Flights 140-3

This is a perfect day: 10AM conference call with my partners at the gliderport nailing down some specifics of a technology that, when commercialized, will save the world. A few hours writing specs to a illustrator who’ll be building our collateral. Another hour of working on the pro-forma and conditions got good for flying.


From astocker.com.

I took my wing out. It was very north again. I opened it up, worked out some kinks in the lines and put it back down. The wind died down. Back out with the spreadsheet.

Within an hour conditions were good again. A number of wings had taken off including Gabriel with a news reporter.

Flight 141

My first flight was brief. I was trying to do wingovers in the background as the cameras were fixed on Gabe and the news babe.

Flight 142

I got some nice lift and really tryed to lay into my wingovers. Wingovers are a lot like swinging a swingset in the sky, except, you never move backwards. That is, when you swing on a swing set you move back and forth. In wingovers you swing forward and turn right, swing forward and turn left, etc. I’m not sure why I never noticed this before today. There’s very little chance of falling in the wing which I suppose is the big fear. I came down to adjust my harness.

Flight 143

This was a long one. I headed south towards the mansions. There was plenty of lift at the last ridge before the pier. There’s a large apartment complex there which usually I’m eye-to-window with. This time I was well above it. I considered taking a run all the way to the pier for a moment, then decided I better test the north winds for the ride back first. That’s a long walk.
As I headed north past the mansions I started to sink. It seems no matter what I did I was going down. I passed the rhino horn and hoped for a recovery in front of the LZ. I just kept going down. I scraped as close as I’d ever scraped at Torrey.

Nothing.

Scraping that close to the ridge the little thermal bubbles that pop off were more in control of my wing than the liftband. I spotted some nudies on the beach and decided to land so that my wing and lines were as far from them as I could navigate.

Down I came.

Considering the strong lift I had experienced at the pier I never imagined I’d end up on the beach. Within a minute Dan spotted me on the sand. He yelled, “I’ll be right there!” I wouldn’t have asked him to come land on the beach but within 5 minutes he did some wingovers down to a nearly perfect landing to hand me a bottle of water. Amazing.

It was pure camaraderie. Dan came down to be with me. It’s no fun to walk up that hill. It’s much more fun to have a friend and share the experience. That was nice.

We drank some water and started the hike up talking about work, women, life and love.

By the time we were back on top it was late. I had to buzz out to pick my daughter up from French class. No loss. The wind had died down very low and was more north than ever. A perfect day though, through and through.

Dragon3 tests

Flights 136-9

It was another mild day at the gliderport; flyable but intermittent.


Mine's red.

That's fine. I think the success or failure of adaptiveNRG is going to depend in some part on bad weather.

Gabriel suggested a bunch of runs down the hill without launching to get the feel for the stall point on my dragon3. It was a good day for that, very north. I gave it a few runs down the hill looking for a launch. There was really only one run where I felt the wing stall.

The dragon is much more responsive than my merlin. It needs less brake to get the same effect. The effect of weight shift seems to be about the same, but there's a chance I'm already forgetting what the merlin feels like. After a while Arman came over to me and asked if I knew I was facing the wrong way when my wing was collapsing. I said yes, that I was playing with the wing and not really concerned about that. In fact I should have been. He was right and I think I wasn't so much feeling out my new wing as fighting it.

Flight 136

Armin said, "You'll learn more just flying." Just then the conditions were great. As I launched he pushed my harness to help. No one's ever done that before. That was fun.


Armin.

I just want to play with this thing, the dragon3 that is. I got some altitude and did some wingovers. Of course now I'm watching the horizon and the outer wing. I wasn't pushing it too far as I don't really know this wing yet. In fact, I'm not sure how far I would have pushed the merlin. Still, I got a few good ones in.

I landed just as the wind died down.

Flight 137

I got my laptop out and intended to work on my proforma. Within a few minutes the wind was back so I launched. This time I went up the north ridge to bathtub rock. It was very intermittent. On one pass I was over 500 feet. The next I was afraid of walking back on the beach.

One thing I did learn doing my LZ dry runs was that this wing needs very little brake input, far less than the merlin. In the air it's not as apparent. I laid off of the brakes quite a bit, just hanging pressure. I'm getting more comfy.

Flight 138-9

137 was an unintentionally long flight. I was out there for over an hour. After landing I realized I needed more practice landing. I came in quickly and went back out. One my next landing the wind just died. Fair enough. I had a great day and really learned a lot about this wing.

One of the things I love about Torrey is how gentle and consistent it feels when you land. It's pretty much the safest LZ you can imagine. That's only a problem when you go somewhere else and are not ready for a tough landing. It seems like you can do just about anything there.

Carlos Marquez takes a flight

Mexico's top mariachi singer Carlos Marquez came by for a flight at Torrey last week after his performance at Mariachi USA.


My business partner Dan, left, and Carlos Marquez, right.

As he was landing he was bellowing "Cielito Lindo". It was a beautiful sound and I'm sure they heard it in La Jolla.

Correction on wingovers

Gabriel read my last entry and makes a correction: When doing wingovers look at the horizon and outside wing.

Independence Dragon3

Flight 128 - 135

The weather at Torrey finally was good enough to fly today. This is the first day where I’ve been able to fly since the clinic.


I've got a new wing.

It took me nearly an hour to work out the tangles and straighten out the lines on my Merlin. Something just didn’t feel right. I kited for a while. At one point Dan was encouraging me to launch. I told him something just didn’t feel right to me, but Dan was insisting that conditions were perfect. Fair enough, but my personal conditions weren’t up to snuff yet.

I’ve heard many times from David and Gabriel that when you don’t feel good inside, when something tells you not to fly, don’t. Dan was applying full steam peer pressure. I’m not sure why. I told him to back off. I didn’t feel right. It’s funny how hard that is for some people to do.

Flight 128 - 131

Finally after adjusting my harness things did start to feel right, so I launched. The conditions were very north, WNW about 300˚. But, the wind was great, 12-14 mph. There was plenty of lift but maneuvering around was a bit challenging with so much north speed.

I landed and took off twice just getting readjusted to my wing. Something still didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a safety issue. I just did like the way my wing felt. Dan has the exact same wing as me, an Independence Merlin, same color too, but his is a medium whereas mine is large.

When I did my sat and wingovers at the SIV clinic I was using his wing. I felt like I had much more control in that wing. I’m sure there’s a better way to phrase it, but I felt like there was less chance of the lines going slack. I could take a wrap, turn, get out and up over the wing and not feel like I was going to throw myself in it. Since that flight I’ve thought I needed a smaller wing, but that would be a safety issue.

When I came down from my 3rd flight Gabriel arrived. While we were flying he was busy making phone calls for adaptiveNRG. He landed our first meeting with a landfill. Awesome. I complained a bit about my wing. Dan mentioned that you should have a safety check on your wing once a year. I’ve never had one and I’m in my 2nd year with this Merlin. I told Gabe, “I think I’m just going to buy the first Dragon I fly anyway.” He jumped up with enthusiasm.

When he came back he delivered my new wing. An Independence Dragon3
Large of course. My plan was to fly until 3PM and start working on adaptiveNRG’s proforma. This new wing completely threw that plan out the window.

The wing was already used once, I think by Henry at Owens so I didn’t exactly get that “new car” experience of unpacking a fresh wing. But it only used once and clearly new. I kind of liked seeing the bits of Owens sage in the lines.

I inflated the wing for the first time and immediately felt a difference, much more lift. That’s interesting because the wing is physically smaller.

It was Gabriel’s day off. He had a wing out and was doing all kinds of crazy manuvers out in the window. It was inspiring. Watching Gabriel fly is watching and expression of pure joy.

Flight 132 - 135

I took my new wing the edge and launched. There’s a lot more control and the wing moves much more dynamically than the Merlin. I got a lot of lift early and went over the ocean to do some wingovers. I immediately felt the control that I had with Dan’s wing, but this wing was built for my weight. I felt much more buoyant. This was awesome.

I noticed that my speed bar was not attached so I came in to land to attach it. This was interesting. The Dragon is faster and a bit more difficult to land. Gabriel said I’d adjust to it.

When you’re doing wingovers you need to look at your wing. I think that’s the trick. Because this wing is new I just want to keep looking at it. When I was doing my wingovers I just kept looking at the wing as the horizon came up to meet it, and they were much better. I don’t actually think it was the wing that made the wingovers better, I think it was the fact that my eyes were in the right place.

I put on full speed bar to fight the north wind heading to the golf course. I played for a while in the ravines there and came back to the north ridge for altitude. Then I pulled big ears and did some spirals.

The bottom line is everything about the wing is more dynamic. I am glad I waited before buying the wing. I don’t think I would even know what I was getting before. I came in for a few landings. This is still the tricky part. On those last landings I noticed that not only was the wing faster, but it was slower as well. It reacts much differently than the Merlin. I’m in love with this thing.

On my drive home I had to call Gabe. Somewhere in Encinitas on the 5 I noticed I was coming down from a high.

Paragliding is Better for Business than Golf

I've never really cared for golf.

I can do it, walk through the 18 holes with only a few snowmen. But, I've never experienced what people always say about golf: that it's good for business.



The people you'll meet paragliding.

I've never met anyone golfing who didn't want to sell me something, usually real estate or some kind of investment. On the contrary, paragliding has introduced me to dozens of entrepreneurs, people with money to invest or people who are just plain doing something interesting in business.

The woman you see above here was a buffet decoration at a party I attended last night in Ranch Sante Fe. The owner of the mansion is a biotech entrepreneur who works with plasma DNA. When we met I told him about my new arc-plasma business and we shared polite nods. When I asked him if he'd like a tandem flight suddenly he took an interest.

I'm am nearly 100% certain that if I had asked him if he wanted to golf that would have been the end of the conversation. Instead, I've got access now to his personal secretary.

That's been my consistent response when I talk paragliding with people in business. It's intriguing. It's access to another world. You know the person you're talking to is seriously engaged with life.

In short: paragliding is better for business than golf.