Getting ready!!

As I figure it, I will be the happy owner of a bran' spakin' new Gradient Aspen2 in just 14 days - Woohoo!!!

Preparation wise, I've nearly finished getting my car ready for a lot of driving - really a 4WD would be best, and I had a serious look at a twin cab Nissan Navara today but it was a little old, needed a little too much work done to it, and was way underpowered.

I'm been using the Garmin while I drive and am getting pretty familiar with it - still have to get some maps sorted out for the iPaq.

The bivouac-ready harness is taking some more doing - I have a bunch of gear that I'd like to take but it's way too much weight and bulk. This'll take some pretty tricky packing and really needs a bunch of gear specially made for ultra light-weight camping.

Tonight I'm mounting my radio mike & speaker in my full face helmet...

It's all coming together...

Bring on next Saturday week and good flying weather, I say! Bring it on!!!!!

counting down the days...

My new wing should be arriving in Australia in three weeks!
Things to get done before then:

1. Finish putting together a bivouac kit - for the end of a good xc flight when the next day is forecast to be flyable as well so I can land, have food & shelter for the night, and hpefully continue flying the next day!
2. Become more familiar with my Garmin 60CSX GPS and iPAQ+GPS reciever - especially with speed to fly features and route planning/loading/changing/flying...
3. ensure the car is ready for long paragliding trips this summer!!

Other than that, I've been working long hours (typically 60+ per week) and following the following blogs...

Flyke Australia, Will Gadd's blog, Flygirl's blog, and reading articles with titles like "Microlift", and "Active flying"

in the beginning....

... it always starts with an idea.

In my case it was, "Hey Bill, have you heard of paragliding?" (I hadn't.) "Check out these youtube clips (I did) - I think it looks like it could be pretty cool (indeed...), maybe we should give it a go!" (we did)!

My brother Nathan and I learned to paraglide with Ted and Jason from Alpine Paragliding. Nath bought a wing straight after the course (DHV1 Swing Axis) and I bought one a month later (a DHV1-2 Apco Salsa).

It took me a little longer to get used to the Salsa, but it was a great first wing and I had some awesome flights on it and learnt heaps.

I owe most of my flying skills to three very different sources:

• The internet. While saving up for the license course and equipment I read, watched, & downloaded everything I could get my hands on that was flying related. This gave me a knowledge base to recognise conditions/situations from - although not alway fast enough to exploit them...

• Trial and error. Spending a number of early hours flying with Nathan at our parents farm. It's a hard hill to get away from, and often misjudging the conditions meant walking up it in the middle of the day to try again - high motivation to learn to recognise when to fly and when not to.

• Hanging out with Bob & Dallas. These guys are way better pilots than me and I learned heaps from just being around them. Not least of all to get in the habit of thinking and planning big flights.

After 100 happy hours on my lovely Salsa, Jiri Stipek (Paragliding Headquarters) made me an upgrade offer to a Gradient Aspen II (DHV2) that was just too tempting to pass up.
The new wing should arrive in the first week of October, allowing me a few weeks to get to know it before heading up to Manilla for a week of (hopefully) epic xc flying...
Right now I'm re-reading all the flying literature I can lay my hands on, learning how to drive my new GPS (routes, waypoints, and tracks), and putting together my summer flying kit. Exciting times! Expectations for the summer are building - here's hoping it's an epic one!!