Day 349: North to the Knik River

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Ben

This morning, B and I went for a short ride on the Girdwood to Bird bike path, which largely parallels the Seward Highway along the Turnagain Arm. This location has tidal swings of over 30 feet, the second highest variation in the world. While on the ride the tide was mostly out, so most of the Turnagain Arm here was just a mud flat:

As usual, we did a some of our homeschooling in the car:

We drove North on the Glenn Highway, then the Old Glenn Highway to the town of Butte. The paragliders I met in Girdwood yesterday gave me contact information for a PPG pilot in Anchorage who told me about a farm field in Butte where I could take off and land. We left the RV in a dispersed camping area on the Knik River, then drove the three miles North to the launch site:

Kicking up dust to check the wind:

Since I hadn’t done forward launches in almost a month, I practiced this a bit:

B is ready for take off:

By the time I was ready to put on the motor, it was close to 10PM, so we called it a night. I’ll come back and fly tomorrow. You can’t beat the views from this field:

See the trip map for today’s drive.

Day 308: Sand Lake, Day 2

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Ben

This morning the winds were again calm, so I tried again:

Great inflation, great run out, and I’m in the air!

I was up for about 18 minutes and overflew a bit of Camp Meriwether, a Boy Scout camp I attended back in the day, and then flew South to circle Whalen Island. My landing flare was great, but somehow I forgot to get out of my seat, so my landing run didn’t exactly go as planned. Check out this video, which is also my debut of video editing using the most excellent (and free!) Lightworks:

M helped me carry back my wing:

Trish put this map work together a couple days ago to teach South American geography:

The kids shucked corn for lunch:

PPG pilots fly all day at the beach, but I had no way of knowing if the afternoon winds were normal, so I decided to wait. We all built castles and sculptures at the surf line:

And then we broke out the little kite:

Finishing touches:

At sunset, it seemed a little gusty, so I decided to try for another morning flight tomorrow.

Trish has been making wire wrap jewelry at night. Hopefully she’ll write about it on Tricia’s blog:

Day 307: Sand Lake, Day 1

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Ben

This morning, the winds were calm. Excited, I got all set up to fly. Unfortunately, the fuel line quick disconnect I recently purchased was faulty, so I could not get fuel from the tank to the engine. By the time I diagnosed the problem, the winds were howling, so we stowed the paramotor in the RV and worked through a morning of homeschool.

In the afternoon, we drove into Pacific City, about 10 miles South of here, and I purchased a male-to-male barb fitting that I could use to replace the faulty quick disconnect, as well as a tarp to cover the paramotor.

Heading North back to the RV, we stopped at Cape Kiwanda:

The main attraction here is the massive sand dune at the North end of the beach. I trudged up to the top with the kids and we ran down:

Continuing North, we pulled it at Whalen Island and walked out to an overlook. It was very beautiful and peaceful. With days like this, it’s hard to remember that the Oregon Coast receives about 90 inches of rain a year:

Winds this afternoon topped out with gusts of 25 miles an hour. Tonight, it was still windy so I did a bit of kiting:

The kids ran down the dunes with my kite’s stuff sack. The best part was B yelling “clear prop!” before M started his run. At the end he would turn around and bring down his “wing” just like in training:

Hopefully tomorrow will be less windy. Goodnight from Sand Lake, Oregon!

Day 298: Blackhawk Powered Paragliding Training, Day 7

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Ben

This morning I went for a 40 minute flight up to 2000’ AGL (above ground level). Unfortunately, I have no video, but the air was nice and smooth and I felt much more comfortable being up there. At that altitude, I could see for miles!