Category: Uncategorized

#403 #404 Simms

0700 hours 27 degrees Very Light Breeze. Best part of the flight was boating around the field at 25 to 50 feet. Gas was low…I think there is about 1/3 of a gallon when the spy tube hits bottom. Maybe 20 minutes of air time. Snowboard pants and midweight ski gloves were just fine to keep off the cold.
1730 hours Flew with John Black in the afternoon. The guy can fly.
Denver Skyline at sunset

#401 #402

When I got to Simms there was a cop sitting on the west side of the round a bout. I waited him out for 10 minutes and finally parked the truck by the roadblocks and No Trespassing sign. I figured it was time to see if they were going to enforce the restrictions to recreational users. He watch me unload the Falcon and when I was about to wheel it into the field he graciously drove off.
So… ‘m thinking that they are more interested in people dumping in the field than anything else. Good for us!

The air was light and I launched without trouble even though the trimmers were out and the breeze turned at the last second so that I was launching downwind ( 1 knot downwind… no big deal).

Nice Flight

#398 Snow flake

Typical shifty spring air. I waited 2 hours for it to calm down and launched at 6 pm. The Falcon was climbing 100 ft/ minute at 2600 RPM. If the air had been better I would have stayed up and done a proper test flight but I was getting tossed around and landed after just a few minutes.

I’m confident that this machine is going to be a champ at high altitude.

And a New Door Opens

Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome
How I contracted this horrible condition and lived to tell the tale. 
AIDS usually comes on slow but in my case it struck like a clap of thunder.  One minute I was driving home from work, just another happy PPG pilot looking forward to having dinner, playing with the kids and hitting the sack early so I’d be ready for a dawn flight.  The next, I was talking to the police and trying to figure out how I was going to load my flying equipment and a change of clothing into a  Toyota MR 2.  They gave me ten minutes to pack-up and haul my legally restrained ass out of the neighborhood.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON ?
I’ll have this thing fixed before lunch.

#374 & #375 5th Annual Birthday Flight Snowflake

Today was one of those beautiful clear fall days.
I got to the field at 2:00 and Paul Dillon showed up shortly after. We stood around and chatted for a bit but both of us were itching to get into the air and even though it was early we agreed that it was flyable.
The wind was light from the North and almost in line for me to use the runway. However it wasn’t perfect so I set up to inflate into the wind and then turn 30 degrees to taxi down the runway for a moderate crosswind takeoff. It is always a pleasure to roll out on a smooth surface so I had plenty of motivation to attempt a bit of cross wind. Instead of using the exaggerated chevron I set-up a normal wall to get the wing overhead a little quicker. It worked and I was off on a nice long birthday flight.
I stayed in the area going as far east as the gun club. The air was smooth even this early in the day.

Paul and I tooled around each other for awhile . Then I spent a good 40 minutes just boating around. There was a small group of antelope but I stayed high and let them be. There had been 4 or 5 jets passing directly over head as they climbed out of DIA so we both stayed below 1000 feet. When we landed the wind had come down which made it a little more difficult for Paul who prefers to reverse launch into some wind. He decided to call it good with the first flight. I gave him a MV 2009 patch and cap which he insisted on paying for.
It was still early with a good hour till sunset so I took a second flight that took in most of the sights…the gun club…old radio tower … and I climbed to get a good look at DIA and Buckley.

What a beautiful way to enjoy Thanksgiving and my 5th Birthday Flight …
warm… clear…quiet.

# 369 Chatfield

Another good day. John Sieb was climbing heading East when I arrived. The wind was light from the East. I launched quicky to lots of lift all the way to Chatfield. It was smooth most of the flight but on return to the LZ it started to get bumpy and I landed after probably only 20 minutes and John was down 10 minutes later. He had gone to 8000 and mentioned that it was getting rowdy for him as well. I was going to say that this was one of those exceptional uneventful flights where absolutly everything worked as advertised. … but…when I got home and downloaded the video….It stopped recording 10 seconds before the landing…Will I ever get it right?
Everytime I land at Chatfield without getting hasseled I smile because it means I have at least one more flight before it’s closed to me forever.

No fly Day

But the Sailing was Epic. Started with one reef in the Main and the #3 Jib. I ended up with two reefs and the storm jib. At one point the winds were so high that boats were going over like dominos. I took the sails down to right a catamaran. After we pulled it up, the Rangers showed and wanted to know who called 911. Go Figure? I motored over to the east bay to wait it out. During a lull I motored into the marina and hung with the boat during the best windstorm of the season. It’s all good !


2008 Gathering Recap From UltraFlight Magazine

The terrain was a labyrinth of massive buttes and delicate spires towering a thousand feet above the desert floor.

The first “Gathering at Monument Valley” was held last September at Gouldings Lodge and Trading Post near the border of Utah and Arizona, altitude 5500 ft. ASL. It’s a long way to go, the accommodations are limited to R.V’s and tent camping, and, it’s only flyable during the first and last hours of daylight. Not exactly the elements that draw a big crowd but despite that, turnout was excellent. In the group of 30 were several of the sport’s most recognizable pilots including filmmakers, instructors and other assorted characters, hailing from as far away as New York and San Diego.
Gouldings Lodge proved to be an excellent site, with all the necessities, including restaurant, grocery, and a well appointed campground with an indoor swimming pool.
During the non-flyable hours Gouldings provided jeep tours into Monument Park which allowed the pilots an opportunity to explore the park from the ground and to plan their next flight. It is also the trailhead for several fabulous hikes to hidden box canyons and spectacular vistas.Unlike most fly-in’s where you can roll out of bed and climb right into your paramotor, the LZ was three fourths of a mile below the campground. We used Goulding’s 3500 foot airstrip and for the most part it worked out nicely. Some of the pilots left trailers at the airstrip others drove down and were ready to go. The runway apron was sufficient to launch in any direction and the trike pilots really enjoyed the luxury of the long gently sloping runway. This airstrip also services tourist flights to the Monument Park and nearby Lake Powell, conveniently they didn’t begin until 9:30am after most of us had landed and were gone before the evening flights began.Friday evening we discovered that Flying Monument Valley has its own unique set of challenges. The airstrip at Gouldings is sheltered by 900 foot buttes on the south and west side. That evening the wind was light and from the west so the majority launched toward the western butte and then turned east, staying low to avoid any turbulence from the top. It was a picture book flight, as the breeze dropped to zero I flew south and watched as a couple of pilots made low level passes over the southern butte. Later after sharing a “potluck BBQ” we sat around the campfire we were entertained with their experience of going from 20 ft. AGL to 920 ft. AGL in the blink of an eye.

Everyone agreed that while the terrain was rugged there were plenty of places to make an emergency landing, provided you had some altitude. There are jeep trails and tourist roads throughout the park. It’s very likely, that if you were forced down, it would be a short walk to where you could be picked up by one of the tourist rides. However while this is true for the morning flight, anybody finding themselves down in the park at sunset, had better be equipped with a cell phone and gps or else be prepared to spend the night. The most rugged terrain were the areas near the base of the monoliths which were marked by steep slopes covered with scree and deep arroyos. Unfortunately, for many these were also the most attractive places to fly. The consensus was that unless the conditions were perfect, it was best to stay high or at the very least, keep to the weather side of the rocks and bear in mind that the weather side of this monolith is also the lee side of that big rock up wind !
Saturday morning provided the best flying and most of us were at the field by 6:30am. The winds were light on the surface and 8 to10 aloft. Heading northeast, I flew toward Eagle Rock and circled around it to Brigham’s Tomb and Bear and Rabbit Summit. Flying level with the top of the buttes I started to feel the bumps from mile away so I climbed 300 feet to smoother air. I had wanted to get a trophy picture of my shadow against the face of one of the buttes but decided to make do with shots from above rather than risk the turbulence below. The ride home was smooth and fast and checking my tank I wished I’d stayed in the park longer. When I got back I stayed high and enjoyed the view, it reminded me of a dozen of butterflies playing in a rock garden.The most satisfying aspect of the event was watching the veterans return from a flight. Pilots with hundreds of flights would land after a long cross country. I’d watch them gather up their wing and swagger back to the staging area. Only, instead an “Ah Shucks Ma’am” look on their face was more like the look of a beginning pilot after their first flight, grinning from ear to ear, totally amazed at what they had just experienced.