909 Km’s Home

True to my word (finally!) I started driving home yesterday and 10 hours later, I was back in Cow-Town.

I hate goodbyes and it makes me sad when I have to leave a place with great people and great flying. A lot of people are envious of my travels over the last couple of years and although the adventures I’ve had and the places I’ve been to have been amazing, socially it’s hard. Sometimes just when you’re starting to get to know the people around you, it’s time for you to leave. At first I took the approach of not letting people get close to me, knowing that I’d have to say goodbye at some point, but now I try to do the opposite. From an emotional perspective I’m not sure which is the easier, but I don’t think that building “walls” because of an inevitable goodbye helps with building solid friendships so I’ve changed my tune and as a result, now know some really fantastic people.

My last couple days in the valley outside of Vancouver were mainly spent doing tandems although I did manage to sneak in a flight with my new wing.

Funny going from a flight with the tandem and then switching to a solo... I find spiralling the tandem requires a lot of force and doing it asymmetrically makes it go “in” a lot faster and more dramatically so I tend to opt for that when I don’t have tons of height. Maybe a third of the brake on the Addict, and whoosh, you’re leading edge is level with the horizon. It’s a pretty quick reminder that flying a solo and a tandem are NOT the same. Launches and landings on the tandem have been going well, so I’m quite pleased. Here’s a little takeoff vid:


Still scratching my head formulating a plan to fly all winter – I certainly haven’t given up yet.