Today was a great day flying at Whidbey once the winds died down just a tad from their more forceful morning gusts.  I arrived around 12:30 in the afternoon to find that there were maybe 25 pilots either scattered about the launch area, else huddled in masses for warmth.  Believing that it would take a while for the winds to calm, I went for a hike to the North towards lake Pondilla and back.  When I returned, it was closer to flying conditions, but still quite strong for me.

At one point while trying to kite, I asked Jim Martin for some pointers with launching in the higher winds, as he had been up and down with several flights already that day.  Despite some comments that he was a rather large fellow flying on a smaller “girls” wing, the truth is that he was flying while the rest of us mostly stood around and watched.  Jim helped me out by suggesting I not even hold the brakes, but instead just use the D’s as sparingly as possible, and that I keep my butt on the ground longer rather than standing up when the wind pulls me forward.  My first attempt in the higher winds was less than admirable, and he said that I might do better if I were blindfolded and just felt the wing rather than looking at it.  I was not sure if that was a commentary on my poor performance, or if he was about to go Obe-Wan-Kenobe on me by pulling a visor over my head.

Fortunately it didn’t come to that, and his advice and coaching was highly valuable and quickly put to use on my next try.  I got the wing over head by staying on my butt as long as I could, allowing my tush to be dragged rather than standing up with the pull of the wing.  Then, still kiting from my keister, a gust came that took me to my feet and then airborne.  Thanks to Jim’s coaching, I was able to remain in the reverse position rather than being twisted forwards like so often happened before with me.

Whereas I might have merely kited for a while before going over the edge of the cliff with the tide in so far, Jim then pushed me forward through the air, into the lift-band and at long last I was airborne again for my first flight of the year.  This is only significant because just one week earlier I made a hike up Tiger mountain with my wing later in the day over a snow and ice covered trail because I was so desperate for a flight.  But by the time I got up top, the still-air experienced by those who flew earlier had turned katabatic, forcing me to hike back down again over snow and ice covered trails and in the dark.  So I was definitely ready for this flight on Whidbey. 

Once airborne, staying aloft was quite easy and I made multiple trips up and down the coastline, making sure to keep myself up and away from the top of the ridge despite my discomfort with flying over the ocean.  I had learned the importance of doing so during a previous trip to Whidbey last year when I managed to get a little too high and got blown backwards well over the trees.  In that flight, I was extremely lucky to have sunk low enough with big-ears and penetrated forward enough to have narrowly escaped landing atop one of Whidbey’s very tall and pointy trees.

No, this flight was far more mundane by comparison with the exception of when one pilot whose name shall go unmentioned wanted to fly with our wingtips way too close for my comfort and kept following me to the South as I tried to move away.  Other than that, I was airborne for probably 45 minutes of pure joy up until it was time to land.  However, between the rotor on the south end of the field, many people milling around, some gliders spread out in piles, and many others over people’s head as they continued kiting,  my approach on final was more like a three-dimensional game of Tetris than a runway. 

Image © 2007, Dan A. Nelson

And once on the ground, the trick was to find a wind-sheltered spot that wasn’t covered in poop where I could fold the glider.  Fortunately, most of the poop was surrounded by circles of rocks, making the piles easier to see.  What I don’t understand is why dogs that have been trained to poop inside those tiny circles can’t learn to go directly into a plastic bag, but that’s another story that’s probably been visited more than once already.

So was it worth the almost two hour drive both ways for just 45 minutes of flying today?  Well, when you factor in the time spent with so many of my fellow pilots, landing right around the time that the sun set to the west with a barely visible sliver of the moon on the east, learning a few things from some generous coaching, and just the chance to shake the dust from my wing, yes, it was definitely worth it.

Image © 2007, Dan A. Nelson

When many people think about paragliding, they wonder what on earth would prompt somebody to jump off of a cliff into the sky.’Never mind that we don’t actually jump ’rather, we just run down-hill until taking flight.

Yet even among those who understand the process a bit better, and who might even see some joy in the act of flying, the notion of getting several thousand feet off the ground and then deliberately crippling one’s wing is just plain crazy.’It’s akin to sawing off the tree branch that you happen to be sitting on at the time.

This past weekend, however, I took a clinic where I did one terrible thing after another to my wing while flying over Lake Chelan, Washington.’This was an emergency maneuvers clinic where we deliberately simulated incidents in flight.’I had been nervous about it the entire week leading up the class.’Now, having gone through it, I’m glad that I did not fully understand what would be involved ahead of time.’I’m also glad I had the opportunity to learn additional skills that may one day save my life when flying in mountainous terrain with larger thermals.

What follows is a brief description of my own experience in the class.

Friday, June 23, 2006 : Arrival in Chelan.

All the students arrived in Chelan on Friday, in preparation for an early start the next morning.’We met our instructor, Gabe, who gave us an overview of what we would be doing over the next few days by means of "ground school."’Unfortunately, this ran rather late into the evening, and most of us did not get to bed until close to midnight, despite planning to start at 7am the next morning.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

First Flight

The launch was a rectangular piece of land about the size of a soccer field that went out into the water.’Everybody was standing in a circle around Gabe as we tinkered with our radios, putting them into plastic bags, and taping them to the outside of our helmets.’There was a chance that we might land in the water, so we were using cheap radios that were not so costly to replace if they were destroyed.’

Gabe pointed at somebody and started counting us off from one to eleven, indicating the order in which we would be towed for flight.’Then, one after another, the first three people in line said that they did not want to go first and each of them moved themselves to the end of the line.’That left me in the first position and increased my own anxiety level just a tad.

I had never done anything like what we were about to do. ‘I had never been launched by tow before.’I was only marginally clear on the sequence of events to take place once in the sky, and all eyes were on me as the first dummy who didn’t say "not it" to the tow-order.

The tow-bridal is a two-piece device that attaches to each of the carabineers on the side of the harness right where the wing gets attached.’These two pieces are joined together with the tow-line in a manner that is supposed to allow quick-release of the tow-line with minimal pressure.

In order to launch, the pilot faces the boat with the wing to the rear, prepared to do a forward-inflation.’The difficult part is that the pilot has to watch the line growing taught as the boat speeds away, and to pull the wing over head so that it is flyable before being dragged forward through the dirt.’The scary part is watching the boat speed away, knowing that in a matter of moments you are going to have to run after it as fast as you possibly can, and for goodness sakes, you had better not trip.’Even with proper timing, the pilot may still need to sprint for 10 to 20 yards at speeds greater than 14 miles an hour.’If there's a headwind, the running speed is slightly reduced.

Once airborne, I was pulled behind the boat to an altitude of roughly 2,500 feet, at which point I pulled the pin on the tow-bridal, sending the line downward on its own mini-parachute called a drogue.’At that point, I was flying on my own, no different from any of the 68 flights I had taken prior to that day.’The difference was how I planned to use the altitude between me and the ground below.

It started with asymmetric collapses: making the left or the right side of the wing collapse by pulling quickly and aggressively on the lines leading to the front outside edge of my wing and then letting go. ‘If you imagine sitting on a swing, then suddenly having one of the lines holding your butt off the ground drop on one side, you get the idea what the experience was like.’In the air, the recovery is almost instinctual ’lean your weight towards the other side.”

After that, I collapsed the center of the wing by pulling the inner two lines leading to the front of the wing in the middle.’That felt just like the moment in a swing when you are all the way back, and just before you start swinging down again.’The recovery is to dampen the swinging motion as you approach the bottom of the arc.

The next maneuver was something called a wingover.I was looking forward to this, because it was the move that got me hooked on the sport nearly two years ago when I took a tandem flight in South Africa. The wingover is supposed to be a pendulum swing, combining both left-right, and front-back motion, resulting in the body doing a huge figure-of-eight in the sky in three dimensions.’My wingovers, however, were nothing close to what they should have been, and were more like a gentle rocking motion from left-to-right on the roll axis.

The final maneuver was an asymmetric spiral in which I'm supposed to be swung way out to the side of the spiral via centrifugal force, but in an oval rather than a circle in order to keep it from getting too intense.” After that, I came in for landing, put my gear into the shade, and helped others in the class while waiting for my turn to roll around again.’

Second Flight

My next flight was just like the first, except that the huge amount of anxiety that I had built up prior to the clinic was beginning to dissipate.’This time, I was able to start focusing on what I was here to learn.’The sequence of maneuvers was identical, except that all of the moves were done more aggressively this time.’My first set of asymmetric collapses disabled maybe 20% of my wing at a time.’On this flight, I disabled closer to 40% of the wing, so the drop was much more noticeable and the recovery left me swinging quite a bit more before stabilizing in level flight again.

My wingovers were quite a bit better this time because I learned to combine the roll-axis from shifting my weight with the yaw-axis by pulling my brakes.’Apparently, the key to a good wingover is ‘throw out, then throw up.” No, were’not talking about barfing.’Instead, it means that the first lean and turn throws your body way out to the side like a spiral, but the second turn throws your body high up into the air, with your wing occasionally lower than your head on the horizon.’They key for me was to focus on my roll and yaw as separate components that needed to be coordinated, rather than just two different ways to initiate a turn.

Third Flight

Again, this flight repeated the same maneuvers, but went much more aggressively on all of the moves.’By this point it was ‘go big or go home’’meaning that if you're not going to really throw yourself completely and utterly into the maneuvers, you're going to miss the value of the exercises under instruction and over water where it's somewhat less dangerous than when nature does these awful things to you over the mountains.

The big change this time was in the asymmetric collapses.’This time, rather than just pulling the outer front lines down with one hand, I was grabbing the outer three lines, using both hands, pulling them all down quickly to my belly-button and then letting go.’This induced a collapse of close to 70% of my wing and created a massive falling sensation.’Unlike the partial collapses, where the recovery was to lean toward the remaining good side of the wing, in this case I actually had to deliberately fall towards the collapsed side and wait for a massive pendulum swing towards the good side, followed by the return towards the crippled side which was now starting to re-inflate.’This motion was incredibly scary, but fortunately gravity did most of the work and the wing did open up again quite normally.’My heart-rate, however, took a little longer to settle down than the wing.

My wingovers were also significantly improved this time, and were beginning to feel much more like the one I remembered from my first flight long ago.’I was improving my timing and coordination and was getting much more energy and height out of the maneuvers.’The key learning from the exercise so far has been the added confidence dealing with really bad collapses, recognizing the difference between partial collapse where you lean towards the good side, and full collapses where you lean into the collapse.

Fourth Flight

I'm getting better at being towed as well, which results in getting more altitude from the same distance that the boat travels across the lake.’This time, I got well above Chelan Butte, which has an elevation of 3,300 feet.’This was a good thing, since the lessons for this flight were about how to descend as quickly as possible while still maintaining directional control of the glider.

Rapid decent techniques are needed when the weather changes suddenly, or when you get caught in a thermal which starts sucking you into a cloud (‘Cloud Suck’), or when you have to piss so badly that your molars are floating.’Techniques practiced here included B-line stalls, big-ears, speed-bar, really big-ears, combining big ears with speed-bar.’I had done most of these before, but never in combination.’

B-line stalls are when you put a lateral crease in the top of your wing, which kills the lift and makes it sink like a parachute.’If you've seen ‘spoilers’go up on the back of a jet's wing on landing, the principal is similar.” Big-ears are when you pull the tips of the wing inward to reduce the size of the wing.’Speed-bar is when you change the angle of your wing to point it in a more downward direction that increases your forward speed by sacrificing altitude for speed.

The key learning in this exercise came from being able to steer the wing even when my hands were holding in my wingtips, and thus not able to pull on the brake lines.’The trick was simple enough ’hold the wingtips in, but steer with weight shift.

This was the last flight of the day, and at this point my quadriceps were really stiff, like I just climbed a mountain.’It could have been from tensing my legs in an effort to lock my tush into the back of the seat, or from running so hard to launch.’Either way, it was a long and full day, and I was ready for bed.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Fifth Flight

This was where things started getting really hairy.’The exercise started by pulling both brakes in order to slow the glider down farther and farther, until it reached the point where it ceased flying as a wing completely.’At that point, I pulled both brake lines down as far as I possibly could by taking one wrap of the lines around my wrists and tucking my hands beneath my butt.’Even with elbows locked, it was difficult to hold my hands down for the required 5 seconds while a desperately fluttering wing surged backwards and forwards over my head as I sank rapidly through the air.’I was being jostled about in every direction and saw my horizon change from the water, to the sky, to the mountains in rapid succession.’The lines were jerking at my hands with great force as the wing tried to recover, but I had to hold it down until the surging subsided.’That also meant I had to wait until I was falling straight down, rather than swinging beneath my wing.

At that point, I let up half-way on the brakes as the wing was slightly in front of me.’It then surged still further out front and had me swinging through a huge arc underneath it.’As the wing came overhead yet again, I could let out the rest of the brakes and begin taking control of my wing by once again allowing it to become the flying device that it was meant to be.’Throughout the maneuver, fear was actually far less of an issue than total disorientation.’Thank goodness I had the calming voice of an instructor on the radio.

Sixth Flight

Up until now, all of the difficulties I had encountered had been deliberately induced in the hopes that if ever I encountered them "in the wild" I would be prepared to respond appropriately.’On this flight, however, I ran into my first minor technical difficulty.’While on tow, the line snapped when I was only about 1,500 feet above the ground.’At first, it did not seem like that big of an issue, as I had plenty of altitude to make the landing zone.

As I had been instructed, I held onto my end of the tow line by not releasing the drogue.’Unfortunately, as I got closer and closer to the ground, the resistance that the line created actually increased because I was feeling more line being pulled through the water rather than through the air.’What looked like an easy glide to the LZ was now a questionable descent which might very well have dumped me onto a bank of very large and sharp rocks.

But as if that’s not bad enough, here’s where it gets awful.’I was heading to shore on a downwind leg, loosing altitude.’I did not have the height to be able to turn around and point into the wind for landing.’As it was, I was barely able to turn right and parallel the shore line, cross-wise to the wind.’Unfortunately, that's when more of the line began to drag lower in the water and added terribly to my resistance.’I was heading South, my wing was flying South, and then just before the ground, the line yanked my body to the West while my wing kept going South, 90 degrees to my body.’I landed very hard going sideways, hitting my butt, then knee and hip, elbow, shoulder, and finally whacking the side of my head.’

The extent of my injury was a scraped elbow and my mid-back was a bit sore.’Mostly, I was just massively shaken up, confused, and overwhelmed.’I had no idea to expect that kind of behavior from the tow line, since I had never had this happen before, and because I was following the instructions I heard over my radio.

In hindsight, it would have been better to just land in the water, or to have to have jettisoned the drogue when I had more altitude but was perhaps closer to shore.’Apparently, there are sometimes problem releasing the tow line when there is no tension from the boat any longer.’Even were that really the case, then that might have called for the tow line to be cut with the hook-knife.’By having me focus on the ease of drogue retrieval, I believe that my instructor made a very bad call at my expense.’The experience for me was not unlike a dog running at full speed before suddenly and violently reaching the end of its leash, and it also resulted in probably the largest wedgie I've ever had in my life. “Fortunately, the next pilot was able to learn from my mishap because the line broke on him as well and he knew to get rid of the drogue high over land.’Further, I took the time to write the incident up to USHPA despite the lack of serious injury so that others might learn as well.

Shortly afterwards, it was scorching hot, well into the triple digits, and we decided to take a break by going back to the house.’The plan was to come back around 6p to do some more towing in the early evening, since it is light until close to 10p.’However, when we were all back at the house where we are staying, I took a short nap.’When I woke, a decision had already been made to blow off towing for the evening.’Most folks decided to go someplace for wine-tasting and then to a stake-house.” As a non-drinking vegetarian, I was not happy about it, and so I decided to stay at the house instead.’The down-time to relax was nice, but that is not what I came here to do.’I was frustrated.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Seventh Flight

I knew that I could not let my previous flight be the last one that I did at the clinic, and that I needed to get back into the sky.’I didn't develop any fears over flying, or of landing, but I was a bit timid regarding the tow-line.’Unfortunately, when the boat roars away from the shore, the pilot still needs to run at 100% full speed to get airborne while still keeping the glider upright and stable.

The tasks for this flight were to work on negative spins, more recoveries from full stalls, and if possible, to try for a maneuver called a SAT.’Negative spins are when half of the wing is flying and the other half is stalled, resulting in a helicopter-like motion in the wing.’Full stalls were getting easier to enter and exit, but they were still quite violent even when done well.’The SAT, however, is a much more complex move that I still don't fully understand, even after having done one.

When I was finally in the air, I found that I was still shaking a little bit, and had to deliberately calm myself down so that I could focus on the maneuvers that would begin after letting go of the tow-line.’What I could not have known at that point was that releasing the drogue would become an adventure all of its own.

At final altitude I pulled the release handle but nothing happened.’I pulled again and still it would not budge.’I let go of both breaks and wailed on it with both hands, but still nothing.’At this point, I was starting to feel the pull of the line dragging me down, and despite having close to 3000 feet of altitude, I went into just short of a panic based on yesterday's abrupt landing.’I had images of the exact same landing, only happening from altitude.’This was not just fear’this was genuine panic, with rapid heart-rate, rapid breathing, knocking knees, trembling hands and tears.

Over the radio, I heard the boat driver say that he couldn't see the drogue, despite the line having gone slack.’It was slack because I somehow had the sense to fly directly over top of the boat to keep it from pulling me sideways again.’With a little bit of slack available, I reached down and pulled the drogue into my lap by hoisting it hand over hand from the tow bridals so that I could look at the release mechanism.’Meanwhile, my wing was tossing about erratically from side to side in the process, but I just had to deal with it.

Once in my lap, it took but a fraction of a second for my panicked brain to conclude "This release is all f***ed up!" The release pin had been inserted incorrectly and had jammed.’No wonder I could not get it to release!’However, with the entire contraption in my lap, I was able to fix it, pull the pin, and toss the drogue over the side towards the water below.’I was out of immediate danger, but my adrenaline levels were still way off the charts.’

I took a few deep breaths, tucked the tow-bridals safely under my tush, and saw that I still had well over 2,000 feet to spare.’Over the radio, Gabe requested that I take it easy, and that when I was ready to begin the rest of the maneuvers, that I make a left 180 degree turn. ‘I had thought about simply flying to the landing zone to skip this one, but that was not what I was there to learn.’

After a few moments, I commenced my turn, and further instructions came pouring over the radio.’While I was able to physically comply with the directions, the relationship between what I did and what happened to the wing really was not sinking in.’

I slowed the wing down just a bit, and then stalled the right side while letting the left side continue to fly, resulting in a negative spin to the right like a helicopter blade.’The exercise was then repeated to the left, and then followed by some wingovers with increasingly greater G-forces.

Beyond that point, I really have no clue whatsoever what really happened.’I was told that I entered a SAT, which is when the wing circles forward while the pilot circles backwards, except that somehow thing were going terribly wrong.’I had a massive cravat on the down-hill side, which meant that the outer 6 cells of my wing-tip had folded inward and become entangled in the rest of the lines while I kept spinning faster and faster.’I tried pulling on the left break line, then the right.’Not only was I unable to clear my lines, nor could I manage to exit from the rotation.” My instructor gave some directions on what to try, but none if it was working.’All the while, I was probably falling at 700 feet per minute or more, all the while completely oblivious to my ever-decreasing altitude above the water.

At some point I heard that calm voice over my radio say "Ashley, pull your reserve."’I had done it in simulations, but never for real.’Thank god for the attention I paid during simulations!’I reached down for that yellow handle below my right butt-cheek, and ripped it out of its Velcro.’Just as my instructor repeated his instructions, I hurled that sack of bundled nylon wrapped inside its diaper into the sky without even thinking.

That's when time began to slow down and I entered that hyper-aware state.’I did not actually see the chute, but I saw the long line of black nylon webbing extend outward from under my legs.’The problem here was that it was supposed to be over my head.’I had thrown it correctly, except that I was upside down, legs skyward, as the lines began to extend.’I had a sensation of the lines slowly coming under tension, and an awareness that I was about to be thrown ass over apple-carts as the chute opened and began to take a load.’That’s exactly what happened as I was rapidly spun into the upright position under my reserve canopy with perhaps 300′ of altitude to spare before hitting the surface of the water.

Despite being under new canopy, I was still spinning and swinging quite violently as the entire system tried to stabilize when I looked down and saw the water approaching at what was still an alarming speed.’Of all of the things that could have gone through my mind at that precise moment, I was inexplicably thinking that I might loose my glasses.’Moments before smacking the water I put my hands to my face and held onto my helmet as I took one of the fastest and deepest breaths of my life.

!’!’!“ S * P * L * A * S * H” !’!’!

I have no idea how deep under water I actually plunged, but I could hear the phenomenal rush and swirl of the bubbles all around me.’My eyes were wide open now and I was able to see thousands of individual bubbles, each in incredibly intricate detail.’That was important because the bubbles let me know which way was up as I began swimming for the surface which seemed so very far away.’I swam and swam, frantically driven towards the sunlight.’Eventually, my head pierced the surface and I could breath again, but all that I could manage was a long series of hyper-ventilating gasps amidst my doggy-paddle to keep my head above water.

The flying harness we use floats, but unlike a life-jacket which is designed to keep your head out of water, this harness ends up keeping your butt out of the water instead. The soggy pilot must continuously paddle by hand, remembering not to kick, lest one of the 150 lines from wing and reserve chute wrap around her feet worse than a fish caught in a gill-net.

The tow boat was at my side in less than 10 seconds, at which point I reached up and grabbed the side of the boat while still desperately trying to recover my breath.’He asked if I was OK, but all that would come out of my mouth was "OH!’MY! GOD!!!" I kept uttering it over and over again while hanging onto the side of the bow. ‘The driver asked me to come to the rear of the boat so that he could pull me in, but I had to just hang there and breathe for a while.

When I moved to the back, he hauled me in, and I promptly plopped on the floor of the boat.’I simply could not stop laughing and calling out "Oh My God!"’We went back to shore where others helped me out of the boat and carried my soggy gear onto dry land.’I literally bent down and kissed the dirt, let out a rip-roaring scream of elation and joy to the gift of life (and endorphins), and I had to be helped away from the shore because my knees were still shaking so badly.’It took about 45 minutes to re-establish internal equilibrium, which was signaled with intense physical hunger and a craving for chocolate.’I opened the cooler and satisfied both with vengeance.

New: Video Clip of the flight!

Eighth Flight

With the temperatures still in the high 90’s, it didn’t take long for my wing to dry out to where it could be flown again.’My reserve, however, would require more care and special packing before it could be used again.’Therefore, for the next two flights, I used one of the spare harnesses that the instructor had with him because it had its own reserve still packed.’

This flight involved more spins and stalls, but no SATs.’It finished up with Asymmetric spirals.’My instructor wanted me to do some more wingovers, but I was close to spent already, so I pulled big-ears to decline the instruction and came in for landing.

Ninth Flight

For this flight, I wanted to be mostly left to my own to work on wingovers, rather than being guided through the timing.’I asked for two attempts to get it right on my own, and that after that, to coach me some more if I failed to get it right.’I was able to do sets of 4 wingovers before loosing my timing and starting over.’

At this point, however, I was more than happy with that.’I was absolutely exhausted at that point, and I don't think I could have done another flight even if I wanted to.

So why is it that I put myself through such an ordeal in the first place” Because I know that sooner or later, I am going to encounter some nasty conditions, and I want the skills to be able to survive.’The other reason is summed up in the quote below:

Everyone who lives, dies.

Yet not everyone who dies, has lived.

We take these risks not to escape life,
but to prevent life from escaping us.

I had the best flight of my flying career so far last Sunday at Tiger Mountain .  The skies were clear, winds were light, and the lift was abundant.  I had three flights that day.  The first was a launch off of North Tiger which lasted 24 minutes, top elevation maybe 300’ above launch.  There was concern that the wind was going to pick up way too much and that everything might get blown out, so I launched early. 

However, the winds stayed constant at about 5-10 MPH, and I had time to get back up to the launch again for a second flight.  This one was just fantastic.  I managed to experience a number of “firsts” for me.  In particular, I was able to find and circle multiple lift cores, rising well over 1,000’ in each one, topping out at just below 5,000’ MSL.  (Launch is 1,830’ MSL).  At one point I got sucked into a lift band close to rising at about 800 fpm.  I had never heard my variometer make that kind of noise before.  It was literally screaming at me, but they were screams of joy because it meant going up!

Also, while I have had brief partial collapses in the past, I had one of the largest I have ever experienced, complete with that terrible sinking sensation from loosing altitude.  It might have been only 20’ that I lost, but my heart and bowels told a story more like dropping a hundred feet or more.  As scary as it was, I managed to regain my composure and thought “OK.  That was not so bad.  Now go do it again so that I’m more prepared and controlled for when it happens by surprise.”  I did that a few times, hating it every time, but managing to regain control a little quicker each time, and then I left that area to fly somewhere else.

In this same flight, I also managed to do a little bit of cross-country flying, traveling about 7 miles from launch towards one of the “tiger tag” waypoints.  I was concerned going that far away from my home base for the first time — what if I couldn’t make it back?  However, I knew that the same region of travel which took me to altitude would probably be there on the return trip, so I actually did a few laps.  Around this time, I looked at my timer to see that I had been up for 50 minutes.  It had long been a goal to stay up for more than an hour, and this one clearly looked like it would do it.

I started playing with some much tighter spirals, and switching the direction of my spin from one way to the other.  I’m sure it looked rather tame from below, but for me it was quite a thrill.  I came back down towards the launch and had planned to try my first top-landing.  Unfortunately, I was way too high, but not high enough to go around a second time.  I was also more than a little nervous.  But rather than continuing to sink out and go to the landing zone, I managed to catch more lift again.  I thought about trying another top-landing but got so
caught up in the fun and lift that I took it back up to 4,000 again and just flew all over the place.

Eventually I had finished my water, I was getting thirsty, and I had to use the restroom.  So I went back towards launch for another shot at a top-landing.  This time, I was too low, and had to veer off.  That was fine, since the landing zone below was only another 8 minutes away. Yet the lift was still there and remarkably I got a third shot at my goal.  This time, there was another tandem wing in front of me
trying to land on top at the launch, so I could watch his approach and then repeat it.  I was following about 20 seconds behind him, and saw that he actually landed a bit low of the launch, hitting the side of the hill.  I was able to correct a little bit, but still landed on the same hill above him, but below the launch.  Regardless, it was a successful top landing, and I was just beaming!

I put my wing into a rosette, walked the 30 feet to the top of the hill and unclipped my gear, then raced for the restroom.  I had been airborne for 2 hours 10 minutes – clearly my longest flight ever, and far exceeding my own expectations.  Afterwards, conditions were dying down, and most other pilots had already sunk out by now.  It was getting late, I was thirsty and hungry, and it was time to go back down.  The air was calm with nearly no wind.  I set up for a running-reverse which I executed nearly flawlessly, and took a deliberate sled-ride to the landing zone, joining up with another group of pilots who had just completed an awesome set of flights as well.

I had a mildly harrowing flight today off of Tiger Mt.

Conditions were questionable, from either North or South launch.

On the South launch, winds were cycling from 3-15 MPH, driven mostly by sun-heated atabatic flow, in cycles lasting about two minutes long. In the lulls, however, the wind was blowing backwards from the North from 1-2 MPH, for about 30 second intervals.

On North launch, which was more in the shade, the winds were only 1-3 MPH, but were also alternating directions about every minute.

Kristen and I had hiked up to the top, and there were no other pilots on launch. That alone was a big clue, and I was seriously considering just hiking back down with my wing. Instead, we waited quite a while and the cycles on South launch got lighter and farther apart.

Eventually, it was light enough on South that I figured I could launch. However, on set-up, I still alternated between having a respectable “wall” in my wing, only to have it collapse and blow over from the rear. I was waiting for a good lull, then planned to just get out of there in that window. It was not a day I would have preferred to launch, but I kept asking myself “is it safe?” The answer kept coming back “It’s questionable.” So I waited some more, then decided to launch off of South.

Well, the sink right after launch was pretty bad. I ended up hugging the ground for way too long, gaining altitude only as the ground dropped, then sinking back again for probably 500 yards down the mountain. I was airborne this whole time, but never more than 30 feet above the ground, and some times as low as 10 feet over the trees. Mentally, I was thinking about evasive-maneuvers. “Look for the opening” I kept telling myself. Look for the spot where the ground dropped away the most, or where I had the most clearance from trees. Meanwhile, my wing kept suffering from momentary collapses on one side or the other, making that tell-tale FWOP noise. All the while, I dare not look up to see it, since my eyes were so focused on steering a path to open air and avoiding the trees. My brain was on over-drive.

But eventually, I did clear the last of the trees, mostly because the hill dropped off precipitously, and not because I flew out or over anything. But now even with over 100 of feet of clearance, I was still in some pretty bad sink and I was concerned that I would just barely make it to the bottom of the mountain, probably landing in the swimming pool at the nudist colony at the base. In fact, it was on my mind as an alternate landing zone because everything else was worse. I needed more altitude to get around the horn to the right and pointed towards the primary landing zone.

Eventually, I did manage to get enough vertical clearance to turn right, and I could see what was going on: the battle between a gentle North flow, and South atabatic flow. I should have gone off of the North launch, or else decided to walk. Nonetheless, I still had to make it to the LZ, and altitude was quite low. I thought I might land in the big swamp south of the LZ, but that would actually be OK. When I got closer, I saw that all three windsocks at the LZ were pointing different directions, with the highest and most prominent one indicating the wind was from the South. On the bright side, that wind was taking me directly towards the landing zone. On the other hand, I find landing to the South more difficult because of the high trees on the North end of the field.

I set up for landing, pointing South, with appropriate clearance for those trees. Unfortunately, I didn’t have forward penetration through the wind. I was staring at the tree with the windsock maybe 30 feet away both below and to my left. The sock was blowing straight out, and I was completely stationary in all directions – both vertical and horizontal. I knew that if the wind died or shifted, that my margin of separation was inadequate. So for the first time, I had to use my speed-bar to sacrifice altitude in an attempt to gain the forward speed necessary to get in front of the trees. I had used it once before at much higher altitude as part of my training, but this was the first time I used it out of necessity.

While it did let me penetrate forward of the trees and closer to the LZ, I did not want to hold too much speed-bar with winds that twitchy. Remember that all three socks pointed in different directions, so once I had cleared those trees in the south-wind, I was now over the LZ with West-wind. The problem is that the LZ is a football field long from North to South, but only a swimming-pool wide from East to West, with power-lines and a highway on the West. Of course, there is a mountain and trees on the East, so South-West was the way to go splitting the distance between the power lines and the swamp.

I had descended to maybe 15 feet above the ground and was ready to flare right where I wanted to be, but then I got a big updraft which took me back up to about 40’ amidst the screaming beeps of my variometer. I wanted to just pick a straight line and stick with it rather than making big changes that close to landing, but the conditions sucked! I was not about to pull “big-ears,” since the rapid-switching meant I wanted full control of my wing. I did manage to eventually sink back down to 10’ again, sinking very slowly with a ground speed of near zero. I made a slight flare, followed by deliberately running forward, then turning and a rapidly killing my wing. I was on the ground, and I was fine.

The entire flight lasted probably less than 4 minutes. A normal no-wind flight takes closer to 8 minutes. While it was not a flight that I would care to repeat, I was quite pleased that I had an array of skills and tricks at my disposal to manage a safe journey. I’m also grateful for the opportunity to have a “learning” flight I can draw upon for the future.

Today was my first solo flight off of Tiger Mountain, and it was quite an event.

The day began with some additional practice kiting on the South end of Lake Sammamish. The wind was rather erratic, sometimes from the South, and sometimes from the West. That made practice and control a bit more difficult, but it was also a realistic environment in that even at launch the wind direction can frequently change. When the wind began to die down to almost nothing, I practiced forward launches.

Normally, one launches by facing the wing, with your back in the intended direction of travel. The advantage is that you can see the wing as it rises, and make corrections in tension, brakes, and the speed and direction you are running as the wing dictates. Then, once the wing is up and over head, you turn around, face forward, and keep running into launch.

In a forward launch, you start out by facing forward, with the wing to your back. Your arms are outstretched with all of the risers draped evenly across your forearms. Then, with a quick and even motion, you start pulling the wing forward, which causes it to rise up and over head. The advantage is that you don’t have to turn around, but the disadvantage is that you cannot see the wing and instead have to rely almost entirely on the way it feels as you pull it forward and up. Reverse launches are better for higher winds, and forward launches are better for light to no wind conditions.

So when we traveled to the top of Tiger Mountain later in the afternoon, I was glad for my practice launching forward, since the wind was rapidly dying down due both to the setting sun, and that some significant cloud-cover had just come in.

Yaro, my instructor, had asked what I thought of the conditions and how I felt. I told him that I was nervous. “Nervous” would actually be an understatement, but that’s what I told him. He gave some speech about why I should not be nervous. He said that it was no different than practicing at the lake and that I was not here to launch. He said I was just supposed to get the wing up and under control, and only then to consider whether I wanted to launch or not. Nonetheless, I was still “nervous,” and that was not going to go away regardless of the truth of what he said.

Ultimately, however, he was not there to coach me off the mountain. He was there to impart the skills necessary for me to make my own decisions regarding how to make a safe launch. I would only go when I was good and ready, and when I felt safe enough and comfortable enough to start hurling myself forward toward the edge of an ever increasingly steep slope, 1,570 feet above the valley below, and out into the wild blue yonder. Except that this was Seattle, and it was actually the wild gray yonder, but that’s beside the point.

Eventually there was a brief puff of wind maybe 3 miles an hour and I knew that it was not going to get any better as the conditions began to deteriorate for the evening. And so I began to run. My eyes were fixed upon the horizon and I could hear the WHOOSH of the wing coming up from behind me. I could also feel the pressure upon my harness and sense the angle of the wing based on where the risers lay in my hand as I continued my forward journey.

There came a point when I knew that the wing was directly overhead and stable, and, without stopping for a moment, I knew that I was now committed to continuing the launch. Had anything gone wrong, I still could have aborted, but all systems were GO and my little feet were pushing me towards that precipice with full conviction and force. At last I was airborne, but far from safe and secure. My feet kept running and running despite there being no ground beneath them. That was a good thing, because for the first 25-feet of my flight, I was no more than a few feet off of the ground before the mountain all but disappeared beneath me and I began to enter cleaner, more open air. As it was, I still picked my feet up too soon in desperation to get out of there.

Over my radio, I could hear Yaro telling me to “Relax. Relax. And BREATHE!” It was not until that moment that I realized that while I was not really holding my breath, I still needed to exhale for the whole breathing thing to really work. I let out such a gasp that I was sure it affected my airspeed, but at last I began to breathe more normally.

So now I could actually begin to think about my flight plan. Straight out, away from the mountain, turn right at the nudist colony, and then start looking for the landing zone on the right. Mind you, I was way too high to actually see anything at the nudist colony except for their swimming pool, but quite frankly, that was more than enough for me.

My flight path took me through a few bumps, and despite knowing to expect them, they still shook me up quite a bit on my maiden high-launch voyage. It was only when I remembered that those bumps were probably thermals that I started to circle around them. That was followed almost immediately with elation and surprise as I realized “Oh my goodness!! I’m actually going UP!! WOW! This is incredible!!”

By that time I was plenty far off the ground and maybe 1000 feet away from the side of the mountain. Yet no matter how far away I was, any 360-degree turn had me facing the mountain at least once and I did NOT like the sight of a mountain heading in my general direction. Whereas Yaro flew within 25 feet of the trees when we were on Tandem, my own comfort zone was threatened with anything less than 500 feet.

In the mean time, I knew that I needed to use my altitude to practice some maneuvers and to get comfortable with the wing and harness because I had no idea what my wing could do. Well, the real issue wasn’t what the wing, but rather the constraints imposed by my own fear and staying within my meager skill-level.

Still, I made sure that I did a few complete turns to the right, and a few to the left. That’s when I realized that my harness is probably too big for me. I know that you are supposed to shift your weight from one side to the other, but as far as I can tell, your tuchas is not supposed to slosh from one side of the harness to the other in the process. I knew that I could tighten that up a little bit, but that would require letting go of the control toggles to grab the webbing for the buckle adjustment. Cognitively, I knew that there was no way for it to release under pressure, but the very notion of touching anything even related to my harness was just WAY to scary for me at that point.

OK, be calm. Breathe. Relax. Now sloooooly, let go of the control surfaces. There. See? The wing can fly just fine without any help from me, thank you. Conversely, anything that might go wrong would therefore have to be my fault — so be careful for goodness sakes! So I grabbed the buckle and gave it a tug. Nothing. Again. Nothing. So I wailed on it and it tightened up a bit. Unfortunately, that also shook the wing and had my hands racing for those control toggles while my butt cheeks slammed shut tighter than a steel vault.

Around that time, I was heading out of visual range of the launch site and Yaro called on the radio to another instructor named Lawrence at the landing zone (LZ) that he should be able to see me. Lawrence said that he could not see me. In a deep Czech accent as thick as paste, Yaro said “Uh oh… Vhere iz Ahshley?” I knew exactly where I was! I was half a mile south of the LZ, directly between the highway and the power-lines, dangling 25 feet below a gigantic piece of gold-colored nylon the size of a VW microbus! How could I possibly be invisible? I wanted to scream “Here I am! Up here!” but I knew they could not hear me. I though about pushing the button on my radio, but I was not about to let go of those control toggles again after what just happened moments before. Instead, I just kept flying towards the LZ, and then Lawrence acknowledged that he had me on visual and began guiding me down.

Now, the landing pattern at Tiger Mountain is really not all that complicated. When facing North, there is a mountain on the East, and a highway with power-lines on the West. The North end is covered in blackberry bushes that precede some tall trees, and the South end has lots of bushes. In the middle is this great big field with wind-socks all along the side and a cone that screams “land here” to everybody from above. The wind was blowing stiffly from the North so I flew down-wind along the side of the mountain, going well past the edge of the LZ before making a right turn onto my base-leg, followed by another right turn over the power-lines as I started lining up for my final approach.

Lawrence was on the radio helping me out when he told me that while on final, the wind had just switched directions. Now, rather than landing into a slight headwind from the North, I was actually flying across the top of the runway with a stiff tailwind from the South. Normally, a good pilot would use any number of tricks to quickly bleed off altitude or turn around to face the other way, except that I was not a good pilot. This was my very first major flight, and I could see that I was going to run out of runway before touching down. That’s when I realized that I was so focused on the end of the runway that I had forgotten to put my landing gear down! I was still sitting in my harness, rather than having pushed my way out to extend my legs to start running. I quickly stood up, barely touched the ground with my feet, and promptly fell backwards onto my rump just 6 inches away from the blackberry bushes at the end of the runway. My wing, however, kept going and landed on top of them, thus requiring a bit of extrication before I could leave the field.

If nothing else, however, it meant that I was out of the way for the remaining pilots who were still trying to land. By that time, the other pilots had turned and were landing towards the South. Unfortunately, most gliders only go about 15 MPH when flying full speed, and the wind was now over 20MPH. That meant that pilots were landing directly into the wind, and still traveling backwards over the ground. That’s when I got to see some of those altitude-losing tricks I just mentioned, like “Big Ears”, “Speed Bars”, and tugging on the C-Risers. These were experienced pilots, exercising great skill while trying to control their crafts safely to the ground in weather which was rapidly becoming cold and unpleasant.

Another minute later and I had my wing stuffed into a sack as I started walking towards my car.  “Any one you can walk away from is a good one,” Dad used to tell me. Perhaps that’s true, but I left the field with a massive combination of gratitude for a safe journey, a deep appreciation for the skill needed to participate in this sport safely, a sense of accomplishment for my first mountain flight, and an awareness of a budding addiction to paragliding that I can only hope will stay with me for years to come. My feet may have come back down to earth, but my head and heart were clearly still up in the clouds.

Many are the times where I have been hiking or kayaking throughout the Snoqualmie region and noticed various airborne craft with people dangling precariously below.  Sometimes it was a paraglider, others it was a hang-glider, but in all cases, there was something about watching the freedom of their movement through the air which was quite intoxicating.  I kept telling myself “Someday, that looks like fun.”

Further compounding my interest was that my brother had taken up the sport with extreme passion, and kept sending me spectacular photographs taken from his aerial perch several thousand feet above the ground.  But the real kicker was when I was in South Africa for his wedding, and he managed to hook me up with a friend of his for a brief but incredibly exhilarating adventure in a tandem paraglider.  It only took a few moments in the air, and I knew for certain that it was only a matter of time before I got into the sport for myself.

*  *  *

That day came just this past weekend at a course with Aerial Paragliding in Cashmere, Washington.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

The day started out with just myself and one other student working with a fellow named Chris, who was our instructor.  There were other students there too, but we were the only two beginners.

After orientation to the parts of the glider and harness, we practiced building walls and bringing the wing up over our heads.  “Building a wall” means taking the paraglider and laying it out so that it is as spread-out as it can be.  Then the process continues by letting the wind fill the wing with air, then letting it settle back down to the ground again.  You have a “wall” when you have the glider fully inflated, neatly laid out, and at the end of all of the lines that lead back to the harness.

Once you have a wall, you can start kiting.  That’s when you pull on that wall with a bit of wind into the wing, then WWHHOOOOSH!  The entire contraption lifts off of the ground and starts heading over your head.  Kiting is when you can get it into that position and keep it there through the proper application of pressure on the appropriate lines without having the wing drag you around the field too badly.

Since I had already done some that with Yaro, through Skyco Sports a few days earlier,  I did not need as much instruction with basic kiting, and was able to spend the time practicing instead. We did that for about an hour or so, then we headed up to a place called “Whisper Point”, where we would start running down our first hill.

Before we could do that, however, we had to perform a flight pre-check.  This was done each and every time before launch, and consisted of “R1234RST”:

• Reserve chute. Do you know where it is?  Is it where it needs to be?
  (We weren’t using reserves because we were not going to be high enough to use them even if we wanted to.  Besides that, we had no idea how to use them anyway).
• One chin-strap buckle on the helmet, fastened and secure
• Two carabineers holding the wing to the harness, both locked and secure.
• Three buckles of the harness, all fastened and secured.
• Four corners of the wing spread out and ready for flight, with lines straight and untangled.
• Radio.  Does it work?  Can you hear instructions when airborne?
• Stirrup.  Do you have one leg in front, and one behind, so that you can push into your seat once airborne without pulling on your wing?  (Imagine pulling on the yolk of an airplane while trying to move your seat forward… not a good idea.)
• Tops and Turn.  Are the tops of your risers in the right position to permit a turn to the forward position once your wing is aloft?

So then finally, we started with some gentle-slopes, running while pointing down-hill, and eventually hoping to go airborne. My natural tendency while running down hill was to look at the ground in case I should trip or fall.  However, it really helped to  stare out at the horizon instead because the moment I felt unsure of my footing was actually just as I was about to take off.

Without a shadow of a doubt, that’s when the fun really started — the moment when conditions were right and I was able to go completely airborne. It was absolutely awesome. Of course, in the midst of trying to enjoy the ride, my mind was alternating between “YES!” and “Oh crap!! What the hell am I doing?” The flight lasted probably close to a minute, maybe 150 yards long, and was over way too soon.

I had a slight sensation of being on a zip-wire, except that there was no wire directing my path, my path was far from straight, and all I knew about my landing site was that it was “down that way, wherever it happened to be when I lost altitude.

While flying, I kept my arms rather stiff.  OK, they were out-stretched and rigid, and it wasn’t helping. I tended to grossly over-correct for everything, resulting in a pendulum motion – both forward and back, as well as left to right. Once on the ground, I recognized it as the exact same behavior that kayak students make when learning to steer.  Not knowing what to do, I was doing everything, rapidly, and way to hard.

After bunching up my wing in a rosette, I had to hike back up the hill to do it again. A rosette is when you grab all the lines in front, right where they clip into the harness, then start coiling all of the lines as a group. The process takes up all the slack, and results in the corners of the wing being brought in towards the center, making a gigantic “rose” that is held in place by the lines. At that point, the entire contraption is tossed over the shoulder, and you can start walking with it. If you can imagine one of those renaissance-period puffy gowns that go out really far, then quadruple that, you kind of get the picture. Every step results in the whole contraption being jostled about and making a cacophony of rustling noises. With the sun at my back and an assortment of colored nylon surrounding my entire body, I think it ends up looking more like a peacock than a rose, but that’s just what it’s called.

*  *  *

My second flight did not go nearly as well. While setting up for launch, I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it was definitely not what I wanted. I ended up with the wing going up from the ground, over my head, and then down to the ground, where it began to drag me across the dirt and grass, face first. My first thought was “Well, THIS definitely sucks!” That was followed almost immediately by “Pull the breaks!!”

In the end, I was only dragged about 10 feet, and I was not moving that fast. Nonetheless, it served as a valuable lesson that there is quite a bit more to this sport than I am going to pick up all at once, and this is going to take a LOT of practice.

After recovery from my drag, I got set up again for launch, raised the wing over head, took a few steps down the hill, then WHOOSH!  I was not only airborne, but had very rapidly gained a considerable bit of altitude.  Well, maybe it was only 20 feet, but for my second flight, that was a lot.

My arms were much more relaxed this time, and I was able to keep my focus more on the horizon as I traveled down the valley. Part of me just wanted to scream out loud, except for the fact that nearly all of my attention was dedicated to focusing on everything that was going on around me: The wind, the shape of the ground, my forward speed and altitude, how far I was from the two hills on either side of the valley, and trying to figure out where I was actually going to land. While I knew the line on which I would land, I had absolutely no idea how far down that line I would travel before touching back down to the ground again. Imagine traveling in a car with a good bit of speed, letting off the accelerator, and trying to figure out how far you will travel before your speed bleeds off. This was basically the same thing, except that the whole thing was in the air and coming to a stop meant coming back into contact with the earth down below.

On this flight, I had managed to travel about 500 yards down the valley, and when my feet finally touched ground, things were far from over. There was still the task of safely getting that gigantic wing back down too, because I did NOT want a repeat of that ground-dragging thing that happened earlier at the top. So while simultaneously struggling for balance with my earth-bound feet, I also had to turn around backwards to face the wing, duck under my lines, and collapse the trailing edge. Then and only then could let out that scream I had been holding in since I launched. Wooo Hoo!!

Best of all, I still got to go back up and do it again for a third launch!  This time, the instructor picked us up in the truck, took us past the top of the hill where we started before, and launched us from the top of Whisper Point. Even before laying out the wing from this point, it was clear that we were higher than before. Rather than standing on the middle of a gently sloping hill, we were now on top of something which sloped downward and maybe 45 degrees and dropped about 80 feet over an equivalent distance on the horizon.  All the principles from the first two flights still applied, except that the wind was quite a bit stronger from here, the launch sequence was faster, and we were heading directly into a rising thermal the moment we stepped foot off the ground.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this was the best flight so far. I was airborne for more than two minutes, and traveled between a quarter and half of a mile. After that, it was time to pack up, stuff the wing into the back of the truck, and head in for lunch because the conditions were rapidly becoming way to strong, turbulent and erratic for somebody still on her first day, with less than 10 minutes of cumulative airtime under her wing.

That’s OK… my stomach was ready for lunch anyway.

*  *  *

At one point during lunch, I heard somebody’s cell phone going off underneath one of the wings which was bunched up in the grass under some shade.  It was on vibrate-mode, and I could hear it going off amidst the fabric.  I let the instructor know, and he moved the wing a bit, only to jump back rather rapidly.  It turns out that it was not a cell phone at all, but was actually a rattle-snake that had been buried beneath the wing, and it was not at all happy about it.

Like we didn’t already have enough to worry about as first-time students.  Now we had to think about snakes getting wrapped up in our wings, only to fall out of the sky and land on us too?  “Welcome to Eastern Washington,” my instructor told me.

*  *  *

After lunch, watching a video on kiting, and a couple of hours just lounging around waiting for the worst of the winds to die down, it was back to the slopes again. The difference this time was that we had the basics under “moderate” control, and were able to launch, travel, land, rosette, load into the truck, and do it all over again in much less time. All in all, that meant that I got between 4 and 5 flights in after lunch.  As much as I tried to keep track, I’m really not sure how many there were.

Mostly, I just know that I was having an absolute blast the entire time. By the last two flights, I was easily traveling between 1/4 and 1/2 of a mile in the air.  While airborne, I was much less jerky and reactive to whatever happened to me while up there.  I was also able to start changing directions just by changing my lean in the seat, rather than always applying breaks. The former maintains most of my speed, while the latter looses both speed and altitude.

And my landings were getting much better too. The key to a good landing is to control your horizontal ground-speed by getting it as slow as possible, while simultaneously making the wing “stall” when you are about 3 feet off of the ground. Then, the moment your feet touch the ground, turn around and collapse the wing.

When we wrapped up for the day, I noticed that I had a nice set of bruises on both of my upper arms, and I was not sure what they were from. My instructor said “Congratulations… We all get those.  it comes from leaning forward against the risers connected to the harness.”  I found it hard to believe that bruising was actually “normal,” except that we were doing the same set of drills over and over all day long. Normally, those particular motions are only needed once or twice, depending on how many times one launches on a given day.

When we started today half way down Whisper Point, going to the top seamed way out of my league, ominous, and scary. By the end of the day it was just awesome and fun. So when we then put our stuff into the truck for the last time and headed to another hill that they call “Don’s Peak” to look at what tomorrow would hold, the sensation of ominous and scary was back all over again. This launch point would have us traveling easily twice the distance we had traveled so far, and followed a zigzag pattern that traversed the interconnecting hills and valleys we would have to navigate on  our way down to the landing zone a mile away and several hundred feet below.

As much as that hill might have provided an adrenaline rush, the wind had changed, it was getting late, and Don’s Peak would simply have to wait until tomorrow, providing that the weather cooperated with us.

Many are the times where I have been hiking or kayaking throughout the Snoqualmie region and noticed various airborne craft with people dangling precariously below. Sometimes it was a paraglider, others it was a hang-glider, but in all cases, there was something about watching the freedom of their movement through the air which was quite intoxicating. I kept telling myself “Someday, that looks like fun.”

Further compounding my interest was that my brother had taken up the sport with extreme passion, and kept sending me spectacular photographs taken from his aerial perch several thousand feet above the ground. But the real kicker was when I was in South Africa for his wedding, and he managed to hook me up with a friend of his for a brief but incredibly exhilarating adventure in a tandem paraglider. It only took a few moments in the air, and I knew for certain that it was only a matter of time before I got into the sport for myself.

* * *

That day came just this past weekend at a course with Aerial Paragliding in Cashmere, Washington. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

The day started out with just myself and one other student working with a fellow named Chris, who was our instructor. There were other students there too, but we were the only two beginners.

After orientation to the parts of the glider and harness, we practiced building walls and bringing the wing up over our heads. “Building a wall” means taking the paraglider and laying it out so that it is as spread-out as it can be. Then the process continues by letting the wind fill the wing with air, then letting it settle back down to the ground again. You have a “wall” when you have the glider fully inflated, neatly laid out, and at the end of all of the lines that lead back to the harness.

Once you have a wall, you can start kiting. That’s when you pull on that wall with a bit of wind into the wing, then WWHHOOOOSH! The entire contraption lifts off of the ground and starts heading over your head. Kiting is when you can get it into that position and keep it there through the proper application of pressure on the appropriate lines without having the wing drag you around the field too badly.

Since I had already done some that with Yaro, through Skyco Sports a few days earlier, I did not need as much instruction with basic kiting, and was able to spend the time practicing instead. We did that for about an hour or so, then we headed up to a place called “Whisper Point”, where we would start running down our first hill.

Before we could do that, however, we had to perform a flight pre-check. This was done each and every time before launch, and consisted of “R1234RST”:

• Reserve chute. Do you know where it is? Is it where it needs to be?
  (We weren’t using reserves because we were not going to be high enough to use them even if we wanted to. Besides that, we had no idea how to use them anyway).
• One chin-strap buckle on the helmet, fastened and secure
• Two carabineers holding the wing to the harness, both locked and secure.
• Three buckles of the harness, all fastened and secured.
• Four corners of the wing spread out and ready for flight, with lines straight and untangled.
• Radio. Does it work? Can you hear instructions when airborne?
• Stirrup. Do you have one leg in front, and one behind, so that you can push into your seat once airborne without pulling on your wing? (Imagine pulling on the yolk of an airplane while trying to move your seat forward… not a good idea.)
• Tops and Turn. Are the tops of your risers in the right position to permit a turn to the forward position once your wing is aloft?

So then finally, we started with some gentle-slopes, running while pointing down-hill, and eventually hoping to go airborne. My natural tendency while running down hill was to look at the ground in case I should trip or fall. However, it really helped to stare out at the horizon instead because the moment I felt unsure of my footing was actually just as I was about to take off.

Without a shadow of a doubt, that’s when the fun really started — the moment when conditions were right and I was able to go completely airborne. It was absolutely awesome. Of course, in the midst of trying to enjoy the ride, my mind was alternating between “YES!” and “Oh crap!! What the hell am I doing?” The flight lasted probably close to a minute, maybe 150 yards long, and was over way too soon.

I had a slight sensation of being on a zip-wire, except that there was no wire directing my path, my path was far from straight, and all I knew about my landing site was that it was “down that way, wherever it happened to be when I lost altitude.

While flying, I kept my arms rather stiff. OK, they were out-stretched and rigid, and it wasn’t helping. I tended to grossly over-correct for everything, resulting in a pendulum motion – both forward and back, as well as left to right. Once on the ground, I recognized it as the exact same behavior that kayak students make when learning to steer. Not knowing what to do, I was doing everything, rapidly, and way to hard.

After bunching up my wing in a rosette, I had to hike back up the hill to do it again. A rosette is when you grab all the lines in front, right where they clip into the harness, then start coiling all of the lines as a group. The process takes up all the slack, and results in the corners of the wing being brought in towards the center, making a gigantic “rose” that is held in place by the lines. At that point, the entire contraption is tossed over the shoulder, and you can start walking with it. If you can imagine one of those renaissance-period puffy gowns that go out really far, then quadruple that, you kind of get the picture. Every step results in the whole contraption being jostled about and making a cacophony of rustling noises. With the sun at my back and an assortment of colored nylon surrounding my entire body, I think it ends up looking more like a peacock than a rose, but that’s just what it’s called.

* * *

My second flight did not go nearly as well. While setting up for launch, I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it was definitely not what I wanted. I ended up with the wing going up from the ground, over my head, and then down to the ground, where it began to drag me across the dirt and grass, face first. My first thought was “Well, THIS definitely sucks!” That was followed almost immediately by “Pull the breaks!!”

In the end, I was only dragged about 10 feet, and I was not moving that fast. Nonetheless, it served as a valuable lesson that there is quite a bit more to this sport than I am going to pick up all at once, and this is going to take a LOT of practice.

After recovery from my drag, I got set up again for launch, raised the wing over head, took a few steps down the hill, then WHOOSH! I was not only airborne, but had very rapidly gained a considerable bit of altitude. Well, maybe it was only 20 feet, but for my second flight, that was a lot.

My arms were much more relaxed this time, and I was able to keep my focus more on the horizon as I traveled down the valley. Part of me just wanted to scream out loud, except for the fact that nearly all of my attention was dedicated to focusing on everything that was going on around me: The wind, the shape of the ground, my forward speed and altitude, how far I was from the two hills on either side of the valley, and trying to figure out where I was actually going to land. While I knew the line on which I would land, I had absolutely no idea how far down that line I would travel before touching back down to the ground again. Imagine traveling in a car with a good bit of speed, letting off the accelerator, and trying to figure out how far you will travel before your speed bleeds off. This was basically the same thing, except that the whole thing was in the air and coming to a stop meant coming back into contact with the earth down below.

On this flight, I had managed to travel about 500 yards down the valley, and when my feet finally touched ground, things were far from over. There was still the task of safely getting that gigantic wing back down too, because I did NOT want a repeat of that ground-dragging thing that happened earlier at the top. So while simultaneously struggling for balance with my earth-bound feet, I also had to turn around backwards to face the wing, duck under my lines, and collapse the trailing edge. Then and only then could let out that scream I had been holding in since I launched. Wooo Hoo!!

Best of all, I still got to go back up and do it again for a third launch! This time, the instructor picked us up in the truck, took us past the top of the hill where we started before, and launched us from the top of Whisper Point. Even before laying out the wing from this point, it was clear that we were higher than before. Rather than standing on the middle of a gently sloping hill, we were now on top of something which sloped downward and maybe 45 degrees and dropped about 80 feet over an equivalent distance on the horizon. All the principles from the first two flights still applied, except that the wind was quite a bit stronger from here, the launch sequence was faster, and we were heading directly into a rising thermal the moment we stepped foot off the ground.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this was the best flight so far. I was airborne for more than two minutes, and traveled between a quarter and half of a mile. After that, it was time to pack up, stuff the wing into the back of the truck, and head in for lunch because the conditions were rapidly becoming way to strong, turbulent and erratic for somebody still on her first day, with less than 10 minutes of cumulative airtime under her wing.

That’s OK… my stomach was ready for lunch anyway.

* * *

At one point during lunch, I heard somebody’s cell phone going off underneath one of the wings which was bunched up in the grass under some shade. It was on vibrate-mode, and I could hear it going off amidst the fabric. I let the instructor know, and he moved the wing a bit, only to jump back rather rapidly. It turns out that it was not a cell phone at all, but was actually a rattle-snake that had been buried beneath the wing, and it was not at all happy about it.

Like we didn’t already have enough to worry about as first-time students. Now we had to think about snakes getting wrapped up in our wings, only to fall out of the sky and land on us too? “Welcome to Eastern Washington,” my instructor told me.

* * *

After lunch, watching a video on kiting, and a couple of hours just lounging around waiting for the worst of the winds to die down, it was back to the slopes again. The difference this time was that we had the basics under “moderate” control, and were able to launch, travel, land, rosette, load into the truck, and do it all over again in much less time. All in all, that meant that I got between 4 and 5 flights in after lunch. As much as I tried to keep track, I’m really not sure how many there were.

Mostly, I just know that I was having an absolute blast the entire time. By the last two flights, I was easily traveling between 1/4 and 1/2 of a mile in the air. While airborne, I was much less jerky and reactive to whatever happened to me while up there. I was also able to start changing directions just by changing my lean in the seat, rather than always applying breaks. The former maintains most of my speed, while the latter looses both speed and altitude.

And my landings were getting much better too. The key to a good landing is to control your horizontal ground-speed by getting it as slow as possible, while simultaneously making the wing “stall” when you are about 3 feet off of the ground. Then, the moment your feet touch the ground, turn around and collapse the wing.

When we wrapped up for the day, I noticed that I had a nice set of bruises on both of my upper arms, and I was not sure what they were from. My instructor said “Congratulations… We all get those. it comes from leaning forward against the risers connected to the harness.” I found it hard to believe that bruising was actually “normal,” except that we were doing the same set of drills over and over all day long. Normally, those particular motions are only needed once or twice, depending on how many times one launches on a given day.

When we started today half way down Whisper Point, going to the top seamed way out of my league, ominous, and scary. By the end of the day it was just awesome and fun. So when we then put our stuff into the truck for the last time and headed to another hill that they call “Don’s Peak” to look at what tomorrow would hold, the sensation of ominous and scary was back all over again. This launch point would have us traveling easily twice the distance we had traveled so far, and followed a zigzag pattern that traversed the interconnecting hills and valleys we would have to navigate on our way down to the landing zone a mile away and several hundred feet below.

As much as that hill might have provided an adrenaline rush, the wind had changed, it was getting late, and Don’s Peak would simply have to wait until tomorrow, providing that the weather cooperated with us.

I did it! Monday, 10/4/93, at about 6:00p. My flight lesson started at 5:15p, and I did 4 landings and one go-around with my instructor. He did one "uh-oh… what do you do now?" after another. He would pull my power off, or tell me to make an emergency landing in a field, then we’d pull out before touching down. Anyway, after 4 of them, he had me radio the airport informing them "full-stop."

I knew that meant he was getting out of the plane, and I swallowed hard. He told me that with him out of the plane, it would want to climb. I was thinking as if he were ballast, and simply by stepping out I would float up. He actually meant that I would have more lift when flying.

While on taxi to runway 24, all at once I shivered, laughed, and thought "What the hell am I doing here inside this contraption? These things need a PILOT to control them!!"

So I make my turn to the final taxi-way parallel to the runway, and this big 4-engine, turbo-prop, 46-seat, US-AIR plane pulls onto the runway from an entrance further up. I first thought "Do airplanes have horns?" Then I wondered "How far does one stay behind another plane? Is it two plane-lengths? Are they big-plane or little-plane lengths?" Eventually, the US-AIR plane took off, and it was my turn to get on the runway. It’s a HUGE runway, and I felt like a mosquito on a football field. Take-off is no problem. All I had to do was LAND three times.

I kept my pattern reasonably clean the first time around, but the second time, there was another plane in the pattern that I could not see. I heard him on the radio, and asked where he was. He was above and behind me, so I couldn’t see him through my high-wings. I knew he wouldn’t run into me or anything, but kept thinking "Uh oh! There’s a bogie on my tail. RATA-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!!!" I was nervous, and what should have been a clean, crisp, 90-degree turn from "down-wind" to "base" probably looked more like evasive maneuvers, though that was not the plan.

Most of flying is not really all that hard, except where it matters close to the ground. Despite the standard use of flaps, ailerons, rudder, trim, and stabilizer, I’m still convinced that it’s really just an artful combination of will power and sheer terror that actually makes the thing touch the ground.

Between all of that, I did it. I brought the plane to its designated parking spot, recorded the numbers I needed off the instruments, finished final landing procedures, and headed back to the terminal. In the back of my head, I heard "Don’t forget to lock the plane."

 

Copyright (C), 1998, by Ashley Guberman

I’m 10 miles outside of the Indianapolis beltway at a rest stop on Highway 70 East. One wouldn’t expect there to be much beauty or significance to look at from such a spot, yet the whole area has taken on a profound atmosphere.

I’m seated beneath a small beach tree on the edge of a large field of grass. Behind me and to my right are fields of corn, and the sky is full of isolated strato-cumulous clouds. Each cloud is unique, though for the most part my attention is not drawn to any one more than another.

But all the clouds as far as I can see have a common base — as if there were an invisible glass table hovering at about two-thousand feet, upon which they all rest.

So smooth and uniform is the cloud base, that traveling across the flattened highway feels like being trapped on the earth’s floor, and that if only I could go fast enough, maybe I’d be able to at least reach the surface of the sky and get some fresh air.

But when I stop and think for just a moment of the sheer magnitude of mass that moves East, West, North and South simultaneously across our highways, I know that there IS a way to the surface, and that machines and mechanics are not the way. No, the journey to the sky must be made one person at a time, and each by their own power from within.

Signed: A temporary land dweller.

Copyright (C), 1998, by Ashley Guberman