Wednesday, July 30, 2008

I finally get to fly there

15 years ago, I was flying an RC glider near where I lived when a couple of guys unfolded hang gliders, hooked in, launched, and went up. I was really surprised at their soaring capability.

I started poking around about lessons, but I witnessed a pretty rough bailout landing at this site and a medevac flight picking up a guy who got rotored behind the ridge. Then, a friend who had flown hang gliders as a French Foreign Legion commando (and tumbled one at altitude) said they scared the hell out of him. That cooled me off.



But, once I got into flying, I really wanted to fly the site. It took three trips, but I finally got the combination of help from the local instructor and the right winds to be able to fly it. Said instructor was very helpful, as always. It is definitely not a site you want to fly without help from a local. As a matter of fact, it'd be about impossible, as you need a gate code and a few other items or information.

The video shows the fun I had and we topped off the day with dinner at a Brazilian BBQ.


A fun thing happened on the way back from Reno. from knumbknuts on Vimeo.