We went to the Blossoms of Light event at the Denver Botanic gardens and when we saw a greenhouse-related opportunity, we took it. ♥️

When it’s unseasonably warm, with perfect conditions, over a dozen people will show up at the LZ to fly on a random Saturday.

Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite movies as a kid was Fly Away Home. Tonight I got to briefly fly with a flock of migrating geese and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.

(Also lol at my friend being like, “you want help carrying in your shit” and me being like, “yeah sure but listen. GEESE.”)

We knew the wind was going to get spicy toward the end of our flight tonight, but I didn’t anticipate it would be quite this spicy. We all landed on our feet nonetheless!

Join me on an afternoon flight to check out the motocross track, paintball facility, and speedway from above. There was a wild little patch of turbulence about 20ish ft off the ground when I came in to land which tossed me around a bit, but I landed on my feet nonetheless. 🫡👌🪽

Storytime.

Texas elevation is spoiling me. I pop right up on takeoff and land like a feather.

First no-wind launch and landing, ft. a much more experienced friend throwing some acro 🤙🏼

I’ve been so afraid to try this and (this may come as a shock), it turns out I was overthinking it.

It’s always more fun to fly with friends. 😊

I’ve been getting more questions about flying recently so I’m going to make this one public to refer to in the future.

A) It’s basically turning yourself into a human kite with a 2stroke engine + propeller on your back. Mine is 80ccs since I’m smol but most folks have 185cc engines. Here’s a breakdown/voiceover of what goes into a flight:

B) I got into it because I’d heard about it a decade ago and was fascinated by the idea but never thought I could afford it. Now that I live in CO, have a good job, and live within an hour of one of the best trainers around, I saved up for a year and got started.

C) If you’re interested in getting into it, I’m happy to talk to you about it offline—but I’d look for a trainer or school in your area and spend time with them first. Maybe do a tandem. They’ll coach you through both the skills and gear necessary to get you in the air. Fair warning, you’ll spend quite a bit of time on the ground first, and you’ll need to take some written (online) tests as well. (But yes, it’s SO fun. Please come fly with me). 

D) You didn’t ask this, but other folks have. Start up costs are hella expensive and you want to invest in good equipment since poor equipment means death. You’ll need $3-5k for training and then your motor, wing, reserve, and helmet will be anywhere from $8k to $15k depending on if you can find them second-hand or not. Maintenance costs are basically nothing aside from gas/oil unless you need to repair gear, though, which is nice. My startup cost was just over $11k all in with training.

So. Like I said. Not cheap. But if you’re in a DINK situation like me, willing to sacrifice some things, (and have a supportive partner who said “hey, we’re down to one car and your thrifting probably saved us more than that last year”) it’s doable. And so worth it. I literally can’t describe the euphoria of flying. I mean. It’s flying

It would be great if Tumblr stopped flagging my flying videos as porn. Is it the large swaths of land? Is your stupid bot thinking it’s skin? Anyway, enjoy this fail compilation that somehow still contains less failure than Tumblr’s very shitty nudity detection Ai.

I wanted to surprise B when he got home so I moved Gary into the garage and strapped him to my Paramotor.

Only, in the process of doing that, I met our new neighbors for the first time in the alley between our garages like this:

So I definitely made an awesome first impression. Welcome to the neighborhood. 😆