Day 6: Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas!

I went for the morning session at 7 a.m. The winds didn't look promising. Ryan released a helium baloon into the air which showed gusty drainage winds coming from the mountains. About 8 a.m. wind direction has changed to East. He released another balloon. Up until a few feet above the ground it is fine but after that gusty northerly winds still prevailed. If it is going to be like this, there is no point in me staying here waiting for the winds to calm down every day. So, I decided to call it off for now. It's kind of disappointing to go home without a single solo but, there is always a next time. I need to find a training location close to a beach where constant sea breeze would be ideal for this sport.

I will continue my blog when I reattempt PPG some other time. Bye for now and wish you all a Happy New Year.

Day 5: Saturday, December 24, 2011

Ennis helped me this morning with inflating the wing while the engine is on my back. Wind kept on changing directions. Only a few attempts were successful. I have sore shoulders for the rest of the day. Ryan doesn't think I have enough strength to carry the engine to inflate and launch the wing in no wind conditions. He has been asking me to switch over to trike instead of foot launch. I'm not that fond of trikes and I want to learn how to foot launch.  This is a physically demanding sport. You need a lot of shoulder strength. I wish I knew this before coming here. Any way, we agreed to give foot launch a try in the evening before switching to trike.

Winds didn't calm down for quite some time in the evening. I played for some time with engine on my back full throttle. Around 4:30 p.m., winds were mild enough for me to attempt a solo. One thing Ryan has been emphasizing the past few days is to continue to run even when wing lifts you in the air. It seems most students jump into the seat when full throttle is applied. I'm no different. Unfortunately, when the cage touched the ground before I killed the engine, stones on the ground got sucked into the prop and severely damaged it. It is a carbon fiber prop. It costed me $450. Ouch!!

In total, we lost two days for high winds and the prop mishap. I have decided to extend my stay a few more days to complete what I came here to do. If I mess up my launch one more time, I better switch over to trike. I'm hoping for the best tomorrow. Merry Christmas every one!

Day 4: Friday, December 23, 2011

I met Ryan at the Bagel shop in the morning to go over the tests. We reviewed the answers for the tests and also the PPG2 requirements. We lost one and half day to the weather and I'm suppose to make 25 flights before I go home. I haven't even soloed yet! We decided to see how it goes on Saturday and make a decision whether to extend my stay by at least one day. Since we can't fly in high winds, I decided to check out Red rock formations in Sedona and if possible pay a visit to Grand Canyon.

So, after the meeting around 9:30 a.m., I headed towards Sedona on I-17 north. I could see a snow capped mountain at a distance. On the way, stopped at the Montezuma Castle National Monument. It was interesting to see the cliff dwellings. Then drove on to Sedona. The red color mountains started showing up from the outskirts of Sedona. Looks like this town is surrounded by red rock formations. Stopped at several lookout points to take pictures. One peculiar thing I noticed in Sedona is, there are a lot of Tourism brochures on Psychic readings and some thing called Vortexes. The architecture of houses and shops in this town is very unique. They are pretty much camouflaged into the surrounding environment. A lot of them resemble cliff dwellings! It's a very small cute town. I liked it very much but, real estate here is not cheap for some reason. Where as in Phoenix houses are very affordable.

After lunch headed towards Grand Canyon via the Oak Creek Trail to Flagstaff, AZ. This was the most beautiful scenic route I have travelled in recent years. Snow started showing up on the ground elevations reaching 8000 ft. Also the views on Route 180 from Flagstaff to Grand Canyon were also mesmerizing. I took tons of photos while driving. Once they are uploaded to Picasaweb, I will post a link here.

I made it to the Grand Canyon South Rim just in time for the Sunset. The hue of evening Sun rays on red canyon walls is simply majestic. Took a few photos and headed back to Phoenix (3 hour drive) after dinner in a nearby town. Hopefully weather cooerates tomorrow and I will get to Solo!!

Day 3: Thursday, December 22, 2011

Yesterday, I had asked Ryan to take me up on a tandem flight. He agreed to do it first thing in the morning. I was expecting tandem foot launch but, it seems he doesn't do that because it is not safe. So, we went up on a 2-seat trike. I have a picture of the trike on the ground and a video from the air which I will add to this post later. I got to control the break lines for some time. It was very cold even though we stayed within 100 ft AGL. So, we didn't stay too long. It was a fun ride except for the cold. Ryan said, we ran into a wind shear but, I didn't feel it as I was busy video recording.

I practiced a few more inflations of the wing. Wind made it very difficult bring the wing up. Ryan had to hold my harness so that I won't be pulled back by the wing. Since full throttle of motor is required during take off, Ryan straped the motor on my back and asked my stay put when full throttle is applied. I was succesful only after several attempts. I have video of this which I will post later.

Wind forecast for this evening and for tomorrow didn't look promising. So, it was decided to get the PPG1 and PPG2 tests out of the way and may be I can squeeze in some sight seeing tomorrow. There is no study material to prepare for these tests. I borrowed the The Powered Paragliding Bible from Ryan to browse through. I took the tests any way. PPG1 test was fine but, I didn't do good on PPG2. Ryan and I decided to meet in the morning to go over the answers.

Day 2: Wednesday, December 21, 2011

It was pretty much the same drill as Day 1. Ennis was helping Ryan in training students. He helped me launching the kite (wing) a few times.

Just like yesterday, after the morning session, all of us met at a local bagel shop for breakfast. It was Son Nguyen's last day here. He is a Patroleum engineer from Vietnam currently working in Brunei. He is vacationing in the US with his family and he took a sidetrip for a week to get trained in PPG Flying. He lost a day or two for the weather but, has been flying pretty good the last two days. He is into RC flying and several of our interests matched including both of us wearing the same model wrist watch that can tell compass heading and altitude!

There is Frank from Tucson, AZ. He is a day ahead of me in training. He is a private pilot of my age and is currently attending school to become an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic. Alex is from Colorado Springs who has been PPG flying for six years. He is a private pilot too and works as semiconductor technician for a living. He is a friend of Ryan and drove here (for 11 hours) to fly his Nirvana Rodeo and the Dudek Nucleon for a few days. There are a few other locals who fly at P48 on a regular basis.

In the evening, I practised a few reverse launches which makes it easy to bring up the kite if the wind is around five knots. Here a sample video using this technique to take off. I have also practised launching the kite and stabilizing it with motor strapped back on. I am getting used to the weight. That's a good sign. I was so exhausted that I didn't know when I dozed off. That's why I couldn't post this last night.

Ryan Shaw - My PPG Instructor

Here is a video of Ryan taking off on Tuesday, 12/20:

He makes it look easy. I wish I could take off like that one day! I did take a video of him showing off some advance techniques but, it is going to take a while to upload.

My New Journey of becoming a Powered Paraglider Pilot

It has been a while since I updated this blog. I have been flying a Wingnuts' Cessna all this time. So far I have around 120 hours of flying time under my belt. I have also been participating in the Virginia Aviation Ambassadors program trying to fly into as many public airports in Virginia as possible. I have covered about 20 out of 66 Virginia public airports so far.

Any way, I have been thinking about Powered Paragliding (PPG) for some time. I finally decided to go for it before I will become too old to foot launch. I have decided to train with Ryan Shaw of Paradrenalin, Phoenix, AZ for 5 days which should get me a PPG2 rating from USPPA. Ryan is an accomplished PPG instructor.

I flew into PHX, Monday, 12/19 and started training with Ryan on Tuesday, 12/20 @7 a.m. The training is at the Pleasant Valley Aiport. If it weren't for the gliders and hangars, it doesn't look like an airport. The runways are made of dirt and gravel. For the PPG activity, all we needed was open ground.

The first day was a lot of hard work. We had a 2 hour session in the morning and another 2 hour session at 3 p.m. All I did was, tried to bring up the glider over head and keep it there while moving forward. It was much harder than I expected. I also tried with a motor on my back but, it was way harder. I need to get used to that weight. Below are some pictures from the first day of training.

You can see three hot air baloons (just three dots) in the sky and a few glider planes on the ground in the background.