SIV 2007 Part 1

Flight 124

Dan and I drove up to Lake Isabella on Thursday, the first day of the clinic which pretty much locked in the fact that we wouldn’t get a tow. But, there was a chance and I was hoping for the best. We left San Diego at 9AM and arrived at the tow zone (LZ?) at 2PM. That’s not bad time.

When we arrived the wind had come on. The guys got a few tows but not much. We headed to a local bar to talk. We had a chance to meet the other guys at the clinic (yes, it was all men).


The Hut in Kernville.

There where 2 folks from Costa Rica, Mike and Paul who run paraddicted.com. Great acro pilots I was soon to discover. Yvonne from Montenegro who turns out to be an awesome musician. Andrew, Henry, Had and Michael.

I love hanging out with paragliders. Even before anyone says a word you know you’re with a group of people none of whom’s lives are shaped by fear. These are my kind of people. The experiences they share are among the best stories I’ll ever hear.

We were all staying at the Golden Trout in Kernville, a fine place if the owners were friendlier. They had a bbq area with picnic tables out front and seemed to mind quite a bit that we were using it. We were loud, laughing and drinking, but what the hell! We were the only ones staying at the hotel and we’re in the middle of nowhere.

After dinner Gabe gave a talk on what to expect. There’s no way to describe how well Gabriel trains and talks about paragliding. His descriptions are simply the best. He tells where to look, what to do and what you’ll feel. His style is a bit Swiss, accurate, precise, but with the casual feel of a native Californian.

About wingovers he said you need to do at least 2 outs for every up. That is, when you’re doing your wingover your direction is controlled by when you apply brake in the down swing. The later you apply, the more up you get. You can’t get up on every turn. It’s not physically possible. In the beginning he instructed us with left, right, left right. As we get better he’ll say, out, out, out, up.

We all added what we want to get out of the course. I wanted to focus on descent techniques. He asked if I’d ever done super big ears.

Super big ears are just really big big ears. You pull the As on both sides really deep. The advantage of this technique is horizontal movement in addition to vertical descent. When you need to get low you’re typically in suck. If you do a vertical descent with a b-line stall, asymmetric spiral or even full stall you’ll get low but you’ll still be in the strong lift. Super big ears are a way to get out.

I wish I had videotaped that session. Even after partying Gabe gave a clear a lesson as ever and far more informative than any SIV video I’ve ever seen.


Early start, wings laid out.

Friday morning out wings were laid out at 8AM waiting for Robin to tow. I was 4th or 5th up. As promised I did my super big ears. They’re unstable. You keep feeling like you’re going to get a frontal collapse, but I got the feel if I ever need them. Then I just did wingovers. My timing was lousy and I was still chicken to lay into the brakes. I wanted to build up, but without getting any real turn I was just swinging from side to side. This was clear when I watched the video later.


Conditions were developing all day but we had plenty of time to fly. When this cloud imploded things changed dramatically.

Around noon conditions got rough quickly. A gust front came in at shut down the clinic immediately.


This shows a bit more clearly what was going on.