www.FlyingMax.com – Paragliding

Posts Tagged ‘Paragliding in the Rockies’

This is why I life here, Mountains, Lakes, Rivers and a great Community!
This is the way I like to finish a day here in Paradise!

I posted a lot of hang glider trike flying pictures lately…. I still love to hike & fly… I did 4 hikes and flights within the last week … hiking and flying like this is my stress relief and is like meditation to me and I still love it!

Lucas Grief made a reel out of Erik’s 2024 paragliding clips.
Fun times!

Pilots tasks will be dropping Easter eggs (plastic bags filled with snow) and target landings at the designated landing site (Golf driving range). And if possible race out to the valley to Lake Windermere.

Not just about flying, it is also about socialising with pilots, family and friends.
Free social and paragliding event. Pilot lift ticket is $40/day.
Pilots meeting is March 30th at 8:30 am at the day-lodge.
Let me know who is planning to come this year so we can make arrangements for the Saturday evening dinner.
Contact Max Powers at max@flyingMax.com

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year from our family to yours!

The Mt. Swansea Road is now open and it was great to see several families and pilots already taking advantage of it.
Even the Dusky Grouse enjoyed the great view and was getting ready to fly as well.

Here is a video of our recent SIV workshop held last week at Whitetail Lake.
Lots of happy faces!
From SIV flights/lessons, building up everyone’s flying skills and confidence, to big thermal flights, viewing Columbia Lake, Whitetail Lake and Lake Windermere below…Just spectacular!

Thanks to everyone who participated, both pilots and all our helpers, for making this such a fun and safe event. Also a big thank you to the DuBois family and Royal Antler Ranch for letting us use their beautiful properties.

Well, I never was thinking about it myself.
Last December Pascal was asking me if I would do a P1 & P2 course in the winter…. my reply was that it is to cold and there is to much snow at the practice hill.
By the end of January, Kaymin contacted me with the same question … Looking outside, there was not much snow here in the valley at all and before I knew it, I had 2 students starting a 2 week course.

Conditions were absolutely perfect and within 4 days each of them did more than 10 flights from our 40 meter high practice hill.
The week after we started to do our “high mountain” flights at Panorama Mountain Resort with skis. A week later each of them had over 20 flights.

Flying with skis at the resort works very well. The access to the launch site is super convenient by using the chair lifts. Panorama Resort supports our sport a lot and only charges $35 for a day to fly. On some days we ended up flying up to 5 flights a day.

In the mean time we have 4 other P1 pilots working on their 25 supervised flights at the Panorama Ski Resort. This works very well and besides running courses in the spring/summer I already started to schedule a P1 course for late fall this year so we can do the high mountain flights in the winter at the ski hill.

Check out our Calendar as we keep on adding courses and events…. PPG, SIV, XC and P3 workshops coming soon.

Based on how long ago I posted my last blog, lots of people are wondering what is happening,

It was a very busy summer with paragliding, ultralight flying, working with TrappeurHomes.com and ColumbiaRiverPaddle.com. The summer flew by, and it is hard to believe it is almost winter.

So, what’s new with flyingMax?

Besides certifying new pilots, running a SIV at Whitetale Lake, doing “Discovery” flights with my Quicksilver ultralight, guiding in the Dolomite’s, visiting a SIV workshop in Annecy and attending the Nova pilots meet, I renewed my paragliding instructor rating and accepted the invite as a Senior paragliding instructor.

For my instructor re-certification course I traveled to Claudio Mota in Drayton Valley, AB. It was the best thing I ever did and was able to brush up my towing skills.

 

Everything feels like all the pieces are falling into the right places:

• Re-connected with my old friend Juergen Kraus to get all the support to run a “soft” SIV at Whitetale lake.
• Working more extensively with the Quicksilver in regards to Ultralight flying and instructions.
• Re-certification instructor course with Claudio Mota and brushing up my towing skills.
• Accepting the “Senior” instructor status to to be more involved with the HPAC instructor certifications.
• purchased a “Scooter” winch (650cc Suzuki)
  • to offer another option to “foot” launch for supervised P2 flights.
  • use the winch for teaching powered paragliding
• got approved as a Transport Canada Ultralight School in the Columbia Valley (Flight Training Unit #5031)

Based on all the above pieces falling in place, I have the following plans for 2017:

• For the 2016/2017 ski season
  • signed a contract with Panorama Mt. Resort to fly tandems at least 5 days a week
  • offer ski launch workshops
  • offer supervised P2 flights for P1 pilots
• Powered Paragliding lessons
  • Running Ultralight Ground School (min 20 hours)
  • Practical PPG lessons
• Run a paragliding instructor course in the early spring
  • Instructor course based on the on the minimum HPAC requirements
  • Instructor course including ultralight ground school, HAGAR course and practical instructional tips (1 week)
• Run one P1 course through the College of the Rockies in early spring.
• Plan to run another “soft” SIV in May
• Explore the Alps tour in September

Happy landings to everyone and looking forward to the next season.

Max & Penny