Jeffrey Farrell's Paragliding Blog

I'm confused

It's obvious. I'm back in Utah!

Blue, blue sky...

We finally got a clear day in Florida and Greg Macnamee at Graybird Airsports in Dunnellon was our tow pro. I took my first yank to 1,100 AGL and pinned off into a 2-300 FPM climb which was drifting me right toward my declared goal of Quest Flight Park 48.8 miles to the South East. I continued SE bouncing off the inversion layer at 3,000 for an hour until I finally found a nice strong climb of 1,100 FPM to put me through the inversion and climb to 5,000 AGL. After that I pushed due East to avoid a gigantic swamp on my course line. Once clear of that I had a due South run towards Quest. I was finding a thermal almost every 3 minutes and bounced between 4,000 and 5,000 AGL for the next 15 miles until I came to this area pictured left.

With high pressure and blue sky - the flat lands are very difficult days for me to figure out. With nice clouds on the flats you have lots of indicators but today I had none. From 5,000 AGL I pointed it straight towards Quest and flew into this incredibly stable air-mass. I did not feel the slightest bump, piece of lift or turbulence on this death glide to the dirt. I landed 34.5 miles from Dunnellon after 3 hours of slow flying.

I did discover two things on this flight though. 1) The Gin Boomerang Sport is fantastic. I like it more each flight. 2) The "Distance to Last Thermal" indicator on the Flytec 5020 works very well!

Florida

Need I say more? It hadn't rained in central Florida for 72 days and the drought was creating high cloud bases and epic flights. Until we arrived that is. J. C. Brown, Paco Carr, James Bradley and myself were looking forward to sunny skies, smooth thermals and long XC flights. It looks like we will be waiting a bit longer.

Tater Hill Paragliding Open Day 2

Last night it rained cats and dogs. I looked out at 4 AM and it was still drizzling. By 11 AM the pilots meeting was pushed back until 1 PM. JC Brown and I decided to pull the plug early and head to Orlando to see if it was good there. I had made prior commitments to be in Florida by May 10th at the latest to meet some folks and do a little XC flying for a week. We had heard that it hadn't rained in central Florida for 72 days and that conditions were epic. We bailed.

Tater Hill Paragliding Open Day 1

Day number one has been canceled due to rain. Too bad. Unfortunately I am not able to stay for the entire competition so losing  a flying day really hurts!

First XC of the year!

This winter in the Western USA has been an exceptionally long one. It appears as if we are 1 month behind our regular weather pattern. Two weeks ago the weather broke, warmed up and it finally stopped snowing. Saturday was post frontal with North-Northeast winds aloft. I made the decision to go to Inspo (Squaw's Peak) in Provo. Dave Nelson, Bon Jantzen and Jeff Silk were there also. I launched first into a decent thermal that ended up drifting over the back faster than I was interested in so I punched it out front to see what I could find......not much. At about 400' above ground I finally stumbled into 600' up! As I was climbing back toward take off I saw that Bob and Jeff had launched also. Soon we were in the same thermal climbing very smoothly in 900' up to 10,500'

This was going to be my first XC of the year and my first XC on the Boomerang Sport. I started gliding south toward BYU and the view of the snow covered peaks from above was beautiful. 5 miles down range and I hadn't even felt a bump in the air since my initial thermal. Down to 7,000 and I was desperate for some lift. I saw a group of swifts darting around about a quarter mile away out in the valley. I headed toward them and sure enough there it was...very smooth 400 up that was drifting me to the Southwest further in the valley. I followed it and decided to fly the flats toward Spanish Fork. I was soon in the upper valley winds and I had a downwind ground speed of 48 mph!  I began to think of a final destination and made Santaquin my goal. One problem, I had lost radio contact with my driver and realized that I had left my cell phone in my truck. Ooops! I relayed my position to Dave and opted to land at a little league baseball game in Mapleton. Lots of people...lots of cell phones.

A quick phone rental and Paula was there to get me. Not a bad Saturday afternoon and XC flight. I love the Boomerang Sport! I can't wait to fly the Nova Tattoo once our demo comes back and to fly the Advance Omega 7 in June. So many choices.....