So what have I been up to?

OK there is a guy I work with who is a grade A top of the line Psycho. I like to call him Dave! Dave is a good guy. Talented, kind of a goof, likes to play the shit outa some video games. Gotta like a guy who can get down on his video games.

Anyway, Dave is also a motorhead. He likes messin with cars and RC airplanes and all that kinda stuff. He has a big boat and a big truck and all that. Old corvette he's workin on, apparently he had a thing for motorcycles at some point. So now, Dave is into Flying. I am into flying. I have always wanted to fly.

Ever since I was little I wanted to get up in the sky and just GO. But Dave can't afford his own airplane. He works with me, so he aint rich. So how is Dave flying? Well Dave is flying a parachute wing with a motor strapped to his back. No it's not a joke. No it's not a fake thing. It's called Power Paragliding. You use a Parawing, which is a parachute that has a glide slope design. And then you strap a 30 horse power engine with a hand throttle and a propeller and a safety cage onto your back. You hook up the wing and turn on the motor and then run into the wind as hard as you can while accelerating the motor. If you are lucky and pay attention, you get lifted off the ground and after a minute or so you are 500 feet in the air flying at 25 miles per hour for as long as 3 hours if you want.  You can go HIGH too boy. I would say too high in some cases. But you can fly about 40 miles.

And Dave has been teaching me how to do this. He is letting me use his gear and maybe twice a week I go with him after work to an open field on base and I "kite" his wing. So that I can learn all the things I need to know about a parawing and how it handles and what happens when the wind does this and that.  It's tough man! That thing can get hit by a gust of wind and it's like trying to stop a truck in low gear from moving when the gas is on. It's not a WHAM kinda hit, but it is a constent and steady torque that you just can't overcome. It almost WON'T stop.  You yank the brakes, and you run forward, and you pray that it doesn't drag your ass across the face of the earth for as long as it so chooses to stay windy! lol.

So I have been kiting the wing and I have worn the motor and run it and throttled it up and felt it nearly knock me down. I felt the torque twist and I heard the noise. Last week I tried to kite it in 25 mile per hours winds. Dave wasn't sure it was a good idea. After trying it, I will agree with him on that one in the future. It could have torn me and him up if we had kept pressing our luck lol. Kited Friday and had an AWESOME experience. I got under the wing, kept it level and started generating lift. The harnes got all up in my biscuits and nearly pulled me free of the green earth.

And I wanted it to. Truly I wanted to be lifted. I wanted to be carried up off my feet and out into the clouds.

And hopefully I will still get to.                                 

That's a picture of me looking very comic book. With the motor strapped on my back.