Dustin Martin Interview

Here is extra footage of an interview with Dustin Martin from my documentary, "A Soaring Life." There's only a couple days left to vote for it too.

I still have extra flying footage and an interview with Jonny Durand to post some time - stay tuned.

Here is an example of photo retouching work I've done - click the image to see a bigger version.

South Park Pic

A pic of the South Park of LMFP LZ, from a tandem I took today.

Cloudstreet

This is the data from my last flight/post, thought some might be interested in it.

This is from using my Flytec 6030 and the program Flychart that comes with it.

I was just showing what flying under a cloudstreet looks like here. Between point 1 and 2 are 8 miles of just gliding, but you can see the first half I don't loose any altitude! That's because I was flying right under a cloudstreet. After that I loose about 900 feet in the next 4 miles. But since I didn't loose any in the first 4 miles, thats only loosing 900 feet in 8 miles which is a 47:1 glide ratio!

Still no word if I made the top 10 in the careerbuilder.com contest: http://www.hiremytvad.com/

And only 7 days left to vote for me in the Stella Artois Contest

LMFP - Hensons - Marion Co Airport

I thought I had the never-before-done flight in the bag yesterday, of going to LMFP, Hensons and back to LMFP, until high clouds destroyed my chances.

At one point I could have gone over the gorge area, and towards the 'point' on lookout mountain where it was still sunny, but risk sinking out over the gorge with no lz's and unknown terrain.

It was tempting, but decided for the safe route and land at marion co airport (pictured below).

Flight time maybe 3.5 hours, around 58 miles, highest cloudbase was 7,200' (very good!), and best climb was one 900 fpm. Trevor flew and got to Henson's, other folks went towards Chilhowee. (edit: Had about a 7mph headwind coming back from Hensons)

I've done this flight one other time.

Batten Pattern

Check yours - I had one that was pretty messed up.

News clip from last night - Hiremytv ad

Trenton, GA Man Wins Environmental Protection Agency Video Contest | WDEF News 12 | News, Weather and Sports for Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley

Written part is also HERE.

No word yet on the $100,000 contest that's mentioned in the news cast above. The top 10 finalists are supposed to be notified by July 24th and will be chosen by this criteria: Entertainment Value (0-20 points); Humor (0-20 points); Originality (0-20 points); Feasibility to record as an advertisement (0-20 points); and alignment with the CareerBuilder brand (0-20 points).

I really like the video I made for that one, hope it makes it. There should be public voting if I do make the top 10 - so Stay Tuned!

WDEF News at 6pm - channel 12

Just got done with an interview for the news tonight about the EPA Video Contest win. Should be on the 6pm news, channel 12. I hope I don't sound/look silly, we'll see - I don't even remember what I said now.

Congrats to the USA's top finisher, Zac Majors, who finished 4th at Worlds the other week - the picture was taken there (not by me, but HERE)

Haiti

Click on the pictures to see bigger versions, but you have to hit the back button to get back to the blog then)

Haiti is a beautiful, albeit incredibly poor country (the poorest in the western hemisphere). I am glad we made a visit and reminds me how much traveling makes you appreciate what you have and happiness isn't measured in money or possessions.

Angela on ride to Mountrouis. There was definately a UN presence and the word on the street is it is much safer, no more kidnappings.

Ice Truck

Photocopie anyone?

Cooking Oil. In the market in Mountrouis - this old lady poured it into an old plastic bottle, she also sold motor oil, which is in the orange bucket in the lower right of the picture.

The sisters on the beach.

_________________

Hang gliding potential: One good thing about the deforestation would be the amount of lz's and top landable places. One bad thing is the number and quality of roads. It would be a fun country to explore by hang gliding - this is what makes me want to learn to paraglide so I could hike up and launch. Has anyone ever flown across and entire country before in one flight? I think Haiti would be like a 120 miler or so on first glance. (The highest point in the country is almost 8,800').

I drew in a quick possible route.

Long ridge line between Saint-Marc and Port-au-Prince (see foreground for wide-open lz's)

Closer up mountains

Looking North of the bay that's near Port-au-Prince

Drive-in movie

Here's a pic of the drive-in movie theatre from yesterdays hour flight.

Test flew a 144 T2C today, first impression is that it's not as stiff as my Litespeed S. It was very interesting to fly a different wing. I think the larger size is a better fit for me (139 vs 144).

Tonight is the ice-cream-off for the 4th here at the flight park, better get cranking.

Congrats to the US team's finish at Worlds!

Short Article

Chattanooga paper: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2009/jul/03/trenton-man-wins-epa-video-contest/

Angela got her first soaring flight yesterday!

I don't have any photos now because I got out the old FM10 and am using slide film (Fujichrome Sensia 100) to see how the quality of that compares.

Apparently it would take something like a 24 megapixel digital camera to do the same resolution as a 35mm - here. I'll be curious to see the results.

Uploaded my new video to the careerbuilder.com contest yesterday. Hopefully it will be available for viewing soon. Today is the dealine for submission.
http://www.hiremytvad.com/index.php
Voting begins August 1st.

Leaving for Haiti Sunday, gone about 10 days.