Sunset Flight January 24th, 2018
This is a photo journal (paramotor pictures) of my second flight of 2018 and the one in which I accomplished my first 3 touch and go’s.
While I do have some video footage of this, the stills are rather unimpressive for a photo journal so I’ve decide not to add them below for the sake of keeping this journal a little bit interesting. Maybe I’ll add the footage to a video.
By the way a touch and go is when you land at take off again keeping the paraglider overhead the whole time. This is a lot easier when there is a constant breeze to help keep the wing in the air while you are on the ground.
On this evening the winds would be as low as 2 to 3MPH with erratic gusty bursts up to around 7 or 8MPH and like the flight four days earlier, the air in the sky below 200′ was very turbulent which made doing the touch and go’s a little more challenging.
The airport we use is primarily used by an aerial spraying company. These are the planes they fly.
During sunrise flights we share the airspace with these sporty little crop dusters but in the evening they are idle leaving the sky free for the paramotors.
Pre-flight inspection of the Kangook, I especially keep an eye on the throttle cable connection at the carburetor.
Right after takeoff. The air at this low altitude was really bumpy so I decided to climb higher to see if it would smooth out.
Up here the air was smoother but I still experienced an occasional jolt from turbulence. You can see Lake Okeechobee in the distance.
Farmers seem to always be burning stuff in the fields on the same low wind days we fly paramotors creating interesting scenery at the expense of diminished air quality.
An old abandoned prison, if you look close you can see the guard towers around the perimeter.
I couldn’t help but think as I flew away how many eyes over the years, locked behind those walls days on end, would stare skyward, wishing they could just fly away….
Even though the air down low was bumpy, I decided to head back to the airport and see if I could do a touch and go.
At this time of the evening the crop dusters are parked and the airport is quite.
Today’s flight was short so I didn’t get many pictures but in the end it was a success and now I look forward to more touch and go’s.
When I fly alone I like to stay close to the airport. When you fly, it doesn’t take long to travel a long distance creating a potential challenge if you have to make an emergency landing and end up in a far away field with multiple fences blocking your path back to the landing zone (LZ).
The weather forecast for the rest of January is really windy so it looks like this will be my last flight of the month.