Friday, March 11, 2011

The air we fly in

As a hang glider pilot we use the unseen flow and eddy's of the air to maintain altitude and climb to incredible heights. The action is similar to water but we often don't have the luxury of being able to see what is going on in the never ending dance of molecules, spinning, climbing and doing pirouettes across the sky.
We know the sun warms the earth, the warm earth warms the air above it and eventually that air becomes warmer than the surrounding air then breaks its invisible bond with the earth and begins to rise. Seldom is that process so visible as in the video linked below.
In the video the dance is very well illustrated as Fred Astaire is joined by Ginger Rodgers to twirl and sway across a farmers field.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I first saw it on the Oz Report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxRT60-kw78

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

NPW5 2.8M


Built my first Nasa Power Wing kite. A 2.8 sq. meter all orange traction kite for higher wind situations. Thanks to Andy for the instruction and John for the sewing he did. It turned out great and flies nice. A little tuning then the right conditions on the ice and........ZOOM!!!!!