Speed riding in 1935

Not much new under the sun.

As our first winter storm arrives I've been thinking about finally trying speed riding. I found this article from a Popular Science magazine from Feb 1935 which also includes instructions on how to build a home-made car that gets 50 MPG. So much for the auto industry bailout.

My experience with air pollution

It's difficult for me to understand how someone can be an environmentalist and not spend much time in nature. If you care about air and pollution it's likely that you spend a lot of time in the air. Shut-in environmentalists are a strange breed.

Paragliding offers a unique opportunity to experience air and air pollution. You can smell it, feel it and taste it. It's a visceral experience.



Whenever I fly at Marshall in Los Angeles I can't help but think about the legacy of pollution left to us by our parents and grandparents. I understand how it happened. They had the best of intentions. They were developing business so their children would live better lives, just as we do now. But look at how it turned out: toxic, ugly, nothing less than a disgrace.

The launch at Marshall is at least 1,000 feet below the inversion layer, where it pollution tops off and clean air begins. At first you don't think about it, and that makes sense: you're reading conditions, making sure it's safe to fly. But once you get airborne and catch the first thermal up the anticipation can be very strong. It's bumpy at the inversion layer. You definitely know when you're there.

If you're lucky enough to punch through you get another view, the alpine-sweet air over LA. At first you don't notice the smell, just the temperature. It's cold. Sooner or later your thermal tops out and you glide looking for the next ride up. Invariably the time comes when there's no more lift. You sink back into the pollution.

The smog looks like a floor - like you can stand on it. As you descend that illusion disappears. When you pass back into it you can feel it on your skin. It's sticky. You can feel the density. It's disgusting.

The first time I had that experience all I could think is, "I'm not leaving this world as polluted as I found it." Our forefathers may not have known better, but I do.

As our first production machine is assembled I take enormous pride in knowing that I'm not a shut-in, an environmentalist who's all talk. I'm doing something about this. Landfills are indefensible. The 200-ton-per-day facility in Watsonville, CA pumps out over 180,000 tons a year of toxic organic air emissions not to mention methane and the inevitable breach of the water table.

It's amazing that the people that run that city want to continue that pollution. In fact, they don't know what they're doing. They're like our forefathers: doing the best they can for their children and not realizing that they're destroying the environment their children will inherit.

Of course the burden of proof remains on us. Once this machine is validated and there is indisputable proof that dioxins are not detectible from our machine it will be a lot easier to clean up the planet. That time is only weeks away. Very exciting.

I wish I could take everyone paragliding so they might increase their appreciation of clean air. This is not a scientific argument to be made before the Board of Supervisors. This is the source of my passion: Leave the planet better than you found it.

Vancouver :: Bridal Falls

This is the beginning of something good.



Gabriel high in Vancouver


One of the great things about having a business partner that paraglides is that you can plan business trips to places you'd like to fly, and call it work. We scheduled a meeting with a major investment partner in Vancouver, British Columbia for a Monday and as luck would have it the only good flights came in on Saturday.

Saturday night we caroused the Granville and Yaletown sections of Vancouver. In the summertime Vancouverites really like to get out. It stays light until 10PM. That helps. Canadians in general look very wholesome and well-intended. That's not to stereo type, although it is. I don't know what to say, they just are very rosy-cheeked. That's why we were shocked to see swat teams coming into the swank nightclubs of Yaletown looking for gangs. Where I'm from they are generally known by their colors. In Vancouver it's Prada vs. Armani.

We stumbled by an old, bearded panhandler on the way back to our hotel. He started offering free tourism advice. We asked him if he knew where the best paragliding was in BC. Without hesitation he said, "Chilliwack, Bridal Falls". OK. That took us a bit aback. I offered him the loonies I had in my pocket and we looked it up as soon as we got back to our room. It looked pretty good.

In the morning we made a few more calls and found the LZ. An hour later we met Tom of Deimos Paragliding http://www.deimospg.com offering a trip up the the launch point. There were some really good people with him. Great folks all.

The first was a sled ride. I don't have a lot of mountain experience so that was just fine with me. There weren't many bumps on the way down. It was an uneventful ride in some gorgeous scenery. The LZ was a little tricky. It's at the end of a golf course where some trees offer a huge wind shadow.

The second flight had much more promise. As we brought our gear up to the launch the sun was starting to break out in patches. Gabriel turned on his vario as it beeps as the pressure drops, even when you're waiting to launch. That's good to know.

Finally with the sun breaking out it looked good to go and I wanted to be first. I got a ton of big air on this flight. There were a few genuine thermals but it was mostly the house ridge lift that kept pushing me up. My wing was pretty stable. I'm used to flying Torrey where there are very few surprises. This was actually the first time I flew over tree tops. It was fun. I played it safe.

1 by 1 I watched everyone launch. It was fun to be out there generally above the rest. The best altitude I got was 3K. I got a call from Tom that it was getting gusty. Better come down. I called in to verify that he wanted us down. He did. Who am I to argue.

I did some wingovers and asymmetrics to lose some altitude, but when I looked at my vario I was still where I started. I was thinking there might be a late afternoon glass off going on. I pulled my As and did some big ears and some nice gentle turns. It was a nice slow ride down.



Gabriel with Vancouver haught cuisine


When I hit the LZ I let off on my big ears and actually everything felt quite calm. However, the trees off to the side were really waving. I didn't trust what I was feeling so rather than try to hit the LZ dead on I drifted into the golf course. When I hit the ground there was nothing. I was right in that wind shadow. I should have stuck with what I felt and saw. I could have landed in the LZ. I wasn't thinking straight. I learned there to just trust my pilot instincts and accept other input as guidance.

Beach landing

Flight 162 - 5

After a tough morning at work I still had an tower of work to do all afternoon. Raising money for a startup is hard. Getting sales on a product that doesn't yet exist is not easier. In the past I would just head to Torrey in the afternoon on a day like this, but now of course my partner runs the gliderport: no more playing hookie.

Following the final call of the morning I sat down to work and decided I just couldn't do it. I asked Gabe what he thought of my blowing off the rest of the day and he of course said it was a good idea.

I brought both of my harnesses and wings. It's been a long time since I've flown the ki2fly harness. We're heading to Italy in a few weeks and I'd prefer to bring my acro harness as it's much lighter. It will be a lot easier to lug around. My goal of the day was to fly both harnesses, both wings and decide which I'd prefer to bring on the trip. I was biased towards the dragon3 and acro harness, but open to what I'd experience.

Before I launched a lot of pilots were complaining that conditions were a lot worse than they looked. Steve said, "Don't believe the flags!"

I kited for 15 minutes or so and then launched. I thought conditions were great. I took some flights up and down the ridge, landed, and put the old harness on.

Sitting in the ki2fly harness felt like sitting in a bucket. There's a lot more material in the harness, perhaps twice as much. That said, it did feel much more stable. I did some wingovers over the north side of the golf course. I really had to lean into these, that is to say the acro is much more weight shifty.

The other very obvious feature is the speed bar. That's missing on the acro. Most acro harnesses don't have pulleys for a speed bar. Flying Torrey you don't really need one. You just pull it now and then to see what it does to the wing. I did that, back and forth, into the ever more north wind.

I came back and got back in the acro. The bottom line is the acro is lighter and will be easier to transport. It's not likely that I'll be disappointed by missing out an epic cross-country flight because I didn't have my speed bar. Gabriel said he has some handles I can put directly on the lines.

My last flight the wind turned very north. I scraped for a while before surrendering to the notion that I was going to land on the beach. The lifeguards have been really hard on beach landings lately. Lucky for me I landed directly in front of their truck.

They marched right over and accused me of making a voluntary landing. I politely told them I would not have launched if I had known I was going to land on the beach. They took my name and number without checking my ID. Next time I'll make something up.


Getting very lucky with a beach landing.

I can't believe I didn't notice the women I landed next to on the beach. I'm so used to seeing wrinkly old gay men on the beach I never assume I'll be treated to eye candy. Just as I started folding my wing a 19-year-old or so statuesque brunette walked by with nothing but a thong. My jaw hit the sand.

I snapped a quick photo that I think preserved their anonymity. Suffice it to say I didn't hurry to pack my wing. It was the best beach landing I've had in a long time. Oh yeah, except for the life guards.

Flight 161

I reserve my weekends for my family, which used to mean I'd do all my paragliding during the week. With all the heavy lifting I've been doing to get adaptiveARC off of the ground I haven't had many chances to fly.

I had a great weekend with my girls: we played in the pool, played games, drew, wrote music with friends. It's about as good as it gets. As the day was winding down yesterday I checked the conditions at Torrey: straight in 12-14. It was about 4. I asked my wife if she'd miss me if I ran down for a flight. That's just what I did.



Scripps pier easily in glide range

With no traffic it's a 20 minute drive to the gliderport. I parked, pulled out my wing, laid it out and ran for the cliff. The next hour was heavenly. There were many wings in the sky but tons of lift. I used to loath flying on weekends because it was too crowded. With conditions like this it really doesn't matter.

I got tons of lift off of the south ridge. I came in and out a dozen times doing my half-assed wingovers and coming back in. There were a lot of late-day thermals. You could really feel the heat coming off of the beach. Alternately you'd feel the cold ocean air.

I had more than enough altitude to do a run directly over the Scripps pier, but I didn't want to chance it. I was having a perfect run. I was here to enjoy myself and walking a few miles back to my car would not fall in that category, not today anyway.

I started feeling the wind die down. I had to scrape to get back up on the north ridge. If it weren't for those strong late-day thermals I would have had to land on the beach. There were already 3 or so wings down there. I came into the LZ and folding my wing.

I spent an hour or so adjusting my harness. Not that I needed all that time. A family came by and I let all the kids sit in my harness on the trainer. They were having a blast. I was so happy to be off the clock.



A full view looking north of the Torrey ridge.

This weekend I'm heading to Hawaii. I my fly both Maui and Oahu if I'm lucky.

Where's the ground?

It's been rare for me to fly these days. At most I'm getting 1 day every two weeks. I'm pretty much head down getting adatptiveARC off the ground. I've probably only flown a dozen days since the beginning of the year. Considering that most days are flyable here that's not much.

I did get up in the air over Torrey last Thursday. I'm going to call that flight 160. Because it's been so long I took off and stayed up. I didn't want to come down.

It was an exceptional day in many ways not the least of which was that I was getting thermals off of the beach in front of the golf course. I have flet a bump in the past but these were real thermals. You can't really circle them up. They weren't big enough. But you could crab out in to the wind and get some great lift. I hit 700 at one run.

When it was time to land it was near sunset. There was a weird optical illusion as I landed: I couldn't tell where the ground was.

I was over the grass, I kept thinking, "My feet should be touching", but they couldn't touch. It was a strange depth perception problem. Gabriel later told me it has to do with the setting sun, it can throw off your depth perception.

After a few seconds of not knowing what was going on I just full stalled and fell about 3 feet. No big deal. I just wanted to land.

Great flight though.

At first I thought it was some kind of mental state from being airborne for so long. After Gabriel's comment I'm sure it was just the light. I've never flown there that late before.

Wolves guarding the chickens

I oppose the appointment of Bob Kuczewski to the Torrey Pines Advisory Board.