Author: JoeO

Powered Paraglider pilot since 2005

Beery’s Gathering at Monument Valley 09 Video

Move over John Ford, the big dog is moving in.

Beery has captured what the Gathering is all about…
“NO FRILLS… NON COMMERCIAL…WITHOUT POLITICS… JUST FUN
He spares no one… the GOOD… the BAD or the UGLY. Its hanger stories, aerobatics and bloopers all sourounded by the most spectacular landscape in the world.

Beery does home movies the way my Daddy used to make em… what it lacks in polish he made up for in love of the subject. .. and I like it.

When two pilots pull a simultaneous abortion and narrowly miss blending each other’s wing you hear Beery chuckle and shout,” I GOT IT ON FILM! “
Pay attention and keep the remote handy because you will be rewinding over and over to catch it all. If you didn’t go …you will wish you had…and if you were there… You will bust a gut.

Good job Beery, I’ll be enjoying this long after I’ve lost the souvenir hat!
Now available on You Tube

Powered Paragliding Colorado #506

Titan
While I was in the area I ran up to Dorr Michigan and visited with Terry Lutke,  designer and builder of the Falcon 4 stroke.  We had a nice lunch and chatted about the pros and cons of training.  I left encouraged but thoughtful about the right way to train prospective PPG pilots.



Terry’s new two seater headed for the Pacific Rim



Q set the alarm for 5:15 and I awoke if a fog but managed to get on the road by 5:30 and was at the apartment and loaded by 6:40.  The conditions at the field were perfect, with a light wind from the south south west.  I’d left the key in the ignition after the last flight which had drained the battery while I was out of town so I drove to the north end of the field and set-up so that I could jump start the Falcon with the truck. 
The launch was fine but I did have to use a little brake and nurse it until  I’d gained a few feet of altitude.  Once up, I noticed that the air was moderately bumpy and the wind was shifting toward the west so I stayed near the patch and avoided the rotor that would be generated by the foothills. 
Often when the wind starts this type of shift an hour after sunrise it also picks up dramatically.  If it was from the south it might be hard to get back from the lake and if it was from the west it would be turbulent so I decided to land after 30 minutes and came in for a nice powered landing.
The Power Play has probably 450 to 500 hours and I’m concerned that it is suffering from high porosity or line shrinkage.  When initiating a turn it either jumps into the turn or is slow to start and then jumps into the turn.  It doesn’t seem as stable overhead either flying too far back or forward.  It might be that the air was more active that I thought and I was concerned for nothing but after talking with John Fetz this morning I’ve decided to stretch the lines and do a oral porosity test.

# 504 Dingy Night

First Evening Flight of the summer
At Five O’Clock I was watching the winds at Chatfield.  It was blowing hard at the apartment but it was showing 4 to 0 at the South Chatfield.  I was torn, looking out from my balcony I saw alot of wind blown clouds to the east,  toward Chatfield it wasn’t so bad. BUT… I was thinking that the air was going to be unstable.  I texted Mike with no response but John Sieb called back and agreed to meet at Titan at 7:00.

 When we arrived at the field the winds were light from the South.  John launched first planning to fly over to the castle at Daniels Park.  He would be traveling cross wind and if the winds acted as we expected would have a nice slide back to the LZ.  I launch 10 minutes later and headed over to the park to check out the dingy races.  The air was smooth  with a mild southerly breeze.

 There they were having a perfect floater. No wind on the lake at all.  I was feeling 8 to 10 at 300 feet but the air was smooth.

 After 30 minutes of watching the dingys and overflying the campground it started to get twitchy.  The wing was being swung hard left and right.  So… I started to head back to the LZ.  The last ten minutes were very active flying.  It was especially bad over by the inlet where winds from the cut were mixing with the air from the flats.  I turned back to the East and bounced my way back toward the LZ where the landing was without event.  It was mixing at 100 feet and had shifted from SSE to WSW but had settled down as I came in to land. 

John wasn’t back but I decided to head over to the lake to say hi to the dingy racers.  When I got there the winds were hard from the North.  I spent a few minutes chatting with Robert Kline and Bob Maloff and because I was sure John would have to land out headed back to the truck to check in. He called a few minutes later having successfully landed at Titan in 15 mph winds.  It was all good.

503 Titan


Got to the field at 6:30.  John was already up. 
The skies were full of high clouds, blurred and blown at the bottom.  The winds were light from the SW. 
While I was setting up John landed and came downfield to brief me.  He said it was not dangerous but it wasn’t much fun either.  Mixing air with lots of surges.  In other words ” Active Flying” 
I decided to try it out.  The launch was interesting.  The wing came up to the left,  I was able to right it and when it seemed stable I powered up.  Rolling at a high speed I got enough lift to bring up the front wheel but it didn’t feel right.  I powered down a bit … rolled …  powered back up and finally lifted off  way down the field. John was right it was smooth for 20 seconds then I’d get pulled, then it would mellow out for a bit until the next patch of mixing air.  There was big lift over the horse ranch and a huge swing south of the LZ.  I decided to call it good and get down.  I wish that I’d had a GPS to track the landing because it was a series of quick drops with long glides in between.
Even though it seemed smooth at the surface the air was disturbed just 20 feet overhead.
Equipment Note:
Order a set of o rings from Michelle for the PPS
Empty the dirt out of the cells

502 Titan

Another Good One. 
There was a 3 mph wind from the SSW and the clouds were thick to the East.
 The humidity was  high,  it had rained most of the evening, making the surface slippery and the hay wet. Since the air was saturated the runout was long, but the field had been freshly mowed and was smooth as a babys butt, so I stayed off the brakes and let the wing decide when it was time to fly.  The air was mixing over the field but as soon as I turned toward Chatfield Res. it smoothed out like butter.  I leveled off at 500 feet and cruised over to the marina.  There was absolutely no one around, none of the staff not even a fisherman so I dropped down to 100 feet and enjoyed the ” low and slow”. 
An hour later people started stirring at the campground,  I did a flyby and was surprised that about half of the people I saw didn’t didn’t even notice me.  It speaks well of the Falcon and the quiet Generac 4 stroke.   There was one person at the RC Park, he wasn’t flying so I took the opportunity to make a close pass at the runway.  I have always wanted to land or do a touch-n-go, and today would have been perfect but rather than ruffle feathers, I waved and decided to stop in on my way home to see what the reception would be.  Over by the south inlet I saw that there were several pools in full algae bloom, vivid, almost neon green.  It was nice to go over there without a down slope breeze from the canyon bouncing me around.  I wasn’t weaving through the trees but it was one of the lowest continuous flights in this machine and  for sure at this location. 
After landing, while I was unhooking the wing I was startled to notice that my lines has dozens of cuts in the sheath.  I couldn’t imagine what would have damaged them so badly and was thinking it was the end of the Powerplay until I got close and was engulfed by thousands of tiny “no-see-ums”.  They had come together near the motor and were landing on everything.  What looked like cuts were really just little pilots taking a break.  It reminded me of a time in Utah when my sailboat had been encrusted by the tiny things and I couldn’t see light through the portholes.
Thousands of tiny fliers

At the RC Park I met John Lipe who invited me to fly on Sept 17th for a BBQ and to possibly do a demo flight.  He is going to see if he can clear it with the Rangers.
It was one of the best flights of the season. I listened to a mix of movie classics and tooled around for a good 90 minutes. The rain must have scared everybody off, there were no balloons and only one or two boats on the lake. I felt like I had the whole park to myself. A very peaceful and mellow flight.

#500

I’ve been looking forward to number 500 since before my first flight and this was a good one. 

Yesterday, I hung and pitched the spare blades to 3750 RPM.  Mike’s did a great job repairing the rig, he replaced the bent steering bar and broken cage parts, made two new axles and repaired the broken wheel where the bearing failed.  After tuning the blades, I rolled around the complex at moderate speed.  It would be nice to have some brakes other than the soles of my feet, but thats a topic for another posting.
It was a bit of trouble getting out of bed but the snooze feature saved me and I was at the field before 6:30.  The surface was wet and muddy from last nights downpour.  I used the fan to blow as much of the water out of the hay as possible.  It was a good trick using the motor like a hair drier.
I wanted the trike to get rolling a little easier and keep the wing as dry as possible so I layed out on the jeep track.  Luck was with me, there was no breeze so I could take of in any direction and… why not have a runway if you can?  While I was getting ready to hook in the risers, I noticed the line keepers were missing.  Mike had taken them off when he was repairing the machine and even though he pointed it out to me I’d missed it when preparing the machine..  At first I was devastated, my tool bag and spare parts were at the apartment and  I had just cleaned the truck, and  knew, there would be nothing in the cab to cobble together a temporary set.  But … in the truck bed under the 4 by 8 plywood sheet I found some broken zip ties and a few feet of 6 ml line. AND …Wa Laa … the new keepers were in place and not necessarily temporary.
Flying in the Clouds

Pilot Rainbow

The launch was perfect.  Climbout was slow because of the high humidity and possibly because of the new blades at a different pitch.  But soon, I was climbing with enough authority to make a go of it.  I headed out to the lake, and…there they were… a huge bank of low clouds.  There was a large cluster that went up maybe 2500 feet and around it were  several dozen smaller clusters with little floaters going down to about 400 feet. 
For the next 50 minutes I played in the clouds.  Several times I got chilled to the bone but this was too good to quit.   I went above, below, between and around but avoided going into the cotton candy.  It was cold and wet and a little scary.  I did fly right along the tops and kick a few just so that I could say that I did.  I knew that I was technically bending the rules but…. at this altitude …. in this place.  I wasn’t worried about encountering any other aircraft.   The sun was obscured most of the time so I wasn’t able to get any spectacular trophy shots of my shadow but I did get one with a faint pilots rainbow. 

What Fun!

Abort …. Abort … Abort

 This was one of those dumb incidents
that should have been avoided
The wing came up crooked and I tried to recover.  I was pulling it just above the ground and reached the A’s and got it back overhead. When it was stable I powered up and noticed it was rolling rough and I was surprised at how bumpy the ride was… the wheel was probably wobbling.  I got some lift and floated back down when I touched the trike yawed and quickly rolled.  I think the bearing rubbed against the axle connection and trashed right away, slowing the trike.  I used a little brake to get off and didn’t have enough speed causing the trike to come back down on the bad wheel.  The lines got into the prop and chewed one blade pretty bad.  Mike is going to be able to receive it Tue. evening.  With luck I’ll be back in the air soon.