OT:How (not) to hang off.............

[bradzdotcom]

enough lift? are you kidding?
that thing will pick you up, drag you around, toss you like tissue, slam you, slap you, smack you, pounce you, pound you, exhaust you and otherwise beat you to to a slow, gruesome and gnarly near-death.

then (and only then) you figure out it's YOU causing all the problems by yanking and pulling IT around.

after that, it gets really fun.

where i fly they routinely do tandem flights. i believe the top end weight they want to carry is about 400. so you can figure it probably can at least twice that much without trouble.

why, you thinkin' of packing one along...just in case?
(it would be a really bad thing if it opened prematurely).

or are you planning on hitting that naciemento/ferguson road again?

ps: travis pastrana is way ahead of you. ramped his suzuki off a cliff into the grand canyon, did a couple of backflips, let go of the bike then freefall, then parachute.
typical thing for travis. the kid does back flips on his mx bike with passengers.

[John Lyon]

Maybe not me, but it would make a great opener for a James Bond movie. Bad guys in pursuit on Naciemento/Ferguson, fly straight off the corner, bad guys fall to their death, James floats out over the ocean still riding his S. Travis can handle it.

[SergioK]

Hmm... where up in Monterey is this... and how do I sign up for my 1st lesson?

[bradzdotcom]

sand city, outside monterey. it's one of the two top places in the world to paraglide (a spot in australia is the other).

as far as how to sign up, you'll have to talk to jerry.
i warn you though, he's a busy guy, smothered in chicks, living the rich bachelor life of a monterey millionaire.

this is his bike. that's his boat in the background.
i'm not sure, but he might own the flowers inbetween too.


(oh and just to stay on topic, jerry's boat has a fleet of motorcycles on it, and some of them are harleys. he even has a few dozen fingerless gloves and pudding bowl helmets on hand for visitors. i hear the friday night ride around the boat's upper deck is quite nice. nothing to wave at though....)

[SandCityFlyer]

Still OT

Sergio, Et Al

You don't "sign up" here, ya just "show up"! I will gladly give an introduction to the sport of "Beachflying" to any interested board member. There are some conditions, of course. 1) I am not a certified instructor, nor have I any interest in becoming one. I do have 10+ years flying at Sand City, which as Brad says, is one of the best beach sites in the world. I have introduced quite a few people to paragliding here, and most of them are now active flyers. We have more than 6 miles of wide, uninhabited beach at our flying site, just a couple of miles north of Monterey. Flying at the beach is unique, and only a few paraglider pilots practice this aspect of the sport; most of the PG action takes place in the mountains, which is much more technical and way more dangerous. Of course, anytime your feet leave the ground you can get hurt, but the smooth onshore breezes and soft beach eliminates a lot of the potential hazards. 2) Flying at the beach is highly dependent on a 10-20 mph onshore breeze, the more direct to the beach the better. The spring is the best season for reliable onshore wind, though I fly a bit at least every month of the year. I live close to the flying site and can see the slope and the winds from my home, so it's very easy for me. I only fly in the best conditions, which keeps me out of the more dangerous zone of rough, gusty air. I'm too old to take the hits that are more common in those conditions. Computer weather websites are very good for wind predictions and one can get a pretty reliable forecast several days in advance. 3) I have found that bikers are usually good students; they are aware, and not given to overcorrections. These gliders are very sophisticated and respond to the slightest control input; they get ugly when they're horsed around.
I should point out that there are better ways to get the feel of flying a paraglider, in your area. You can take a "tandem" flight at Torrey Pines most any day of the year. The cost is modest and it is intended to hook you and get you started on a formal, and quite expensive training program, which I strongly recommend. This is what Brad is currently involved in, I believe. They prepare you very well for all types of flying, whereas my interest is only at the beach. You can easily spend $7000 on a complete program, with nice fresh gear. On the other hand, I have friends that have about a G in all the gear and have never sprung for a lesson! Brad can give you much better information about a formal flight program, if you're interested. I strongly encourage anyone interested in flying to try paragliding. It is on the very leading edge of slow flight, and the equipment is beautiful and reliable. I've flown in everything from Cubs to Concorde, and nothing is better than a paraglider, for me.

Looking South to Monterey

[Flatbutt1]

Originally posted by bradzdotcom

on stage during the ceremony the hero guy says: "I don't think i really deserve this medal. to tell ya the truth, between the two of us, i wasn't really sure who's chute hadn't opened, and i damn well wasn't gonna let go of him to find out."
.

HAHAHAHAHA OMFG!!! That's priceless!

[Flatbutt1]

SandCity
I assume one gains altitude the same way as a hang glider, in a thermal? Or can you gain lift by altering the wing shape somehow?

[SandCityFlyer]

Flatbutt,
Both HG and PG can rise in thermals, and that is the way one gains altitude in the mountains. Thermals are, by definition, unstable and usually rough air; not for the timid or the weak. One can gain thousands of feet and then exit the thermal and cruise cross-country, to another thermal or a destination. Flying at the beach is completely different. We rise on updraughts, caused by onshore winds hitting the dunes or cliffs. These updraghts allow one to launch, and remain aloft (SOARING). Onshore winds tend to come up in the early afternoon and remain steady until evening. During this time one can fly up and down the beach at will, out over the water a hundred yards, and gain altitude up to 1000' or so in the best conditions. A typical 15mph afternoon allow altitude gains of about 300'. It's pretty relaxed flying.

[bradzdotcom]

and pack your lunch.
some of the guys launch and stay up there for hours.
they bring music, food, water...umm..other things...and enjoy an afternoon of buzzing up and down the coastline.

like jerry, i'm an updraft beach guy.
the boys who fly the canyon thermals can have 'em...i've already met plenty of rocks and can attest to their tenacity.
beginners wear much the same stuff: helmet, over-ankle boots and gloves.
you can entry-level into the sport really comfortably for about $3500, after which your only investment is patience, waiting for the right wind speed and direction.
these days, they're pretty good at predicting good/bad days, so you don't end up doing a lot of sitting around.

oh, and to keep the thread on track: i once flew past a harley guy. he had on a pudding helmet. he was wearing fingerless gloves.
i didn't wave.
neither did he.

...back to practicing my waving. mr. steve carlton is gonna snap hisself a perty piktur of me tomorrow so i need to polish up the technique. i'm a little weak on my thumb placement.

[SergioK]

Thumb? Has the traditional R1100s PPB finger wave/salute/sign/gesture changed to the thumb? (musta missed the internal memo on that one)

[bradzdotcom]

heavens no!
i have the index finger down pat.
but my mentor steve carlson pointed out that my subsequent thumb placement was all wrong, and interrupted my follow thru, slicing my otherwise aerodynamic wrist into an unnecessary hook pattern, which in turn disturbs the air bubble surrounding said wrist.

from what he's patiently explained, it's not all in the wrist, but in the body movement as a whole. hips, knees, ankles...all involved.

i have so much to learn.

[JonyRR]

Jerry/SSF;
there's a dude with one of those powered paragliders here in the pacNW. He flys up and down the beaches on Puget Sound all the time (at dusk, even; I've scoped him out with binoculars and it looks like he has NVG's on...wacko!)
Sand City looks really great. maybe the next Laguna visit I can spend more time in the area and scope that out.
I've been colse to building an ultralight more than once. Paralgiding would probably be a good idea first. (I've got about 100 hours in a Cessna 150, but I bet it's not at *all* the same).

[SandCityFlyer]

Jony,
You might enjoy a ride out to one of your local sites and check out the sport. Most, or maybe all the Washington sites teach "Mountain Flying", a somewhat different form of flying than I do. Chelen is a terrific site, where the Nationals are often held. They use thermals for altitude gain, and most of the folks are cross-country oriented. I'm a lazy old beach pilot, that just flies ridge lift, though I particularly like flying right next to the clff or low across the beach much of the time. Aerobatics of sorts are possible at the beach as well, including steep turns, wingovers and 360's over the water. Plenty of action for the seeker of thrills. As you can see from the earlier photo I posted, there is plenty of space available at Sand City, and rarely do we have more than a dozen pilots flying. That kind of beach with large soarable dunes is rare real estate, which makes our site so special. I know of nothing similar on the West Coast. We have mountain pilots coming here from Colorado to spend a week flying in a totally different environment that what is normal for them. I'll be happy to show you the local scene when you visit our area. All of your aviation experience will be helpful, and this is much like having your own single place open cockpit aircraft, and unlike hanggliders, you roll the thing up, put it in your gearbag, walk back to the parking area, climb on yer Donkey and ride home. Life is good!

Jerry m
No Abs!
Paragliding Can Be Exciting!

[ErricZ]

Originally posted by overtorque
> Perhaps you were confused on what you saw or heard the guy
> say, judging by your "facts" posted since you signed up to troll
> here.

Troll? "How not to hang off" was the thread, and one of you claimed you should hang off to the inside on the street. Not hardly! Even on a Hardly Ableson, you gotta keep 10% in reserve by not hanging off. You have to.

I'm sure someone else will have responded to this in the other 5 pages ... but hanging off doesn't necessarily have to be done at 9/10th -- sometimes you do it at 5/ or 6/10 riding so that you have more contact patch. Any biker should know how it helps before they claim it is only a racing type thing to perform.

[ErricZ]

Originally posted by be_are_why
30 years of surfing taught me never to scream before something bad is going to happen, You need all your air underwater. But i see the reasoning for land-luber activity.

OT ...and what about the urban legend while in a falling elevator if you keep jumping that you may hit bottom when you are in the air and not feel the full impact, was never very good at physics

You must've missed that episode of Myth Busters!