Showing posts with label Flying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flying. Show all posts

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Speed Flying - The New Alternative to Base Jumping

Ten years ago most people would have drawn a blank at the mention of Base jumping, a fringe ultimate sport that involves throwing one's self from cliffs and structure with a parachute. Today, even those in their Golden Years are familiar with the sport, and might even be familiar with some of the technical terminology. But Base jumping will forever remain primarily a novelty performance due to its high risk and microscopic accessibility. For those individuals with the desire to share in such an intense performance more than vicariously through the rare few willing to risk their lives, there is a new sport on the verge of exploding. It's called Speed Flying and although far safer than Base jumping, the adrenaline factor is only one notch less.

Speed Flying is in its infancy now, but like many adventure sports before it, is quickly gaining traction as a familiar sport to the masses. This traction is construction in a form beyond the typical flood of online videos however; mainstream individuals are easily participating in it. Most likely you are wondering what exactly this hot new sport is, and maybe even how you might get involved. Read on to be enlightened.

California Sky Diving

The sport is simple: a participant hikes up a mountain with a small and light fabric wing packed on their back, inflates and launches from a favorable patch of clear ground, then screams down the mountain at breakneck speeds, slaloming through natural terrain features on the way down. The concept of this whether excites you or scares you, or both. For those that find themselves immediately drifting toward the scared side of the spectrum, it should be noted that the concept of this performance is more frightening than easily doing it. Like with anything else, knowledge replaces mystery, which is the root of most fear. Let's dispel some of the difficulty of Speed Flying.

A combination of skydiving, paragliding and Base jumping, it would seem Speed Flying should be more hazardous than any one of these other sports. But the beauty is that it shares the most spellbinding aspects of each activity, but not the high risk elements. For example, it shares with Base jumping the intense anticipation of standing at the edge of a cliff or mountain establishment to jump, but does not share the high risk aspect of depending upon a perfect parachute opening to survive. In tasteless with paragliding is a high performance wing that creates a true pilot out of its operator, but with a much more rigid airfoil that nearly eliminates the risk of collapse connected with a paragliding wing. Like skydiving, it is potential to make multiple flights in a day, but at one-fifth the cost (thus reducing the risk to one's financial well-being).

It might seem like a sport of this nature would take weeks or months to learn, but in reality an personel can go from zero sense to proficient in a few days time, without needing to take any "leaps of faith". First flights are on a large wing from a bunny hill, gaining only a few feet of altitude for less than 10 seconds. Within an hour, a trainee can be flying from 200 feet, and by the end of the day, flights from over 500 feet are possible. All the while, wing size will be gradually stepped down from Sedan to Coupe. Over the following days, the safe transition to sports car will be the goal. At this point in the training, a trainee will have a good feel for what type of flying they enjoy, and can focus their learning objectives toward that end. Some individuals will want to rip down the mountain as fast as possible, while others will prefer "boozy cruisy" flights at speeds much faster than a paraglider, but not so fast that the landscape cannot be enjoyed. There is something for everybody.

As is all the time the case with any new endeavor, taking the first step is the hardest. In this instance, that step is production a quick phone call or sending a short email to a local Speed Flying school. Be ready though, taking this initiative will very likely corollary in adding an element of excitement to your life that will have you quickly shifting your priorities. Get ready for the ride of your life.

Speed Flying - The New Alternative to Base Jumping

Monday, October 31, 2011

Speed Flying - The latest Adventure Sport You Just Might Want to Try

With online videos now a part of our daily life, you have no doubt been made aware of such activities as Wingsuit Base Jumping or Jetpack Skydiving. For the majority of us, these fall more into the stunt type rather than sport, and we would be fooling ourselves to think for a occasion that we might someday try it ourselves. Well there is a new adventure sport about to pop onto our radars, and at first discern it would seem to be just an additional one ridiculous way to try and kill yourself. This sport is called Speed Flying, and before shrugging it off as out of your league after watching 20 seconds of it, you might want to do yourself a favor and dig below the outside to learn a miniature more about it. It could very well change your life in a positive way.

I am writing this narrative because I am one of those people that decided to give something like this a try, and it changed my life forever. For me it was skydiving. I am now a 21 year veteran of the sport, and in that time I have tried to convince hundreds of others to give it a go. My success rate was about 10% in getting people to try at least one jump, and of those, only 3 ever stuck with it. I quit trying to talk people into skydiving about a decade ago because it took too much energy, and I had moved on to Base Jumping anyway. This isn't a sport that you try to drag others into, for positive reasons, and thus I have been dormant in my attempts to introduce others to new and sharp activities. Until now.

California Sky Diving

Let me cut to the chase: I want you to give Speed Flying a try (of course you already knew that was where I was going). You are simply wondering why I suddenly feel like trying to convince others to participate in yet an additional one aerial sport. Well, very simply, Speed Flying brings about the same emotional high as Skydiving or Base Jumping, but without the same strings attached that turn people away. It is a sport that is more accessible and with more motion for most people. Since a quick YouTube crusade will give you a gorgeous optic of what Speed Flying is, I am going to simply give you a laundry list as to why you categorically should try it.

First, and most importantly, you can baby step your way into Speed Flying. With sports like Skydiving or Base Jumping, it's "go" or "no go", and nothing in between. You start categorically at the very bottom of the hill and work your way up at your own pace. If you feel perfectly happy running off a 20 foot bunny slope, then you can continue to do that until you crave more. No pressure.

Speed Flying will take you to the most gorgeous places on the planet. You will inspect locations that you never would have were it not for the sport. Standing on a remote mountain top with 2 or 3 friends is a general operation with Speed Flying.

You will be able to ditch your gym membership. Not only will you get into the most shape of your life, you won't even observation you are exercising. Seriously! Hiking is sooo much easier when there is a purpose to it, and you are excited with prospect of a great flight. An added bonus: you only have to hike one way, and you won't trash your knees and shins hiking back down.

You will meet some of the most people on Earth. Activities as unique as this draw in passionate individuals that aren't hung up on the materialistic pursuits of the "real" world. If you are a materialistic person, all the better hypothesize to participate. You will speedily comprehend how unimportant all that other stuff categorically is.

You will become a pilot. Yes, a pilot. Your speed wing follows all the same aerodynamic theory as any other aircraft, and you will learn to take command of it. Speed Flying truly is the least costly form of personal flight, by far. A year of golf costs more than a year of speed flying.

It's all the time an adventure!

This is the short list of reasons why you just might want to give Speed Flying a try. There are many more, I can assure you. But you've got to take the initiative to find out.

Speed Flying - The latest Adventure Sport You Just Might Want to Try