second. The wing landed on the brush and it took me 20 minutes to get all the lines out of the tangled branches.

My second try was much worse: I got the wing up but it was very unstable. I was pulled up and then did a quick brake. This time the wing was stable for a moment. I turned to launch and the wing dove down in front of me, not so much a front collapse as a roter effect. My wing again got stuck in a bush.

Here I thought: is the wind trying to tell me something? Should I call it quits. I had spent almost an hour already trying to launch. I needed to be back at my car by 2 to make it to my daughter's recital that evening and I did not want to hike down that hill. I decided to give it a 3rd go. The wing went up and crashed down again. I was pissed. I manhandled the wing back on to the launch and said, "Fuck it!".

This was the first time I had ever tried to fly without professional instruction and I was eating shit. There was a P2 pilot up there with me having just as much trouble. He gave up after watching me struggle for 20 or so minutes. My internal check was fine: my intuition said fly to the car, however, your intuition is not the full story. Just looking at the conditions and how many others had trouble getting up was enough for my rational mind to say: call it quits.

I tried again: Wing up, out of control, pulled the brakes and this time got pulled along the rocky terrain ripping up my legs and elbows. When I came to a stop the wing was not tangled in any bushes and I was pretty far back from the rotor of the ridge.

Flight 31: I thought, "Can I even kite it here for 30 seconds?" I pulled the wing into some kind of half wall and tugged the A's. The wing went up and stabilized. Wow… I hadn't felt that feeling all day. Then a cycle came and lifted me up. As I came back down I ran for the edge, and then I was airborne.

After all that shit the air was as smooth as it looked. I immediately got strong lift, but I had no time to fly: I had to make my way straight to the car.

I did some big s-turns on my way to the LZ. This should have been a 3 minute sled ride. I was getting so much lift it lasted almost 15 minutes. Thermals were just pumping off of the Baja ground. I wasn't sure if I was loving it or hating it.

Then I relaxed. I took a good look around. The plateau where we launch was a lush green with fields of yellow blossoms. The last time I was here in October everything was bone dry, dusty and brown. It couldn't have been more different.

There were 2 farmers with sombreros and mules walking in a field almost below my feet. I was only 2 hours from suburban America but clearly in another world.

As I began to approach my car I got another strong lift. I was too close to the ground to pull big ears but I almost felt if I didn't I wouldn't get to the ground. I could have turned right then and there to the ridge lift and flown for the rest of the afternoon, only 100 feet from the ground. Amazing.

When I landed I heard Gabe yell, "Good Job!" He was encouraging everyone to come down and have lunch. I told him about my proposed 2 strike rule. He said if he can't launch after 3 tries he bails. I said that if I failed on the 3rd try I was going to try the alternate launch site. He laughed and said, "And reset for 3 more tries?!" I had some huge gashes on my legs and my elbow from the falls I took up top trying to launch. Gage was looking at them and I said, "I think I'm going to stand out a bit at this recital." We laughed.

I learned a lot in that hour of frustration. I was concerned that I was not making the right judgments, especially after seeing that gruesome accident. I never want to be dragged to a Baja hospital. In the end I was thrilled I could have such an awesome ride in conditions I never imagined.

La Salina is an amazing place. I don't have enough experience to say how those thermals work there, but they do, and you've got to fight to get down. I left the LZ at 2 and arrived at Torrey at 4 to clean up my wing. I made it to the recital in Encinitas with time to spare. What a perfect day.

When I come down I’ll be a better pilot

Flight 30: A new day brought enormous anticipation. I’d had 3 tows and was about 300% the pilot I was the morning before.


Teamwork ensures maximum tows.

The morning’s lecture was about stalls and spins. The thought of deliberately stalling your wing is insane. The fact that you’re up in the sky safely flying due to the aerodynamics of a fully inflated canopy is a miracle. To pull the brakes beyond the sustainable angle of attack and force the air out of all those cells will remove the wing from above your head. In fact, the force of the air leaving those cells pushes the wing behind and possibly under you. You fall to earth accelerating at 32 feet per second per second.

The pictures on promotional materials from paragliding vendors make this kind of incident look worse than a point-blank bullet. A full stall causes you to go into a full fall. That was on today’s curriculum.

Gabe spared no details in describing what would happen, including how the wing would return over head and how to re-inflate it.

The main thing here is the feeling: knowing what it feels like to free fall and restore.

As it took so much time to set up my video the day before I decided I had two choices: be the first or last in the tow order. I quickly set up the camera and asked to be the first up. I gained an enormous amount of cred from capturing the previous day’s events on HD video. Everyone was fine with my going first, or there was still some fear.

I had some fear. Fear is a natural part of flying. People don’t fly naturally: we don't have wings. To free fly well requires some physical retraining, reprogramming really. As I stood waiting for Robin to begin the tow I checked in again with all my internal state. There was fear but it was not a “No” signal from within, just plain, natural hesitation at being hauled 4000 feet into the sky.

I had an inspirational thought: I’m not doing this for kicks, I’m doing this to become a better pilot. I’m facing the worst possible scenarios now in a safe environment so when I encounter them on my own I’ll be prepared: When I come down I’ll be a better pilot.

That was the mantra the soothed all my anxieties, I mean, they vanished.

I’ll pulled the tow cord and the top, took my 90˚ turn signaling to Gabe below that I was ready and dug in. We did a few collapses to start out. I ripped the shit out of those A’s getting more than a 50% collapse from left, right and center. Then it was time to stall.

I double wrapped my brake lines and started pulling down, down down. When Gabe said “Push it through!” I locked my arms down in place. It’s hard to stall an Independence Marlin. The wing is designed with vents 2/3rds of the way down that open only on stall which simulates the extra flaps of birds that open as they land.

It’s a beefy wing, but, if you pull on those brakes with an extra wrap and hold it the air will rush out of the front of the wing, through the cells, and you will begin a free fall.

First you feel your head fall back slightly. The wing loses it’s air as it fall behind you so you begin to follow that path. Soon the pressure on the limp canvas pushes the wing back above your head as it tosses like a flag around above your head.

I heard Gabe count “1… 2… 3… 4… 5… Okay, half release. Now full release, arms straight up”. The wing fully inflated on my half release and surged. I didn’t apply any brake as I’ve handled many surges by this point and this looked like all the others. I had survived my first full stall.

Gabe said, “Great job on the first full stall of the day!” I was pumped. Then he said, “Okay, let’s do it again to make sure we weren’t dreaming.” I was dreaming alright, but this was a good dream, better than a twosome with Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson, on acid. I sat up straight and began to push down on the brakes. Down a second time into free fall, counting 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… half-release and then full release.

These wings are amazing. I’ve said it before, the are the ultimate technology of our age. Nothing from Apple or Motorola can come even close.

Then I did a b-line stall. This is the elevator-down maneuver. It's amazing to watch on video as you just go straight down. I pulled on the b's initially and had a tough time. You're literally doing a pull up, and I weigh 210. I redoubled my commitment and gave them a pull. Again I heard Gabe count and then I popped them back up. Another successful maneuver.

Gabe had me do some wing-overs. I’m weak on the left side of my wing-overs. I’ve got to work on that. I did some spirals and came in for a landing. I didn’t want to stop. I was like a kid in the playground. I just wanted to keep playing.

When I landed I gave Gabe a bear hug. I told him about my self-fulfilling prophecy and my mantra: When I come down I will be a better pilot. It’s my new mantra when I face irrational fear. When I face real fear, and I do know the difference, I will not fly. But, 99.9 percent of the time it’s just the jitters, it’s just the crape we face every day that keeps us from truly living. That’s the very issue I came here to face, and I nailed it!

Flight 31 was my 5th tow. I ran through the same routine now looking to build some mastery rather than bare essentials. I can feel the time to shift weight more in my ass than in the view of the edge. Gabe’s instructions are to look at the outer wing, that is when you’re turning right shifting right you’ll look left to watch the top part of the wing as it’s lines begin to go limp; that’s when you weight shift to begin your left. To me it was the feeling of the lines communicated to my ass that gave the signal to begin my next turn. I counted on that for this wing-over and did a much better job.

I thought as I completed this run that’s what I’ll look to next time and see if I can nail this with a progressive, even wing-over.

As it turns out the gusts really picked up. When I got rigged up for tow #6 they were blowing around 15, perhaps gusting to 20. When Robin laid on the throttle I picked straight up in the air, but made not forward movement. My wing collapsed backwards and I fell down about 20 feet, still 10 or so feet in the air. I was going for it. I figured as I got over the lake I’d keep rising, especially with some speed bar. Gabe called it off and asked me to kill it. I landed safely but was a bit confused. Apparently it all looked horrible. After all I’d been through up in the air the actual most dangerous situation that I had been in – close to the ground – felt like nothing at all. I was surprised that Gabe called it off.

We packed up to go do some thermal runs. Towing was out of the question for the rest of the day. It turns out the winds continued to build, well beyond the point of safe flying for any of us. The SIV clinic was over.

8 Rim Road

Back at the home we reviewed that tapes more like returning victors.

I’m a much better pilot than I was 2 days ago. I’ve had many people tell me that nothing is more valuable than attending am SIV clinic, well, it’s true. I’ve grown in many ways. In many ways I’ll never be the same. This was a beautiful growth experience where the rewards far outweighed the risks.