Radiance, Love, Discernment, Power, & Leadership
19 posts
For my birthday, I gave myself a ride in a sailplane with the Evergreen Soaring Club. I fly paragliders whenever I can, and it's been maybe 18 years since I was behind the yolk of a Cessna 152. But the moment I stepped foot onto the tarmac, I…
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…
Despite having well over 500 flights under my wing, I’ve never really gone cross-country, unless you consider landing at the Issaquah high-school, which hardly counts. Many are the times when I've launched in close proximity to the “big boys” (or Merydeth), only to be left in the dust…
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…
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)…
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 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…
There is a common saying among paragliders that they fall into two distinct groups: those who have landed in trees, and those that will land in trees. I may have just moved from one group to the other... I'm not sure. All this past week, I have been…
Google Earth Landmarks Today was an absolutely awesome flying day at Tiger, and definitely a personal-best. It was probably one part good fortune, one part practice, and five parts listening to and remembering the words of wisdom that so many other pilots imparted to me over the last…
On Saturday, it started out as such a beautiful day at the Fort … It ended up being simultaneously the best flying I have ever had there, and also my worst day flying ever. Around 3:00pm there was a steady westerly wind of about 5-8 MPH. It was…