Paragliding PG1 Certification

When I arrived in Auckland on Monday the 27th, Reuben (my paragliding coach) picked me up from the airport, and we drove straight to Waiuku for some flying because the weather was good. I made a hand full of solo flights, and a few speed wing flights. Great progression session, but stunted by some rain. Fortunately, it broke briefly for me to make a 500m vert speedfly run. So Awesome getting to take a long flight with my wing.

Weather was rubbish the next few days so I hung out with Alex and Bjorn, went to Cape Reinga, and took care of some last minute stuff around the city.

Today the weather was good again, so I took the ferry over to Devenport where Reuben picked me up and we went up north to Shakespeare Regional Park. Got a stupid amount of flights in and got to soar rather than just glide. The difference, glide is just starting from one point and going down to land. Soaring is where you use thermal lift and wind currents to increase lift and gain altitude. You can get hundreds of meters higher than when you launched if done right.

Here is some footage from today of me soaring. It is cut down a bit, but it was a 10 minute flight in all which completed my NZ PG1 Paragliding Certification. Check it out bro:

Man I love this sport. It is so amazing to be able to experience aspects of God's creation that most don't get to. Using wind, gravity, and human design all together to generate flight and float in the air, totally in control. So amazing. Praise God.