Busy morning. Biked. Flew. Getting things done.

Woke up early. Joined some friends for a bike ride and then went off on my own and got in about 34 miles. Visited with another biking friend on the way home but wanted to get home to get my flying gear together for a flight. The wind was light early this morning.

The powered paragliding flight was interesting this morning. It was interesting from theperspective that the forecast was good but the kiting and the flight were quite different from what the forecast led me to believe. It was very bumpy, active air. This isn't what would have been expected from the forecasts that I checked.

The flight was really not a surprise at all. It was expected to be trashy from what was happening on the ground. WindAlert from WeatherFlow was checked and didn't show any significant gusting in Waukegan, Highland Park, Winnetka or Northbrook. Weather Brief was almost called but it wasn't. Kiting with the motor on idle was problematic. The wind was coming and going with some significant gusts but not too strong. The direction seemed to vary about 30 degrees or so also. My motor was on idle and it was run as little as possible on the ground so as to not disturb the people in the local area. The wing was brought up a few times and a cravat due to a line over had to be undone with the wing on the ground at one point. It was not flying in a steady breeze at all.

Eventually the wind stayed steady enough to launch. The launch was into sink. The climb out was quite slow. 400' AGL was obtained as quickly as possible and then I settled in at 500' a short time later. Again, some altitude was needed so as to not disturb the groundlings [a 'Jeff-Goin-ism' which I like] in the area. The wind was primarily out of the north. Very little forward speed was made at 500'. It was about a 4-5 on the 'bump scale'. Gusts would change the flight direction and the wing was tipping from side to side pretty suddenly from time to time. It wasn't too much fun. It was somewhat exhilarating. The decision to work my way back and land was made after a relatively short flight.

The trip to just downwind of my landing zone was fast. There are some tall trees downwind of my lz which is of a fair size. There are also some smaller trees upwind close to the parking area. The wind was gusting a bit out of the east as the descent was made to clear the taller downwind trees comfortably but leave as much of the field as possible for maneuvering to land. The idea was to feel out the air down low and fly low with power closer to the car depending on what the wind was doing down low. It worked out well. I was still getting bounced around a bit but there was not nearly as much rotor as I thought there might be. A nice landing was made not far from the car. It was a good flightby and a bit more interesting than anticipated.

Immediately after landing a black van pulled up and a man got out and approached me in the field. He was in a store parking lot in the area and was watching me fly. There was a huge number of grasshoppers in the field so I told him that my wing had to be moved out of the field asap to avoid them spewing acid into it and possibly making holes in my wing. He was very supportive of my flying and mentioned his interest in kiting and talked a bit about a 3 lobed blimp that the air force is developing. We talked about my flying gear and I mentioned www.cartercopters.com to him. He seemed in a bit of a hurry. He mentioned some plumbing job that he had to get back to and left a few minutes later.

If you haven't heard about Carter Copters I would strongly urge you to look it up. It is very cool. They are developing a modern, stable, jump, 4 place gyrocopter like, 'slowed rotor compound aircraft'. This aircraft uses rotor for vertical takeoff and landing, and can cruise at up to 500mph. It is simply awesome. Their 'Personal Air Vehicle' is designed for road use and then flight from a heliport. Let me know what you think after you have learned more about it.

Heading to the office to do some paperwork. It has piled up on me due to a busy schedule!

Minda and I went to 5pm Mass last evening at St. Mary's in Evanston. Both of us worked yesterday. Minda is working today so I can't 'play' all day!

My best to All of you always!
Dave

My son, Jason, was in town and it was a busy weekend.

It was great to see him. He was in town for a wedding of a friend of his. His friend is Indian [his family immigrated here from India] and the wedding was somewhat traditional. The celebration went on for 5 days. It was nice because this meant that Jason spent more time with us and was here for an extended weekend.

We had several meals together with he and our daughter, Erika. We also visited relatives.

I biked Saturday morning 22 miles and this morning 25 miles. Saturday evening my powered paraglider saw action at the Batavia polo field with a total of about 6 of us flying. It was a hot, humid, light wind, beautiful evening. I personally had 3 good flights.

Hope that all of you had a nice weekend also.

Bicycling across Iowa & powered paragliding!

I rode in the RAGBRAI event last week. There were over 10,000 bicyclists riding this event. We rode about 500 miles over 7 days.

Dave Mote is another powered paraglider pilot. He and I flew some mornings and evenings when possible. He is an excellent cyclist and we rode our bicycles together for a good part of the week too.

We arrived in Sioux City in the afternoon on the 24th. It was sunny and a bit gusty. The group of 63 bicyclists and 7 crew members known as the CUBS settled in to about 5 yards on the north side of Sioux City. This is in the northwest corner of the state very near South Dakota. We left Lincolnwood, IL, at 5:30-6am after packing the truck, vans and touring bus in the dark and the rain.

Dave & I decided to check out PPG launch sites in the area with one of our hosts. I went up a hill from our host's home [a very nice guy named Chris who is a chiropractor]. We met a couple of very nice guys with larger properties, one of which was pretty appropriate for our needs. Unfortunately the one with the best property was the least enthusiastic about letting us use his land. He made noise about his wife may not approve. We heard of a field adjacent to a school on the road away from downtown and explored this. It was not too large and surrounded by tall trees and many homes. We opted to go out a little further from town. We took a country road to the west and found some higher ground near the top of a hill with a freshly mowed hay field and what appeared to be a wide right of way alongside the road. Dave was a little concerned about the wind conditions and the fact that it was still a bit early in the day. Sunset was about 9pm and we were getting ready to fly about 6pm. I took the first flight. It was a bit choppy but not too bad. Just after I launched we noticed a girl come out of the house closest to our launching area. She was followed by a man who was her father. She was enthusiatic about seeing us fly and wanted to see someone launch. Her father was a bit concerned and told Dave that we should have asked for permission to use his property. His daughter's enthusiasm overcame his reluctance so we stayed and talke to both of them for awhile. There was what seemed to be a very minor gust front that came through after I had been flying for about 20 minutes, so I landed. This is when we had what turned out to be a nice conversation with this man who was also a physician oncologist. We waited for awhile and then both of us took flight. It was a beautiful evening. We then went to dinner in town.

We were able to fly Sunday evening from a small municipal airport near Storm Lake. Then Monday evening I flew while Dave had shuttle driving duties for our group about 4 miles out of Algona. Tuesday morning the wind picked up and conditions were not good for flying. Tuesday night thunderstorms came through the Clear Lake area where we were staying and it was too windy Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to fly. Wednesday evening we spent the night near Charles City at the Cedar Ridge Golf Course. We flew Wednesday evening and Thursday morning from the driving range and had a great time. Thursday we had a long riding day and rain was threatening again. We stayed in a Ramada Inn in Waterloo. The weather wasn't good and we didn't have a convenient site to fly from. Friday morning we rode for about 40 miles in pouring rain. It finally let up later in the day and Weather Brief told us of calming winds but still a chance of rain developing throughout the area around Manchester where we were staying. We flew about 7pm and saw 2 other PPGs sw of us who came over to join us. The following morning, Saturday which was yesterday, one of those other pilots, Mike, came up from the Cedar Rapids to join us for an early morning flight before we had to ride 50 miles on the last day of our adventure. It was a nice flight. The air
was a little bumpy but not bad.

There will be photos eventually of our trip posted and I will provide links on this site.

My best to all of you always!
Dave