First Day Flying - Made Goal!!!

3,000' over goal - need to get dialed into my new Flytec 6030 a little better so I come in more like 500' over

Goal Field

The forest fire thermal - that's not clouds thats smoke!

GOAL!

Made Goal - it was like a 75 km goal. Quite a few people made goal today, I'm waiting for my GPS to be uploaded right now, we'll see how the standings are tomorrow.

I was pretty slow, but am just glad I made it to goal at all. The lowest I got was about 1,200'. About a dozen birds saved me near the forest fire and I climbed up at about 800 fps.

Ollie and James also made it, Eric landed short and Stump chose not to fly.

Pictures to come tonight - they're taking too long to upload!!!!!!

Day 3 and more photos from yesterday

Today was just called. They say we'll fly starting tomorrow and for the rest of the week.

Testing the wind today

US World Team - there are some other teams that have been put together to challenge them this meet. There's money on the line too. If the US team wins, then they'll get a bunch of money to fund their trip to Worlds.

Photos from yesterday. Eric also put a video together, there's a link to his 'art and aviation' blog in the right side bar --->

Day 2 (still) - Woohoo! This was awesome!

This was an off day because it was blown out, but still freaking awesome because Dustin got people psyched to go to the atlantic coast and soar an abandoned hotel.

I think it got hit by a hurricane and they never fixed it up. So we 'man-towed,' by people pulling on a rope, then we'd release and soar!



Eric took the picture of me flying and the video of my launch below and there's a group picture of the Treetoppers (sans Stump).

Day 2 - this is getting expensive

Another day that is blown out. There was a little more debate today though because there was a long lull cycle (10-15mph), but tomorrow looks the same as today. Some people got towed up early in the morning just to get in the air.

Yesterday Eric and I played a round of golf. Jeff got a picture of us the other day HERE.

Maybe more golf today or going with some people to watch them soar the beach. I hope this hang gliding trip doesn't turn into a golf trip, I suck at golf.

Here are a couple pics from the day: One is from Zippy after a test flight and everyone wanting to know the conditions. The other is from the pilots meeting.

Blown Out - Florida Ridge Comp

Today, it's pretty blown out. Tomorrow doesn't look that great either. People are just hanging out and lounging around

Mike Barber is giving a talk this afternoon and Zac Majors gave a little lesson on GPS, not all is lost for the day.

The tow picture is from yesterday, it was still really rough but some of the top guys flew around anyways.

On the way!

Only 3 hours away from the Ridge now. Below are some pictures of our departure yesterday.

Apparently the weather isn't looking too good for the next couple days. Will keep updating . . .

chargers . . .

Leaving today, this is just the charges I have to bring for my laptop, camcorder, vario, radio, and cell phone! I think I'm going to have to bring an extension cord. The documentary is coming along well too. More on that later

Comps!

Getting ready for the upcoming comps - I've got some of the best equipment around so I won't be able to use that as an excuse when I come in last place! Thanks to Moyes and Flytec!

• Vertex VX-150 radio
• Steve Prater PTT system (email: pttguy -at sign- gmail.com)
  
• Moyes Matrix Race harness
• Moyes Litespeed S (with cf inserts)
• Flytec 6030 vario

Great HG Picture

Check out Mark's Blog to see a very cool HG pic that he has in a contest, and vote for him!
http://www.dowsett.ca/cube_rankingdown_40_spots_help_me

-Getting ready for the Florida comps, we leave this Thursday!

-I will be posting as much as I can each day from these comps so come back and check it out.

Fly-in Video

Eric's video from his fly-in:

As promised . . . Still Shots and Eric's Fly-In

Eric had a fly-in to his field yesterday. There was about 9 of us that took sled runs in a slight tail wind. I think Mark Fink won the spot landing contest, then it was beer and hot dogs around a bon fire. I'll have some video or stills from that coming soon as well.

From the day before yesterday: it was a cloudy day which I think affected the quality of these images, but I don't think these images do the actual video justice. There are some good clips we got, which will probably go into the upcoming documentary.

Still shots coming tomorrow . . .

Had a fun ridge soaring flight yesterday with some people. Tomorrow I will put up still shots from some of the video I took - so come back to check that out.

Yesterday I posted about the new contest I'm in (I'm actually in 4 right now), so check that out as well. Thanks for your votes (5 star ratings)!

First HD Vid! BIG Contest - Taxslayer.com

Please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MljBjpb02Tc

and give my video 5 stars - that's how they're voting to see who gets into the finals.

This one is for $25,000! Thanks!

This video is my first attempt at HD, so click the HD button to watch it - I think I can do better, but with our electricity being out I was scurrying to get this one done.

New Matrix Race Harness ! ! ! !

Now if only the weather would cooperate.

Video Contest #18 or so

Jim Beam update: I did not make the top 5, but the contests just keep on coming:

Here is a really . . . bizarre video I made for this contest.

You can vote for me once a day!

This one is for $10,000 - you just had to say something interesting about yourself in 15 seconds - I kind of made fun of that with my video - "I do stuff!"

Helmet Design - Wild Mushrooms

Took today off work and got creative with my visor.


Found these wild mushrooms at a secret location this weekend. They are the most prized mushrooms of mushroom-hunters - Morel Mushrooms. We had them with a cream sauce and they were awesome.

EPA Video Contest

No voting or anything to do for this one. I just have to submit it and sit back to see if the judges pick mine.

Hit the 'HQ' button to watch in High Quality.

Wingsuit TED Talk & Thermal Video

Thanks for everyone's comments on my last post and video! It gets me really motivated to continue to make these little videos when I know people enjoy them - stay tuned for more!

Here is Dave's video that is for a video contest and its very well done!

Submit entry

Contest details

_______________________________
Decent video
-first three or so minutes he gives background about himself
-at 5 minutes (and 10:05) though he says "to come as close as possible to the human dream to be able to fly," which is ridiculous because that's hang gliding! not wingsuits that gets 2:1!

New Video

Watch in Higher Quality by clicking the 'HQ' button in the bottom right.

NEW CAMCORDER! - Fav Photos - #?

Just got in a new Canon HD Camcorder (the HF100). I settled on this one because it is tiny and only uses flash cards for storage, so no tapes or DVDs to keep track of and no internal hard drive that could fail - plus it makes it smaller.

So it will be good for hang gliding - I also bought a depth of field adapter so I can put my 50mm Nikon lens on it.

Stay tuned for my upcoming videos will be in much better quality!

Sunset out west

Entry into Aconcagua Park