Work, Dream, Work

I am very fortunate to live where I can fly down a mountain, land in my yard, and continue on with my day. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I remember one day last summer I was working in the shop blowing glass all morning. Around 1:00pm I went to launch and set up. By 1:45 I was in the air and climbing fast towards a nice, flat bottomed cloud. I timed my climb perfectly so that I reached the edge of the cloud and popped out of the side just as I whited out. The temperature was a lot cooler up there than it was down in my shop and I made a point to appreciate it. The long glide back down gave me a chance to enjoy the beautiful scenery this valley has to offer. Finally, I had a great landing back at my house where I went back to work. - total flight time was about 30 minutes.

As I started back on the torch things seemed surreal. Did that really happen? Was I really playing with a cloud 10 minutes ago at 6,000ft? I had just experienced man's oldest dream in the purest form and then casually went back to where I left off. Like I said..... I had to pinch myself...

So I put the Gopro camera on my helmet the other day to see how it worked. Check out the video below. It's not of the flight mentioned above, but it is a sledder down to land at my house. Sorry if you(Ashley) think it's boring.

Recently I sat down and wasted time watching stuff on You Tube. I went through a bunch of videos and have selected a few to share on the blog here - to waste your time as well. Enjoy!

Here is a de Havilland Beaver on floats attempting a take-off.

And another attempt at a landing/take-off.

I strapped the go-pro camera on my RC again yesterday. The conditions were way better with more wind and a nice sunny sky. Everyone put up a good fight with some strong hits every now and then. Mike hit me into the trees once, I took Bob's wing down by slicing off his control horn, and Scott ended up flying himself into the trees halfway down the mountain. We are having way too much fun with pieces of foam and packing tape.

Check out this video. I like it better than the first one and the crashes/landings at the end are fun to watch.

Snowmanster

We had more snow here at Lookout again today. It started this morning and quit around 2:00 leaving 2-3 inches in the field. James, Scott, Ron, Roxy, Sara, and I started pushing around clumps of snow until they got huge. Then we piled them up and created this big, friendly monster. He even has a little mini-me friend on his shoulder. We are making bets as to how long he will last this week. I know that if it's warm and launchable, someone is gonna try to knock that top hat off during landing.

I call her "Woody"

I just got the little hero wide camera the other day and have been anxious to try it out. I hope the still pics it takes will be sharp enough. It has an auto feature that shoots a pic every 2 or 5 seconds. I think that will come in handy for shots like wingovers where timing is everything; and I won't have to push any buttons.

Anyway, yesterday I found a chance to use it on top of my Battlebeast- a 6ft wingspan terror in the sky. It has slain many o' wings, and is feared by all.

The lift was very light so Bob and I had to work for altitude to play with. Not wanting to lose the camera, we opted out of combat and tried some formation flying instead. The lift finally ended and we were both forced to either land on the ramp, or go for the walk of shame. Check it out.