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.....

2006 Competitions

The USA is lucky enough to have four USHGA and FAI sanctioned paragliding competitions this year! Two of them are at new venues which should attract some attention from the local flying communities. Here’s the list –

Tater Hill Paragliding Open
May 7 – 13
Tater Hill is 10 min. NW of Boone, NC. Entry fee is $175.00.
More Info: http://www.flytaterhill.com

Rat Race
May 27 – June 3
The 2006 Rat Race to be held at Woodrat Mt. Ruch, Oregon.
More Info: http://www.ratracecomp.com

Chelan XC Open 2006
July 10 -15
Location: Chelan WA. Entry Fee: $275 before 6/10/06, $375 after.
More Info: http://www.chelanxcopen.com

US Paragliding National Championship
August 27 – September 2
Sun Valley, Idaho.
More Info: http://www.flysunvalley.com

Super Fly Paragliding – Advance – Gin – Nova will be represented at each event. We hope to see you there.

Boomerang Sport.....I ordered mine!

News from Gin Gliders -

The Boomerang Sport is our new high performance DHV2-3 wing from GIN and is certified in medium size, 85-105kg. The Boomerang Sport is designed for cross country and competition. It is our highest performing glider ever to be certified DHV Class 2-3: pure high performance, born from our long competition experience, and trimmed by the best competition pilots: Max Jeanpierre, Stefan Wyss, Housi Bolinger, Jimmy Pacher, Kaoru Ogisawa, and of course Jung Seyong and Gin Seok Song himself.

Mine will arrive in 2 weeks and our first shipment is already sold out!!. You can read more about it here - Boomerang Sport

There's quite a bit of discussion here too - PG Forum

The Bird

Sunday morning at 10:30 AM I'm half asleep on the couch and my friend, fellow team pilot and two time US Paragliding Champion, Len Szafaryn, called and told me he was in town for the weekend and he wanted to fly. After a quick check of the weather it looked like Snowbird was the only option and even there it was going to be borderline. Flight service was predicting winds of 13 knots from the North West. This usually means that the Snowbird Tram launch at 11,000 msl is blown out. It didn't look so appealing to me but Len was psyched to go try anyway (like always).

I packed up my glider, cold weather gear and waited for Len to arrive at my house. An hour later we were at the Bird and getting on the tram. Conditions on top were perfect. It was blowing in a steady 10-12 out of the NW. Fifteen minutes later we were set up and ready to go. With a crowd of several hundred skiers on top of the mountain watching us, Len pulled up his massive Boomerang 4 and launched, I followed closely on an Omega 6. It was so funny to listen to the crowd cheering as we soared the top for a while and then we departed on a short tour of the canyon.

We landed on the groomed snow and stood there grinning from ear to ear like a couple of 12 year olds. Between Len and myself, we probably have over 40 years of combined foot launched flight experience. It amazes me that even after all these years we can still find so much pure joy in an extended sled ride. The people, the views and new experiences are what keeps me coming back, I never get bored. I was, and still am, psyched that Len pulled my ass off the couch to fly the Bird, thanks buddy.

PS: Len highly recommends the tomato pepper soup at the Birdfeeder Cafe.

Back in the saddle....

From 4 months of no flying to 14 days of 2 flights a day in really nice and strong Valle conditions. Exactly what the doctor ordered! 30 seconds into my first flight I was climbing in 500 fpm lift and after I had made 3 circles, it hit me! This is the ultimate freedome and what I live for!

For 9 years straight I have traveled to Valle de Bravo, Mexico to fly XC. Each year we coach 12 people per week in the art of thermalling, perfecting their skills and cross country flying.

This year we had many repeat participants and a flock of new faces too. Dave Nelson, Bob Jantzen, JC Brown, Ron Joseph, Darren Agnew, Carter Brown, Cheryl Cardwell, Meredith Malocsay, Stephan Mitrovitch, Heather St. Clair, Lynn Bentley, Jacques DeVilliers, James Bradley, James Lee, Per Hamarlund, Tom Huff, Paco Carr, Kelly Kellar, Joe Gigliotti, Dan Schefter and Bud and Mary Wruck (celebrating their honeymoon!!) joined us for some epic flying.

According to my Flytec 5020, I logged 28.5 hours in 21 flights. Here's a shot from cloudbase at 13,500' on the way back from the Butterfly mountain. I had flown from Pinon to the 3 Kings to the Butterfly mountain and then landed at the Cocina. Not a bad day at the office!