Ashley Guberman, Open Musings

I’ve got probably 600 flights or more under my wing as a solo paraglider pilot.  I’ve reached a level of unconscious competence that’s nice to be able to draw upon when I need it.  But having just started learning to fly a tandem wing, with a passenger, I find myself very much a beginner all over again.

Yes, I know the basics of how to control a wing, to launch, to land, thermal, and all.  But there is enough different in the world of tandem that I find it takes far more concentration than I would have expected.

When one moves from, say, an economy car to a sports-sedan, all the skills from one car apply to the other – just be mindful that the car is bigger, and you need more space.  But I find the switch from solo to tandem wing more akin to switching from a car to a boat.  Sure, there’s still the notion of steering and navigation, but the dynamics are all different.

On my 2nd tandem flight, Maikel was chatting to me about something and I had to tell him “umm….  I don’t actually have the capacity to carry on a conversation right now.”  And I didn’t!  Literally, doing an activity I had done over 600 times was inadequate preparation for the level of focus and attention that flying a new wing required.  I knew that “talking” was dangerous because it could put me over the edge and have me lose focus.

At one point, we were circling in light lift, and in my solo wing I would have easily done a complete 360 degree turn towards the mountain to stay in the lift.  But in this new wing, which was not even mine, and with another life literally “on the lines” at the end of the wing, I was not willing to make the turn.  Maikel could tell the calculations I was making based on how I was leaning, and even said “go for it,” but I chose not to…. not now.  Not with so little mental capacity to spare should I need to make quick adjustments.

On the next flight, done by tow over water, he asked me “If the tow line broke right now, where would you land?”  Oh yeah… that’s important!  Always have an LZ in mind, if not on glide.  The moment he spoke it, it was obvious I needed to do that, but in truth, it was the farthest thing from my mind.  And when on approach for landing later in the flight, I was more focused on a nice pattern, leaving out our ground-track.   These are obvious things to pay attention to!

So what I’m learning in this new developmental path is that I get to be a beginner all over again, even in an activity where I have already acquired some level of expertise.  I have not lost that expertise, but until I develop my skills again as a tandem pilot, I simply cannot rely upon them being readily available for a while.  Essentially, I’m learning to fly all over again.

Today was my first paragliding flight as a tandem pilot. My “passenger” was Drew McNab, who is a tandem instructor. Unlike when learning to drive, especially if your instructor had dual controls, the tandem instructor can only do so much if the student pilot screws up. That, and there’s no way to slam on the breaks in the sky. So in that regard, the instructor must have nerves of steel, considerable trust, or be a massive adrenaline junkie. Maybe all three.

We had almost no wind, so we launched forward. Despite not being able to SEE the wing come up, I generally don’t mind forward launches because I have a good feel for the wing. In this case, however, it was a wing I have never used. Also, there’s that awkward two-step on launch akin to a potato-sack race with all four of our feet shuffling around as we add power to the wing.

The wing came up fine, I think, but when it was at maybe 70 degrees of rotation, I tripped and fell to my knees. Drew asked “do you got it?” (So there’s the blind trust, since he couldn’t see it either), and I yelled GO GO GO!!

As soon as he pulled, I was able to get back to my feet and continue the controlled launch off of the south side of Tiger Mountain.

In the air, but still with little more than a few hundred feet of altitude, it felt like I was driving a large boat. The wing felt huge and sluggish, despite the acrobatics that I’ve seen Drew do with passengers. I missed having a stirrup to put my feet into, as my legs hung down a bit with drew just in front of my lap. There were no real thermals to be had, but this flight was more about launch and landing, anyway.

There were two other pilots in the air at about our altitude, one of whom was a new solo pilot with the long pink tape that screams “I have NO idea what I’m doing, and am under radio control from the ground.” I thought that this time, maybe I should be wearing the streamer, except that I knew exactly what I was doing, but merely lacked skill or experience with this wing or with a passenger.

We pulled Big Ears (made our wing smaller) and sank faster than the others so as to have the landing zone to ourselves. As we set up on the downwind leg of our approach for landing, I started paying closer attention to my glide-ratio so as to gauge the turns I would need to make.

I was maybe 300 feet too high when I turned final in what was anything but a standard pattern approach. I was glad we had dropped down below the others to give more leeway in bleeding it off with additional turns, despite making drew nervous turning that low. I still over-shot the target on the field, but landed several hundred feet from the edge of the field with both of us coming to a full stop, landing on our feet, with the wing collapsing gingerly like a descending cobra behind us.

About this time, I think Drew started breathing again, and said that I actually did quite well, especially for a first-time tandem pilot. At that point, I think I let out a loud Whoo Hoo, as I was pretty stoked! Now, its only three more with an instructor, about 25 with other pilots, and then I can take passengers.

And the driving force for wanting my tandem rating? I so want to be able to share the joy of flight with my children. They are the two of the bigger sources of love in my life, and I hope to share the love of flight with each of them. That, and if I can take them with me, then it becomes that much easier to go flying on the weekends

First off, let me preface this story by asserting that this never happened…  But it is a dream that I have had on several occasions, and I thought I would share it for the purpose of seeing a) if this is a dream other pilots have had, b) to get some perspective, and c) because few things are as much fun as taking a completely fictitious midair collision and ridiculing it to absurdity, which I know this group can do like no other.

In the first variety of this dream, I am paragliding in Eastern Washington somewhere, and a low flying jet plane manages to hook my wing over top of the jet engine.  My wing does not get sucked INTO the engine, but I’m sort of hanging from it, below the intake area, and bouncing around pretty fiercely underneath the wing.   It’s some kind of corporate jet, rather than a commercial jumbo-jet.  Anyway, I think about pulling my reserve, but decide against it because I am still otherwise attached to the plane.  I know that I need to detach first, so I pull out my hook-knife.

I recall hearing something about it being better to cut the risers than all the lines, so I do that.  Except that when I cut the first one, I end up hanging quite precariously sideways, and I find it quite difficult to reach up and cut the second one.  Plus, I’m still banging around on the underside of the wing having none-too-much fun.  Meanwhile, the plane has started descending rapidly for a landing, and I have no clue if they are even aware that I’m hanging on out there.  For all I know, they think they just sucked a pigeon into the engine.  I finally manage to cut the second riser, and as I’m in free-fall, I start to wonder when I should pull my reserve?

I mean, would I really have the wherewithal in that moment to be thinking that?  Probably not.  But in the dream, I’m trying to decide if I should pull right away, perhaps before I hit terminal velocity, or whether to wait until I get maybe a thousand feet or so off the ground.  It’s all moot, because I’m falling all topsy-turvy and can’t get myself into a stable position with my harness on, and when I see the ground, I know – PULL NOW!

The reserve deploys without error, and it turns out that I am right over some small airfield.  That’s when I see some corporate jet coming in for a landing with half of a paraglider wing draped over one engine, heading right towards me.  And it’s some time around here that I wake up.

In the second version of this dream, I’m flying in the Issaquah region, and I know that I am clearly VFR, and well under the 6K ceiling.  Then some small, single engine plane that is also flying VFR and under the ceiling runs into me, and my wing somehow goes over the nose, completely obscuring all the windows on the plane.  Never mind that the prop would have caught the lines and either torn them or wound me up.  This is a dream, so normal rules of physics that I’m sure people will comment on simply don’t apply.  I’m hanging well below this plane, and although I cannot see him, the pilot is probably freaking out.

Yes, I’ve just been hit by a plane, and for some reason, I’m worried about the other pilot.  Probably, that’s because he puts his plane into a steep climb, since he knows he was below the mountain peaks when he hit me.  Except that he rapidly breaks through the class Bravo, and though I know darn well that I’m not supposed to be there, I don’t think the other pilot knows that.

So we’ve got altitude, which means we have time, and I’m actually quite calm and collected at this moment.  I reach down for my radio, switch to 121.5, and ask to speak to somebody in Seatac Air Traffic Control.  They ask if they can put me on hold, and I tell them that I’m already on hold, on the underside of another aircraft, climbing through 8K now somewhere over Renton.  The ask for my call-sign, I tell them that I don’t have one, and they are about to hang up.  Wait a minute!  This is a RADIO, not a telephone!  You can’t hang up on me!

“Ma’am, this is Seatac ATC, and we serve the commercial and recreational pilot community.  I’m going to have to ask you to clear this channel.”

I try explaining my predicament to the person on the other end, but to no avail.  They simply don’t want to talk to me.  So then I ask for the frequency of the pilot with a paraglider over its windshield flying at my approximate location.

“Ma’am, what makes you think we know what frequency the other pilot is on?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that if you stood up inside that control room of yours and asked ‘is anybody talking to a panicked VFR pilot who just lost all visibility?’ that somebody would speak up.  I need that idiot’s frequency.

So  manage to get the right frequency, switch my radio over, and find myself in the middle of a conversation with a very agitated, purely VFR pilot, and somebody else from ATC.  ATC is trying to calm this guy down, telling him that they have cleared traffic from the area, and that they will guide him down into Renton air field, but he has to level out, and then descend well below the 12K he’s flying at now, which explains why it’s so dang cold.

The ATC guy is a real professional… calm, soothing, and gets the VFR pilot’s head back on straight as he starts descending.  Part of me is thinking that I don’t want to do anything to upset this fellow, but I also still think that neither ATC, nor the VFR pilot have a clue what’s going on.  Finally, I interrupt with something innocuous like “Dude!  Are you the guy with a paraglider draped over your cockpit?”

“A what?”

“A paraglider.  It’s red, probably translucent, and depending on what part of the wing you’ve got up front, you might even see the word ‘Gin’ on your window somewhere.”

“Yes!  Yes!  So THAT’s what happened!  I hit a paraglider!  Now it makes complete sense.  How did you know?”

“Hang on for a second,” I tell him, and I somehow manage to knock on the bottom of his fuselage with my fist.  “Did you hear that knocking?”

“Yes!  What was that??”

“Good.  That was me.  It means I’m talking to the right idiot.  I’m the paraglider pilot on the other end of that wing, hanging out down here by your wheels… on the freaking OUTSIDE of your plane.”

At that point, the two of us actually start carrying on a casual conversation about the merits of each of our respective aircraft, when I get a brilliant idea.  I look down at my GPS, then direct the pilot on a course bearing 150 degrees for about 3 miles; then 0 degrees for a mile or two; then 310 degrees for a few miles.

Technically, I’m still on a paraglider flight – I launched from Tiger, and I’m still attached to my wing.  I’ve got this guy running Tiger-Tag points with me.  Let me tell you, Dave Wheeler’s gonna scream!

After raking up a few bazillion points, it dawns on me that I’ve still got to find a way to get both of us back on the ground.  I don’t actually remember the landing much, except that after we were on the ground, there was a fire truck, an ambulance, a few policemen, and more paperwork than I can describe.  Plus, I know that when the local flying club hears about this, I’m never going to hear the end of it.

By the time I get back home, it’s close to midnight, but I upload my GPS track to Leonardo and submit it for tiger-tag scoring.  Wheeler calls me first thing in the morning to say that he disqualified my flight because I broke airspace, and to point out where I could have scored a few more points.  Despite my best efforts to convince him that there was actually a working transponder and two-way communication with ATC, he simply refused to hear it.

And then I wake up.

Today was a very good day for flying. I was sitting in the office, looking out the windows at the clouds, and knew that I had to find a way to escape from work. By 3pm, the forces of cloud-suck were far too great, and I left early. I had already packed all of my flying gear in the car, having previously checked weather reports that called for good conditions.

However, much to my dismay, when I went into the locker room at work to change into my flying cloths I discovered that I did not bring my pants. I had also worn a skirt that day, so there was no way I could fly in that. If I went from work, back home, and then to the mountain, it would cost me almost two hours of flying time, gas, and sitting in traffic. I could pick up a cheap pair of hiking pants on the way, but that too would be time-consuming and unnecessary. So I decided to go flying without them.

Now, lest you think my lower half was completely in the buff, I did have an outer flight suit that I wore. I managed to launch from Poo Poo Point, on the north end of Tiger Mountain by around 4:30 PM, climbing to an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet and floating over lower Issaquah for nearly an hour. It’s COLD up there with no pants. However, I did discover that I could feel the temperature difference between my right and my left legs as I flew through the air, allowing me to make better decisions regarding which way to turn to remain in the thermals.

Flying is always a gateway to joy for me, but this flight was especially so. Imagine something that you truly love, and then knowing that in a matter of days, it may be months or more before you get to experience it again. With the birth of you two literally around the corner, each and every flight is an experience of sublime beauty and pleasure, knowing full well that in a matter of days, my focus will shift dramatically.

So as I circled one thermal with a bald eagle no more than 20 feet away from me, I was deeply in tune with the feel of the wind on my face, the feel of the lift upon my wing, and the magnificence of the creature who was my flying companion. I could see every feather of its outstretched wing, especially the ones on the outer wingtip as it felt the air with all the confidence and familiarity that you and I typically associate with the feel of the ground beneath our feet.

After reaching the top of the thermal, the eagle and I parted ways amid the vast expanse of the sky that we share. As I put myself into a slow, final, and graceful turn to the right, I could see Mt. Ranier with crystal clarity, Puget Sound, Seattle’s skyline, lake Washington, Bellevue, Lake Sammamish, Mt. Si and the Cascades off in the distance. I was alone now, with the freedom to go wherever I wanted merely by the gentle shift of weight in my harness and the control-lines in my hands that led to the trailing edge of my wing. Looking up, there was a cloud beginning to disperse above my head, and the blue and white sky contrasted with the bold red, white, and gray of my wing, beneath which hung over a hundred thin lines of various colors like the stings of a harp, except that they all came together in two points by my sides where I could play with them.

While some flights are a rapid, wild, invigorating rush of adrenaline, others, like this one, are an experience of peace, serenity, and joy. I fly because I feel the need to travel freely amid the sky and clouds. I fly because I feel it deeply and profoundly within my flesh and bones. I fly because it is a consistently reliable gateway to my essence of JOY.

I may have inadvertently discovered how to create a flying instrument that works as an artificial horizon.  It is suitable for ensuring straight and level flight for those times we get sucked into low visibility environments.  It’s completely free, uses no batteries, and runs completely on water.

This afternoon, I was trying out a Gin Rebel that belongs to a friend.  His wing is a size larger than the one I should be flying, so before I went up the mountain, I brought along plenty of extra water for ballast, and I ate an extra cookie or two for good measure.

Perhaps because the Rebel is a new wing to me, I failed to notice when I launched that the drinking end of my camelback was actually in my seat, rather than tucked into the side pocket like it usually is.  I still didn’t notice until about the time that I was well into flight.  At that point, I couldn’t figure out how or why I would be feeling such a cold breeze in my lower back.  So I pushed on my stirrup, made sure that I was properly seated all the way back in my harness, and in short order it became abundantly clear what was going on.

My two-liter camelback was full to the very brim because I wanted the extra weight, and by sitting on the bite-valve, I was summarily dumping its  contents down my back side, through my flight suit, through my jacket, and down into my shorts.  At this point, I was still within a hundred feet of the trees, and there was a mixture of people who were ridge-soaring and trying to thermal.  Meanwhile, I was trying to avoid any sudden moves in what was to me a foreign, over-sized wing.  But dang it, it was COLD!  I squirmed a bit in my seat, but that only made it worse.

I took my hands off the controls momentarily to pull the fire-hose out from my tush, only to discover that I was about to enter the path of an oncoming wing.  Fortunately, he saw that SOMETHING was wrong and gave me space for the brief period of time that it took me to fix the problem.

At least, I thought I had fixed the problem.  It was at that point that I realized I was unquestionably sitting in a rather large puddle.  I mistakenly thought that in short order, the water would somehow drain, or that perhaps that my clothes would soak it all up like a sponge.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  Instead, I found that as I put the glider into a turn, even the most gentle and shallow turn, that the puddle sloshed from one cheek to the other.  Despite the awkwardness and discomfort that this created, it was at that point that I made my discovery.

When the left tip of my wing entered even the lightest of thermals, my right cheek could feel the increased depth in the bath tub that was now my harness.  The opposite was also true, and when I was flying straight and level, both cheeks were equally submerged.  I decided to test my new-found instrument, and I discovered that my sloshometer gave readings that were consistently faster and more reliable than my vario.  The moment one cheek became submerged, I leaned the other way, into the thermal, and a second later my vario would start to beep.

I’ll be submitting detailed plans to the R&D department at FlyTec shortly after my patent application is approved.  In the mean time, does anybody have a towel?