First Flight of the Season.
Let the Glider Fly, Let the Flider Fly, Brake!
What's up everybody, it is spring, it is beautiful outside, the birds are chirping, the flowers
are blooming and it is terrible.
Allergies.
I feel like crap.
So I just had my first paragliding flight of the year and I crashed.
Let's start from the beginning of the day.
Hey, you messed up my shot.
Today's been a pretty productive day so far, I put in an order for my own paraglider last
week so I'm pretty excited about that.
I got an ozone mojo 5 glider, I don't know much about it but my instructor said it was
a good beginner one, it's suppose to be safe, class A Safe or...
I don't know what I'm talking about guy.
Now that I have my own paraglider, I can travel with my paraglider.
Considering that all my subscribers came from my iceland travel videos, I'm assuming that
you guys want to see more travel videos.
I have good news, I'm going to Cuba next week, we have no plans, we're just going to Havana
for 5 days, figure it out when we get there.
I did also go to Puerto Vallarta Mexico a few months back.
I didn't get much footage but here's a few seconds of it.
Hopefully I still generally remember what I'm doing.
right turn, there you go.
Everything was going great, the wind was good, the weather was good, the flight was going
really great.
That's when I asked the instructor if I can try something new and try a top landing.
What is a top landing?
I built a mountain and a.
Okay.
You launch from the top and usually you fly and land at the bottom.
This is wind that blows this way and then the mountain pushes the wind upwards so there's
all this upward lift.
Right?
So there's all this lift.
So a lot of paragliders will launch of the top and use that lift to get higher than their
launch sight, and then they land at the same exact spot that they took off from.
That's what we were trying to do.
Keep turning, keep turning.
You're still very high.
You don't have a lot of penetration because you're going against the wind.
You're still very high.
So here's the issue, I was trying to land on the top here but the wind kept blowing
me up so every time I would try to land, I was way too high.
I was essentially this baloon trying to.
So every time I would go a little bit lower and try again and again and.
You're still pretty high so go ahead and turn left.
Still very high, go ahead and take a right.
You're probably going to hit a sink hole, oh you got a thermal, very high, very high.
Problem with my last attempt was that I dipped too low and then all the sudden I fell into
something called a rotor.
So what's a rotor?
Air is pushing you up the mountain and once you get to the backside which is called the
lee side, the wind can actually start pressing you downward.
So the first few attempts, I kept catching that upward drift, but then on the last one
I went too low and then I just fell into the rotor which pressed me straight down and I
could not make it.
Come to the right, see how you fell into the sink hole that you sometimes can't predict?
That's why you hang out high, and wait, so you don't sink too fast.
Left brake, and fly towards me.
Left brake, fly towards me otherwise you're going to end up in it the bushes.
Let the glider fly, let the glider fly.
Brakes.
Well, I don't think that was suppose to happen.
Are you good?Yeah I'm good!
Can you get up?
I think I just need to unstrap and I can get up.
You guys okay?
Yeah, we're taking the glider off the spikey bushes and then we're walking up there.
It is not easy getting this out of here huh?
There was a lot of things I should have and could have done but here was my biggest mistake.
Every time you're about to hit the ground, you're suppose to hit both brakes so that
you're coming down and you slow down and then land very softly, hopefully not into a cactus.
And I didn't do that which made me crash into the bushes a lot harder than I should have.
The reason for that is because right before I crashed, I kept hearing the radio say let
the glider fly, which basically means release both brakes.
Let the glider fly, let the glider fly, brakes.
He was hoping I would fly straight and get out of the bushes, I thought he was telling
me to not high the brakes before going into the bushes.
I should have known, I should have flared anyways, but I just kinda, I don't know.
Panicked okay, I'm still a beginner so.We spent about 20 minutes getting out of the
bush and once we got out, he asked me if I was okay to fly again and I said hell yes!
Your radio's not working.
It's not?
No!
Oh gotcha.
No I don't hear anything.
My radio's not working so that's exciting.
Couple of mishaps today.
Yeah I spent some time getting out of the bush, now I'm back in the air.
I do not have radio communication, I probably shouldn't have my phone out and be filming.
This is kind of stupid so I'm going to put this back.
Sunset thought!
I don't like looking down man, dude I am scared of heights, what am I doing up here?
I'm alive, I made it.
yeah that's pretty much it.
For any experienced paragliders watching this, if you guys have any pointers, please let
me know, I'm still learning so I'm all ears.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you guys in Cuba.
Damn it.
I give up.