This was a crazy day. The jetport had 3 or 4 Small jets arriving and instead of coming in from the South West and landing , they were flying over us at less than 1000 ft turning onto final and landing from the North East. There wasn’t any weather, I don’t know what their reason was. If anything you would expect they wouldn’t want to land with the setting sun in their eyes.
The fatal midair last week was on my mind so as soon as I saw the first jet, I descended to 300 feet and made my ceiling 500 ft. It was much smoother at altitude but …. Better to live with a few bumps.
I launched from the grass using the A-assists. It felt weird not having the risers at hand and I noticed the left brake line trying to get tangled but it worked. Once up I saw that I had misjudged the length of the A-assist lines and pulled one in to what I think is going to be correct. I was surprised at how much I was able to shorten the line. I hope it doesn’t put too much pull on the A’s. I’ll have to watch carefully because it might cause a frontal.
The landing was fine. After touchdown there was still plenty of brake left to drop the wing safely behind.
There were two other guys launching 1000 feet to the north. Turned out to be a couple of the Colorado Flock. Instructor Daniel West and his ex student Ryan Cook. Thanks for the nice photo Ryan!
Powered Paragliding. A most Personal form of Flight 