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.

Who's that guy on the radio?

The #1 question I've gotten since posting these SIV videos is who's that guy talking? Also: How is he talking to you?

That guy is Gabriel Jebb and he's easily the best paragliding instructor I've ever met, especially at SIV and acro. If you've seen Performance Flying, Instability or Broken Toe you've seen some good video, but the instructors are average communicators at best. Gabe really teaches. He describes how it feels when you're gaining momentum, when to pull, weight shift and all the other little things that happen when you're really up there.


Click to watch the video.

You can tell he's Swiss: he's methodical, patient and follows a clear unbroken line of thinking. But he's Californian too. He know's that not just getting it but making it cool is what we're trying to do. Sometimes cool's enough too. He gets those in as well.

With all due respect to those other guys, Gabe's simply the best. If you watch Instability 2 when they show how to get out of a spin it's clear they're practicing strong pitch control and laying off of the brakes when the wing's in front. But, all they actually say is "Lay off of the brakes". I remember watching that video for the first time thinking, "This video should be called 'Lay Off of the Brakes'! There must be more to active piloting than that."

That's what Gabe gets into. Everything else that you know is there that no one's talking about.

I love the video on Broken Toe. Owning that video's a must. But, the instruction is almost hard to listen to. He doesn't so much teach as do a free-association rambling about what to expect. There are no details, no finesse.

I don't want to take anything away from these other guys. I'm thankful they're there and have put out videos. All I'm saying is if you're a paraglider you need to take a clinic with Gabe while he's still teaching.

Robin too.

This guy manning the boat is exactly the guy you want to see after you end up in the drink. He's driving a half-empty man-made lake with 40-year-old tree trunks popping up everywhere as if he could see from our 1000+ foot perspective. He arrived when I threw my reserve within seconds and pulled my 210 lb. ass out of the water like I was a wet nurf ball. Amazing. Robin is reason enough to go to these clinics.

He knows his shit too. He's the king of "outside brake". Everytime I've messed up a move in the sky he's right there saying, "You need more outside brake." He's said it so many times now that it's become a reflex for me. And, when I mess up a move one of the first things I think is "Did I forget about the outside brake?"

Paraddicted!

The Costa Ricans from paraddicted.com kick ass!



The paraddicted.com guys: Paul and Mike.

I could write volumes here, but the videos say it all: click.

More SIV: Ivan Performs

Under the openly hostile oppression of the Golden Trout management we managed to have a pretty good time eating, drinking and singing the night away. Here's a clip from Ivan who performed so well I was reluctant to even pick up the guitar at the risk of being compared.


Click to watch the video.

This is what it's like to be at a Torrey SIV clinic: wet wings, cool people.

When I showed these videos to my wife she said, "Californian's are so sterile." It's immediately obvious how much heart and soul this Montenegrin has. We are sterile here in CA. We keep our personal distance. But, we love extreme sports, and thankfully that connects us with a lot of guys like Yvonne.


Radical maneuvers, wet wings, cool people.

SIV 2007 Part 2

Flight 125 - 7

Day 3 here was different. We had all had at least 1 tow and all wanted to go big.

First tow up was a bit cold. I did some wingovers, asymmetric spirals and landed right were I need to be for the next tow.

All I really wanted to do was wingovers. I just want to get that feeling, the timing. I was still beating myself up from not going bigger the day before. I wanted to get up high and go big. Just before launch Gabe came up to me and said he wanted to see a full stall and spin in order to prepare to do a SAT. OK, I’m cool with that. Gabe knows where I’m at and what I need.

On each tow up I ask for a blessing. It’s beautiful at Lake Isabella. The tow up is a great time to just enjoy the natural beauty. I had no idea what I had coming.


Click to watch the video.

Once off the tow I pulled a full stall. I’m not sure why but I let off early. Strange. Full stalls are hard to hold. You really need to lock your arms.

Then Gabe asked for the spin. He said to let off when the wing was in front of me. Part of holding a spin is that the wing will oscillate in front and behind you. I for some reason heard him say to let off as the wing was coming to the front, which is in fact the absolute worst time to let off. The result was a fall that resulted in a cravat. As if that was not enough, Gabe’s radio went out after I fell into the cravat.

I have seen enough cravats to know that you can get out. I decided to pull a full stall, but to no effect. The brakes were stuck or they were all the way out already. My vision got very narrow at this point. I was focused nearly exclusively on the part of the wing that had power. I’m not sure why but I wasn’t looking around.

The biggest lesson I’m taking away from this fall is when things go wrong look around, see what’s available to make your recovery.

I knew I had already spiraled more than 3 times. Gabe always says to throw the reserve after the 3rd spiral. I reached around for the reserve. The handle was not immediately where I expected it. I rarely check for the reserve. I’m going to start doing that.

When I threw the reserve it didn’t open immediately. I notice the little bag it sits in just resting on my lines. This wasn’t good. I started drawing in the paraglider wing to get it out of the way. In retrospect this too was a mistake. I should tugged on the line to the reserve. It just didn’t occur to me. I just figured if I got the big wing out of the way the little one would open. It turns out I was right, but that was the wrong way to approach it.

With both wings open now I was safely descending to the water. I looked down and saw that the only tree in the whole area where we were practicing was just off to the side below me. I continued to pull in the big wing because if I could go straight down I knew I would miss it.

When I hit the water I struggled to get out of my harness. The foam from the harness makes it hard to keep your head up out of water. Robin was there in seconds. He picked me straight up into the boat. Amazing considering I weight 210 dry, and I was very wet and wearing huge boots.

I never panicked throughout this whole experience. I wasn’t always sure what to do, but I calmly performed my training. That’s awesome as well. Gabe has me well trained, and it all paid off.

On land the whole crew gave me a big cheer and a hero’s welcome. That’s really great when you’re coming in from a disaster. Danielle said, “I told you to go big and you really went big!” Arman told me later the cravat spiral I was in is the number one reason paragliders die. What a great experience! This is exactly what I took the SIV for. This was a chance to safely get out of the number 1 disaster I could get into. Awesome.

Dan offered his gear for another flight. I have to admit this one was difficult. On the one hand I wanted to get back on the horse. But, on the other my mind was clearly not on my abilities. I was scared. Was it real of fake fear?

Dan and I laid his wing out. I got in the harness and needed to make some big adjustments. I got it back on, looked at him and said, “I don’t want to go.” I took everything off. By the time Robin had come back to get me I changed my mind. That wasn’t real fear. It was natural to be reluctant to get back up there after taking a big fall. But, a great flight would be very healing.

As I went back up I asked for my blessing. As I released the tow Gabriel walked me through 2 awesome SATs, then some wingovers. I didn’t feel the joy until I hit the ground. What a rebound! Perfect. Just what I needed.

I’m still burning off the adrenaline days later as I write this. All I have to say is if you paraglide you need to take a safety clinic at least once a year. And at the clinic you need to push it. You need to get where you’ll be in trouble with the way you fly.

I’m 2 for 2 as far as going into the drink on these clinics. The last time I couldn’t make it back to shore. This time I lost my virginity: I threw my reserve for the first time. Thank God I did this over water rather than land, and under Gabe’s eye.


Click to watch my third tow with SATs.

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.

5+ miles with tweaking

Flights: 120-3

I got 3 flights in on Wednesday. We’ve been working in the mornings and evenings and taking a break when the conditions are great for flying.

The air was big early on. I made it a point to fly to the Scripps Pier and then all the way to bathtub rock. That’s the extent of the easy flying at Torrey, nearly 5 miles.

I wanted to try a few wingovers to see where my abilities were before the SIV clinic, but I didn’t have enough altitude for any comfort. I was pretty pussy about that. That’s why I need that clinic. It doesn’t hurt that all these clinics are now business trips for me.

2 more flights without much to add. I’m landing deeper now at Torrey and looking to get out of my gear just before I land.

The Point

Flights 118-9

I’m flying a lot more at Torrey now that Gabriel and I have partnered on a new business. It’s a bit dangerous to form a company with a fellow paraglider. Only bad weather will help us survive.

The company is called Adaptive Energy and Waste. We’re commercializing a green technology called arc-plasma gasification. Our intention is to clean-up the landfills of the world and create cleaner electricity. Stay tuned.

I took 2 flights Tuesday. I’ve been looking to get up from lower at Torrey, that is, I’m not afraid to land on the beach for the sake of scraping back up. It was big early on in the day. Dan Danielle and I got our radios on a non-teaching frequency and headed out. Danielle wanted to go to the point. By the point I thought she meant bathtub rock which comes to a point. We were talking about 2 different areas about a half mile apart.


Danielle and I were talking about places that were a half mile apart.

It’s great to fly around with friends on the radio. It’s required in cross-country. At Torrey it's just fun. On our first run out to bathtub rock I had a lot of altitude, about 450 MSL. I flew over bathtub rock for the first time ever which was a thrill. I was losing a lot of altitude. I looked at my vario and saw 250 and falling. I was over some deep crevasses and feeling very uncomfortable about landing on the beach. It’s illegal to land on the beach at Torrey Pines State Park and I understand they’re eager to get right out there and give you a ticket. I looked back at the rock and estimated I could make it back with glide ratio, so I turned.

I just made it over the rock and looked for ridge lift. All was fine until I crossed over a small plateau in front of the ridge. For a moment I thought I’d get more lift on the front of the plateau but then figured that couldn’t be right and turned inside towards the larger ridge. I immediately hit sink. Apparently the first ridge creates at least enough ridge to cause sink on the other side. I landed safely and started packing up my ridge. I was so far from the LZ that for a moment I considered climbing up to the top of the ridge and relaunching.

Just then Danielle flew over me. I radioed up, “You’re ass looks fine from 200 feet!” Then I asked, “Do you see a trail up to the top here? I want to relaunch.” Gabriel, my instructor and Danielle’s man radioed in, “Stop getting fresh with my girl!” Before I had a chance to make a snappy comeback Danielle radioed, “There’s a trail in this south crevasse, but you’ll have to walk a bit for a launchable spot.”

Well that’s about the worst thing Gabriel could possibly hear: a student getting fresh with his girlfriend and her finding a place in the golf course from him to relaunch!

I had to laugh.

It was a long ass walk back, about a mile not to mention the 350 foot climb, and the wind was howling. I forgot how many naked men there were on that beach. A few asked me how I got beached with all that wind. It was only mildly humiliating.

I had some lunch courtesy of Dan and went out for a second flight. The wind died down quite a bit but I got a lot of lift on a small ravine by the golf course. I did s-turns over that ravine for a half hour. It was a lot of fun to find the lift and try to just keep in it.

ki2fly doggy-style

I caught Ki walking around with this the other day.


I'm not sure if this is a real product.

2 Quick Flights

Flights 116-7

My parent-in-laws are visiting from NYC and I asked if they'd like to have lunch at the gliderport. My real intention was to sign them up for a tandem flight and offer it as a surprise gift. They both declined but for a reason I didn't expect: they just ate lunch. So next time I'm taking them out before they eat.


Ma Belle-mère.

I usually like to fly when I'm not hungry so this caught me by surprise. I never think of things like motion sickness.

I got to the gliderport about a half hour before they did, got out my wing and started kiting. The conditions were perfect: wind due west at 10-12. I didn't think I'd have time for a flight but there weren't many people there so I thought I'd fly right at the edge of the window over the parking lot and look for their car.

I feel very much in control at Torrey. It almost doesn't feel like flying if that makes any sense. The place is very familiar and consistent. I'm not sure if this confidence is a good or bad thing. It would be bad if I were growing nonchalant. I don't paraglide because I'm an adrenaline junkie. I do it because I have a need to experience beauty. There's plenty of beauty at Torrey. But I do miss the thrill of a new site. I don't want to grow dissatisfied with Torrey just because I know it so well.

I got 1 more flight it as conditions were getting a bit weak. I was showing off a bit for the inlaws staying within sight of the restaurant and doing some basic maneuvers. I'm going to try to sneak in 1 more surprise visit before they leave next week just to see if it was really the food. ;)

Lenticular Clouds

Found these on flickr:





Lenticular clouds mean severe turbulence and strong lift. Paragliders avoid them and the sky when they're present.

Power pilots tend to avoid flying near lenticular clouds because of the turbulence of the rotor systems that accompany them, but sailplane pilots actively seek them out. Although the clouds can produce heavy turbulence they also show a sign of precipitation. This is because the systems of atmospheric standing waves that cause "lennies" (as they are sometimes familiarly called) also involve large vertical air movements, and the precise location of the rising air mass is fairly easy to predict from the orientation of the clouds. "Wave lift" of this kind is often very smooth and strong, and enables gliders to soar to remarkable altitudes and great distances. The current gliding world records for both distance (over 3,000km) and altitude (14,938m) were set using such lift.

Relationships

I attended a summer solstice party with the "Band of Angels" at a lavish estate in the Los Altos Hills last night. I flew up to SF just for the party and knew I was coming back early so I threw my wing in the back of the SUV so I could fly today.

When I arrived at Torrey the wind was weak and south. I had a BLT before launching and considered not flying at all. I just didn't want to do a sled ride. But, as I was eating, I noticed there was one pesky little blue wing that just kept getting big air as everyone else was bombing out. That was my goal, to get up there with him, or as it turned out her.

I geared up and launched. It was even lighter and more south away from the LZ than at it. I looked down at the wind socks and couldn't believe the direction. I didn't go very far but I stayed up for about 45 minutes. I did a lot of figure-8s wherever I found lift. After a while it was starting to feel like a lot of work. My arms were getting sore for some reason. I came in and landed. This is where the fun began.

Danielle was gearing up and noticed me. She put down what she was doing and gave me a big hug. A few paragliders were lounging around the pavilion talking shit about the nudie beach below. I knew all the faces but few of the names. It was a good time, just a relaxing conversation that lasted as long as my flight.

As I was packing my wing the blue wing pilot came over to talk with me. She was a visitor from Russia. She asked why no one was flying. I said, "We're all spoiled." Usually conditions here are absolutely perfect. When the wind's off just a little bit we come down. No one wants to end up on the beach." She asked what dangers were there. I had to laugh. "No, we're really spoiled. The beach is gorgeous, we just don't want to walk up the hill." How long does it take? "20 minutes at the most. Danielle can do it in 2 songs on her iPod."

I encouraged her to launch and enjoy herself. I simply knew I would be back on another perfect day. Not merely excellent... perfect.

Father's Day Flight

Flight: 115

What do you get for the father who has everything? Time to go flying!

Besides being treated to breakfast in bed and getting a full body massage by the 3 most beautiful girls I know I was treated to the afternoon off to go flying. I strapped an HD video camera on my helmet for this nearly hour-long flight. When I get a chance I'll post some of that. It was a perfect day.

Terms Related to Paragliding

I work with computers, a lot of them, and they need names. Most of the time these days I name fileservers, databases, even routers and disks terms that are related to paragliding. I'm posting this list here for reference next time I need a name. I'll keep updating this list over time.

aerodynamic, aenometer, AGL, air, airbourne, airfield, airfoil, Alps, altitude, angle-of-attack, Annecy, approach, ascent, aspect-ratio, aviation, aviatrix, axis, best-glide, big-ears, bird, blow, bomb-out, brake, breeze, canopy, cell, check-list, chord, chute, cirrus, climb, cloudbase, cockpit, collapes, core, crabbing, crest, cross-country, cumulous, descend, DHV, dive, dive, downward, drag, drift, drop, dust-devil, dvh, flight, float, foil, full-stall, gaggle, gear, glide, glide path, glide ratio, glide-angle, gloves, gps, gust-front, hang-gliding, hangy, harness, headwind, hook-knife, hover, howling, hypothermia, hypoxia, inflation, inversion, kiting, landing zone, lapse-rate, launch-point, lift, lift, liftband, lines, loop, LZ, min-sink, MSL, Oludeniz, outlanding, Owens, para-waiting, pilot, pilot-in-charge, pitch, plf, polar-curve, ppg, prayer-flag (lungta), pwaitt, reserve, retrieve, ridge, rig, rise, rise, risers, rocket, roll, rotor, Salève, SAT, scrape, screamer, shoot-up, Sierras, sink, sink-rate, siv, soaring, span, spin, spine, spiral, stall, sundog, surge, tailwind, take-a-wrap, takeoff, tandem, task, thermal, Torrey, trigger, trim-speed, tumble, upward, vario, venturi, virga, vortex, wall, waypoint, weather, wind, wind-sock, wing, wingover, XC, yaw

Paragliding on Mars

I was doing a little research on dust devils and came across this image:



Apparently there are thermals on Mars. Who knew!

This image was photographed by the Mars rover Spirit. The counter in the bottom-left corner indicates time in seconds after the 1st photo was taken in the sequence. Three other dust devils appear in the background.

When I take my trip to Mars I'm definitely bringing my wing.