Any Paraglider Pilots?

[Foggy_Goggles]

People ask if it was snowy in the desert this winter. Friends say most snow they can remember.

Paragliding serves up some amazing siteseeing. Here is a picture of the Bookcliffs a friend sent me.

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

[goldenboy]

You could kind of tell there was a bunch of snow that way from I70, but that's pretty cool to see.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Freelight Rules. Work is Stupid.

[AirheadD8]

Freelight Rules. Work is Stupid.

Nice stuff , I like the photo from 4/11 . Do you guys use O2 ?

[Foggy_Goggles]

Paraglider Pilots that go big use oxygen. Personally, I'm far from a great pilot but hypoxia is real and if I spend any significant time above about 15k for a few days in a row, I just feel better if I take 02.

[Foggy_Goggles]

https://www.redbullxalps.com/

X Alps is on. Amazing athleticism and adventure in amazing places. It's shaping up to be crazy finish. Basically, the route is a counterclockwise tour around the Alps. One of the pilots flew for 12hrs. yesterday covering over 200km straight line distance down coarse line (400km of actual flight track).

If you are bored behind a computer (I'm not), you can go pretty deep with a dashboard of live feeds, pilot tracking, IG posts from the air by the athletes and so on. If you are on Facebook, you can find Gavin McGlurg's feed of live reporting from the air.

[Foggy_Goggles]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XG_ZcZMrPM

Insanity

[Foggy_Goggles]

Just boatin' around taking on the views!

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

[MakersTeleMark]

What was the cause/verdict of the guy who wrecked himself off of bellyache about a month ago?

[toastybroski]

I assume speedflying is insanely dangerous? There's some dude I follow on instagram for the last couple of years and I have no idea how he is still alive. (Carl Weiseth)

Is that completely different than paragliding? It looks like so much fun.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Speedwings aren't dangerous. Spending a lot of time at high speeds in close proximity to the ground leaves little margin.

I'll get you some info tonight on how to speedfly. Short story, if you are curious about flight you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. France is the place.

Makers, I know that incident at Bellyache was bad but that's it. If you crave more info, let me know and I can find out.

Sent from my Turbo 850 Flatbrimed Highhorse

[Foggy_Goggles]

Better answer: The reasons that there are relatively high accident rates among speedflyers/riders in the US is that there is only starting to be a legitimate curriculum and schools, there is a lot of cowboy attitude and its hard to get a lot of repetition/currency because we don't have access to ski lifts.

The places to learn in the US are basically:

https://www.sobobaflightpark.fun/ in SoCal

Point of the Mountain in Utah (various instructors)

but I'd suggest somewhere in the Alps like https://www.speedriding-school.com/e...on-speedriding It helps to learn on snow

Foot launching small wings (13m and under) is not easy.

[bio-smear]

Very jealous. I'm a long time airplane pilot who has dabbled in paragliding over the years. Even did a SIV course and learned some cool shit. But I had a towing mishap that hurt and it spooked me a little. Was psyched up to get back in when we got pregnant (2015). And now I live in the flats of America so that ship has sailed.

Will live vicariously until further notice. Enjoy!

[Foggy_Goggles]

Don't tell this crew something can't be done!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvpX0XNr7ZX/?img_index=1

[Foggy_Goggles]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/StPgTLz2MsXfCKhH6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/H8KLLiCA36WR3th79

https://photos.app.goo.gl/H6djEaBKxxvpbFjJ7


Just got back from a pretty sick trip to Annecy

edit: how to I make those photos show up?

[Buster Highmen]

Click on an image, then once it shows up, right click and copy image link, then paste that link between img tags.


Stunners, d00d.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I think we have another paragliding thread but the search is a Dick Sandwich and linking pics hurts my brain. But yeah, we've been sending. If anyone is Steamboat, Grand, Summit or Eagle wants to drive for us we pay. And you can use our trucks. And if you want to check out the scene, let me know.

We are able to drive up and launch from the top of Storm at Steamboat. Here is a sick flight one of my friends but a couple weeks ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3mr2lq52LA

[Foggy_Goggles]

I think we have another paragliding thread but the search is a Dick Sandwich and linking pics hurts my brain. But yeah, we've been sending. If anyone is Steamboat, Grand, Summit or Eagle wants to drive for us we pay. And you can use our trucks. And if you want to check out the scene, let me know.

We are able to drive up and launch from the top of Storm at Steamboat. Here is a sick flight one of my friends but a couple weeks ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3mr2lq52LA

[Foggy_Goggles]

[chicken feathers]

So cool^
Used to live in the boat. One of my coworkers was into hangliding and showed me a few places around the county where he’d take off from. Prior to that I had no idea how far you could fly. He had some funny stories about solo flights and hitching rides after landing random places.

[chicken feathers]

When you mentioned getting pulled up to 18k I was like shit, pretty sure the flights from Hayden to Denver fly at about 20k…

[Foggy_Goggles]

Thats not me. The FAA requires that we stay below 18K (Class A Airspace) but that doesn't always happen. For sustained flight above 13k I fly with O2. We do fly pretty close to EGE and their tower usually routes traffic away from us. But yeah, we share the air with airplanes. But of all the risks of paragliding, other aircraft is pretty low.