Vulcan 1600 Classic, 2006

My new Commuter.

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Morgantown Flyability

A look at current conditions for Morgantown.

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Little Gap In February

Woke up this morning and looked out the window to see a beautiful winter morning looking back. The winds were from the North and the temp was on its way up to 40*F. I knew I was either going to go to Church, or fake an illness and go flying. Cough Cough.

Beth's Mom had stayed over with us and they had spent all day painting the bath rooms, Ella, each other, the light switches, mirrow, door, floor, and toilet seat. They still had some more to do and I spent the morning walking around within ear's reach coughing and moaning; it worked. Beth looked at me with knowing eyes and gave me the go-ahead-but-you-are-gonna-pay-for-it-look, and down I ran to the garage to load up my wings, my motor, helmets, and radio's.

First stop Little Gap to paraglide with a PPG (Powered Paragliding) buddy of mine, Vassilis. Both he and I had, within the last 6 months, earned our P2 paragliding rating and were looking to start flying out of Little Gap so we had coordinated for an orientation flight today at noon. After running off the mountain, I'd be heading over to Rob's house in Germansville, PA to Power Paraglide with him and working on his business website: www.skyboltkit.com.

Here is the video from our Paragliding flight off of Little Gap. Vassilis took off approximately 50 feet in front of me but I caught him quickly in my descent to the LZ. Today's flight was a "sledder" (sled ride to the landing area) to the LZ, but I'm not complaining; I still had a ball.

Hope you enjoy the video!

Lil bit of flying this weekend!

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Kolb In The Morning = 15 Degrees!

This morning I got up early and headed to Kolb Field.  It snowed in our area recently and I wanted to get up and see the view of Mama Natures white covering.  It's too cold to get the Cherokee started without having her preheated, so I took up Shaniqua, my PPG to have a look.  It was definitely cold, but I wore 5 layers of thermals and actually ended up soaking wet with sweat by the time I was done.  I flew for about 25 minutes before deciding the ride was getting pretty bumpy and trashy.  It's supposed to by 60*F tomorrow so the snow will be gone soon enough.

Hope you enjoy the video!

Ya'll Be Particular!

Shane

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Corn In My Teeth

 Another PERFECT weekend of flying this past weekend. I didn't get through the entire weekend without crashing, but it was a soft crash :-).  Ok Ok, not really a crash at all.  I was taking off up hill, along a tree line, over fences, bixtweenst horses, and through corn. Everything went find until I got to the "through the corn part".  I just couldn't outclimb the terrain and ended up landing in the middle of a large corn field. I spent the next hour untangling my lines and getting my wing and motor back out to open field.  No damage!  Nice!  I love my SkyBolt II Frame built my Mr. Rob Williams of http://www.skyboltkit.com/. I've hit about everything the fields have to offer and I've never damaged it at all - OR ME! 

Anyway, Rob and Matt and I had a great weekend of flying and bbqing and swimming and perhaps a beer or 9.  We're preparing now to head to Ohio for the annual Flight Junkies Reunion this Thursday through Sunday.  Should make for a great time!

Here are two of my video's from this past weekend.  I have another one of Rob getting airborne that I have to finish editing.  It'll be up soon!  Hope you enjoy the video's.

1.  Huntin Corn

2.  Germansville Ball Diamonds

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Back Up At Rob’s, Part Duex

Went back up to Rob’s today to do some more flying in the great Northeast of Pennsylvania. It’s real purty country up there with lots of neat hills and valleys to fly in.  We launched about 7:15 pm, but I think we should have waited a bit longer because it was still a bit more turbulent than I love to fly in.  Oh well, it builds character, right. 

Rob told me it was going to be a “technical” (he called it) departure. I didn’t know he meant we’d be departing towards the mountain, running up hill, in front of the woods, near a 500 kV power line!  I got airborne, made a left turn out and began my standard slow climb back to the South.  A few minutes later I was up to about 500’ and out of the wires, woods, and wind shear.  The rest of the flight went perfect!

Have a looksie:

Flyin’ up at Rob’s place again. This is a nice country up here!

Launch Zone for Flight 2

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Cross Country Flying

I finally did it!!! I finally “cut the cord” and flew a good distance away from the field and stepped out of my comfort zone flying PPG’s and went somewhere.  Where? 20.02 miles down the way!  I departed Morgantown this morning and pointed Bertha East towards Kolb Field in Phoenixville.  I immediately began wondering if I made the right decision because it was quite a bit bumpy with early morning lifty / sinky air.  I pressed on and 37 minutes later, I landed at Kolb Field. 

I thought for a while about calling for a ride back, but figured I’d better at least try the flight back to Morgantown before throwing in the towel.  On the way out to Morgantown this morning (at 5:00 am), I stopped by Kolb and left a full gas can and set up a wind sock.  I topped off my fuel tank and got airborne again, this time having difficulty gaining altitude due to the “rotor” effect of the wind off the tree line surrounding the field.  I did get airborne and high enough to miss the tree and the lines and began my SLOW 6 mph journey back to Morgantown.  I was headed in to the wind this time and boy it showed. No longer could I enjoy the 40+mph ground speed that I had experienced on the way over.

I flew about 1/3 of the way back to Morgantown before finally accepting the fact that I wouldn’t have enough fuel at this speed to make it back.  I landed in a field across the street from O & J Roberts High School and gave my buddy Matt a call to come get me.  He quickly arrived and back to Morgantown we went.  I’m really happy that I did the cross country and I can’t wait to redo the return trip with more cooperative winds.  Here’s the vid!

My First Real Cross Country PPG Flight. Morgantown to Kolb, 20.02 Miles!

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