April, 2014 | Powered Paragliding Ontario

Apr 16/14 – PPG course day 5 – am

April 17, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

Okay this is ridiculous – snow on April 16! I can’t believe it!

Forecast was good for the morning with respect to the wind wind but temperature was -4. Yuck!

We have arrived at the field, puddles were frozen, it was bit on it windy side – just freezing cold. Tal and Jim set up their equipment up and Talitha was going to go first. Very nice inflation, beautiful take off but around 20 feet her engine started to sputter and she had to make forced landing. She handled the situation really really well. Since we knew that we only had limited time this morning, I made sure that Tal is okay and then went to Jim. He also had very nice takeoff + nice and smooth climb out and good flight.

After five minutes though Jim started to signal with his legs that he wants to land. I told him to go around for one quick circle as I was helping Tal to get the glider out of the bean field but he simply proceeded to his landing. I was afraid that he also had engine problem but as it turned out his hands were frozen solid. I guess that is what happens when you fly at -4 Celsius. After Jim landed, Tal took Jim’s gear and was going to do another flight but after couple tries she lost her confidence, Jim was still frozen so we have decided to pack it up. The wind started to gusts up to much anyway…

Forecast for the evening is good – hopefully we will have a good session.

Apr 15/14 – PPG course day 4 – pm

April 17, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

It is awful outside. We are at Peaks watching Risk And Reward instructional video and doing more ground school work.

Talitha has prepared 15 very good questions for me related to PPG so I spent about 1 hour answering. those. Then we watched about 20 videos of various PPG incidents and accidents on Youtube resecting and analyzing what went wrong.

This is always very interesting ground school item.

We spent 4 hrs and students learned a lot.

Apr 15/14 – PPG course day 4 – am

April 15, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

Yesterday: + 25 Celsius. Shorts, T-shirt and sandals. Today: – 1 Celsius and snow on the grounds – what the heck, I have never been interupted by snow in the middle of April!?

Forecast for today is bad. No flying today, too windy. GRRRRRRRR

We will be getting together for 3 pom at Peaks do do some theory and watch intructional videos.

Forecast Wednesday and Thursday looks good…

Apr 14/14 – PPG course day 3 – pm

April 14, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

No flying tonight – weather is bad

Apr 14/14 – PPG course day 3 – am

April 14, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

Since we could not fly I had introduced the students to a fun exercise which I call kite wars. The idea is that you handle the paraglider in such a way that you take away the wind from your opponents glider or use your paraglider to crash the other person’s wing. This is a lot of fun and it really fine tunes ground handling skills.

We have also practised the silly PPG runs…

Unfortunately as you see on the picture below the weather forecast is not good for tonight and tomorrow either – bummer. Okay we got to look forward to Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so far it looks good.

Apr 13/14 – PPG course day 2 – pm

April 14, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

The forecast for this evening was really crappy. Jim has decided to take the night off – he said he was little sore after all that work in the past day and a half. Scott was only planning to train Saturday and Sunday but because the forecast for this evening was so bad he decided to take off and go back home so that left me and Talitha.

We have arrived at the field at 5:30 but the wind was howling. So we sat in the car and chatted – the wind did start to decrease but not until 7:30 even then though it was too windy. Finally around 8 o’clock the wind has died enough that we have decided to do a little bit of ground handling. Seeing the further decrease in the wind velocity I thought maybe there is possibility for Talitha to fly. I got set of gear out of the trailer, went for quick flight and the air was good…

Soooo we went for it. We only had about 15 minutes of usable light so things were rushed a bit. Once ready, Talitha had a very good take off and a decent flight – unfortunately she was not able to get into the seat. It was either inexperience or perhaps her leg straps were just touch lose. Anyway not bad landing off the runway in muddy bean field. Yuck!

Over all though very well done given some radio difficulties we had.

Congrats on you first solo flight Talitha!

Apr 13/14 – Text exchange with Scott this pm.

April 13, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

Scott:

Great weekend Andre….looking forward to the next time…hope the weather cooperates for u guys. BTW what spooked me the most today was not being able to get in the seat for a few minutes. Once I was in the seat I felt better.

Me:

Yes. That is bit scary, not being able to get in the seat right the way. Although safe. Trust me, you’re not going to believe how much better the second flight is going to feel – so much more easier and how much more in control you’re going to be. It will only get better, less work – more fun.

You have just summited the pyramid of hard work and are about to start climbing the pyramid of fun…

Apr 13/14 – PPG course day 2 – am

April 13, 2014/in Uncategorized/by Andre Zeman

Started at 8 am with great conditions at the field.

Scott had his first flight. Great take off but6 afyter take off he started to fly directly at Jim who was facing Scott and acting like a deer in headlights. Since Jim was not moving I asked Scott to put bit more brake on to overfly Jim at safe altitude but Scott pretty much burried the brakes which made me to to say “hands up, hands up , hand up” he did and from then on it was OK. After 1 circuit I have noticed that Scott did not have much penetration so we have prepared for landing. It was good and very soft one one but like majority of students did not stay on jhis feet and went down on his knees. Very common on the first flight!

Once Scott landed we took small break to debrief.

After both Jim and Talitha put the motors on their back and ground handled with those no problem.

They are ready to fly. Just need calm conditions.

Eventually wind picked up and startyed to gust to 35 km/h We could only use the small training paragliders and even then it was getting to be too much. We packed up at noon – its siesta time. Back at it in the evening.

Congrats Scott on you first solo flight!