Archive for year: 2014

Got together with Scott at 7:30 in the morning. It was already a little bit on the windy side but perfectly flyable. Scott set up and within an hour and half completed four flights.

He has now total of eight flights in his log book. He still struggles a bit with the inflations, it often takes several tries to lock the glider overhead. This is normal – every student goes through that and it will get better tonight. Forecast looks very good

Well… as I stretch out some tension in my calves under an electric heating blanket, having washed off some make-up hiding the bruising on my inner biceps, (yes I am a lady… thank you) the result of the kiting lines swaying in the breeze and pushing on my uninitiated arms; I reflect on my week spent under the instruction of Powered Paragliding Ontario’s owner/operator: Andre Zeman.

Now I could jest here that Andre is “Z-man” but perhaps I should stick to the facts. “To keep a long story short” as you may often hear Andre say, should you make the decision to embark on your flying adventure with him; I thoroughly appreciated getting to know Andre personally. He is honest, with a calibrated moral compass, maintains a keen intellect, is straight-forward to a fault, and though I risk sounding quaint: he is a man of integrity.

On a side note: I had the privilege to attend a first-timer climbing lesson (he also owns Peaks Indoor Rock Climbing) and was delighted by his ability to lead a group of 13 highschool gym students through almost three hours of their introduction to scaling indoor courses set at varying difficulty. He was succinct, amusing, and instructed the curious teens with aplomb.

Now on to the paramotor lesson: This was without a doubt second-to-none my favorite course I’ve ever taken. After meeting the two other students with whom I trained we sat down to 3 hours of the basics, which were handled in depth with the aid of a wide-screen PowerPoint. Along with hand drawn images and also some elaborate hand gestures, Andre included many video clips, jokes and “for example” explanations.

On to a multiple choice quiz to see if we were listening carefully and we then ate lunch. Whisked off on a 20 minute drive to the field, we proceeded to learn how to unpack the chute, don the kiting harness and test our listening skills.

Andre will become quite wordy in his encouragements add you will struggle with the trickiest of all aspects with this ever freeing form of flying: keeping the wing aloft.

Perhaps as a woman I required more patience and I’m happy to report that he was most accommodating.

For myself, I found kiting-the-wing a challenge met head-on. A positive attitude (a must) was easy for me as I’ve been dreaming of this form of flight since I could crawl. Although I found it disappointing that I was not, from the first, a natural at something that when demonstrated appears quite effortless, I swallowed my pride and worked harder.

You will be spent, both mentally and physically after day one. But wait-for-it, sleep on it that night and start the day with fresh eyes. Day 2 started with beautiful skies and I seemed to have practiced in my dreams for as Andre predicted suddenly I just “got it”. And the sense of accomplishment cemented for me a love for the art of kiting. If you know already what I mean when I say, first “build-a-wall” for an effortless looking launch, than you are probably an expert already.

If not, all you need do is remain positive and your focus will be honed by Andre’s attention to detail.

Soon enough, although the weather was predictably unpredictable, I made my first flight. Although I may have wished for more visibility as the sun receded from view to attend to duties in the west, I made an ungraceful takeoff, and I prefer to say I performed every action requested of me through the radio into my helmet as soon as possible but this was not the case.

The flight was over before I knew it and as could be expected I don’t retain a clear memory of all that transpired. However, Andre has since got it on record that had I followed his instructions I would have had a different report on my success. (Ask him for proof, go ahead)

My landing was also awkward. I was unable to quite make the runway and landed to the left 50 paces or so. Having landed on my knees I was shocked to find it a soft touchdown, having only flared halfway. I did however find myself uncomfortably situated with my back arched and my spine somewhat compressed, the straps held me prone and I was left feeling euphoric with adrenaline coursing through my veins, and consequently couldn’t focus through my jubilation enough to unclip my harness.

Thankfully Andre wasted no time in righting me. And we had a great discussion comparing my fuzzy version to his clear one.

If I haven’t bored you yet with this most wordy story, I can guarantee you: Andre’s stories are right up your alley.

Having now completed my 5th flight I must say I still felt butterflies on takeoff which from my point of view was executed flawlessly and subsequent counter-clockwise circling of the field was completed perfectly as I followed the guidance from Andre to a “T”.

After turning off the engine my landing was textbook, having gained the runway (grass strip) and alighting into the wind with an ideal flare.

Andre, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being yourself.

“If in trouble: look up, hands up…idle”

Keep flying!

So finally a beautiful evening. Temperature about 15 Celsius and slowly decreasing south wind. That’s the way I like them. Shortly after we have arrived the equipment was set up and both Jim and Tal were ready to go.

Here is Tal about to get strapped in and here is Jim ready to go…

It took no time and Jim was in the air although on his take off he was pulling tremendous amount of break. Luckily there is so much passive built in safety with this aircraft that he simply proceeded to lumber into the air and we had no issue at all.

Tal was ready to go to. She did a textbook inflation, textbook take off, textbook flight and textbook landing. Just perfect! And both Tal and Jim really did not want to come down as it was warm and beautiful.

Here is Jim after his first landing

This is what I get paid the big $ ;-)

Here is Jim on the flight number two. After the following interview him proceeded to fly for another 15 minutes and then it was time to land just as he was turning final the engine quit on him so Jim had his first force landing. Since I was watching him planning to help him with his landing flare it was pretty easy to guide him down safely. We had some equipment trouble through this course. Mostly really related to bad batch of fuel that I have picked up. But this was different after Jim safely landed I went back to help towel to get ready for next flight and Jim noticed that the spark plug Was completely off. Well that would do it. Tal has tried to take off couple more times but again wind was getting lighter and she was getting tired so she decided that that will be it for her. Once you do perfect flight you may not want to mess it up I suppose.So me and Jim went to work and had to make a field repair to the machine. Luckily I am pretty good at that and so is Jim. This is the kind of guy that can do anything you’re better off asking Jim what he can’t do. 5 min later the spark plug cap was secured and Jim was ready to go again.

Jim cruising around – flying low

Here is Jim after landing

After we packed up it was time to go and celebrate very successful flying session. Tal has four flights and Jim also has four flights. The weather held us back for two days. I already promised both students a gift certificate for two additional days of training.

So off we went to a pub for some snacks and  beer. And let me tell you about this pub it’s freaking awesome. Just one of those old-fashioned places where everybody knows your name and there’s interesting art on the walls…

What a great evening we had. Forecast for tomorrow is good as well we have more day to go!

 

Temperature in the afternoon was bit better but still only 4°C. both Jim and to Lita had set up their gear and since Jim had good flight in the morning he let Tal to go first. She got ready, we tried several times but she has lost her ground handling skills. Since Talita needed break I went to Jim and he also struggled with the weight of the motor and the inflation techniques. So we had no choice but to get rid of the paramotors and go back to training harnesses and start basic ground handling again. After about 20 minutes I asked Talitha if she wanted to give it another go with the paramotor and she said absolutely! Yes. We got ready and in no time time she was in the air – this time in a very nice and controlled fashion.

she had very smooth flight she was able to get in the seat and made fairly good landing. And of course she was very happy and so was. Good work Talitha on the flight number three.

Jim has tried as well or not but his mojo wasn’t working and he needed rest soon. Wind has died down which makes powerparagliding quite difficult so we decided to pack up and go home.

 

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.