Video I've seen in quite sometime.

VIDEO

http://www.zapiks.com/speed-riding-antoine-montant-1.html

The North face of Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix. I've seen the terrain. It's shown briefly at the beginning of the video. Antoine triggers the avalanche and simply pulls up to escape.

This is absolutely the future of ski films. He hits knife edge ridges skipping off thousand foot cliffs and gliding to the next. Avalanches are dispatched with pitch.

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Ryan Voight, South side - Point of the Mountain - 3.2.10

VIDEO HERE

Feeling Good on the South Side from Ryan Voight on Vimeo.

The last week has been exciting for me. I finished the final prototype of the Wills Wing "Covert" before starting to build 4 team harnesses signifying the "pre-release production phase".



This being the first that will be flown, I felt pretty strong satisfaction boxing it up and shipping it off to Florida to get some much appreciated feed back from Dustin. It's too snowy to access any of the flying sites here in Missoula so it was a huge benefit to have someone, who's opinion I respect, ready and willing to test it out for me. I decided to simplify the overall package to make for clean lines while retaining the same chute deployment layout and structure. I was pleased with the understated result and based on the finished proto, am looking forward to building the harness that I'll race on this season.



Dustin has the lay up dialed for the back plate and the boot. Apparently, the back plate is strong enough to kill a donkey with. He said this morning, "I could drive up onto this thing with my car to change the transmission". Sounds pretty freakin strong. It will be nice to not have to worry about mid loop carbon failures on the back plate! Believe me;-)



I will have at least a couple finished to see, hands on, at Demo Days later this month and plan to be ready to take orders and measurements during the event. I'm really excited to start building custom harnesses for pilots around the world and am happy with where we are at in the progression toward achieving that goal. I will make sure to post "in air" photos as soon as Dustin is able to get some.



On a bit of a whim, I took Saturday off to go and "celebrate" a little. Haven't been doing much in the way of exercise lately so when my friends, Jim and Lori Chase, called to see if I wanted to go run the "SnoJoke 1/2 marathon" with them, I said, why not. It's an annual winter event that makes a lap around the scenic Seeley Lake here in western Montana. Not a real long one, but over 500 people showed up and it was cool to have good conversation with new people while running in a beautiful place. There was less snow and ice on the course than most years so it ended up being really pleasant and a great way to enjoy the afternoon.

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Wintertime at Lookout

More from Eric Donaldson - Eric received a shiny new T2C over the winter and has been honing his skills with some sporadic flying.

VIDEO HERE



VIDEO HERE



Check out his blog: HERE

Thanks boys.

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Thanks to Eric Donaldson and the Lookout crew for passing this along:

VIDEO HERE

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Picking out colors for a new glider - one of the most enjoyable tasks. Which of the below did I choose? None :)

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Zippy last week landing on the beach.

VIDEO HERE

Thanks to Jonathan Dietch for the video and link.



;) The T2C is an energy retention machine.

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Just got done knifing out the new set of patterns. I have hopes this will be basically a production model. Getting them drawn, plotted, cut out and marked up has been really fun but I'm keen to start sewing. I should be able to get a harness in the mail soon for Dustin to test fly for a few days and then on to Pearson and Mitch (for his opinion on the d-bag). After hearing what the boys have to say, I plan on making the last little tweaks before the release of the product at Demo Days.




Nya swinging in the climbing cave while Dad was going mental cutting out patterns

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Christina Ammon, writer and PG pilot is closing in on the conclusion of a VERY unique fund raising project supporting VERY worthy charities.

"With This Ring Website"

If the ring sells, Chris is planning on donating $3000 to the bilingual school in Canoa Ecuador to support a teacher's salary for a year.

"The Cloudbase Foundation" exists and non-profit status is being finalized by Ricker Goldsborough. The Cloudbase Foundation website here"


Zippy's glider.

Free flight pilots are coordinating their efforts to pull the organization together in a very organic way and search for worthy charities to assist where "we" travel to. Ricker as been the primary motivator and I'm indebted to him for his tireless work ethic.



Father Frank, from the Mill Hill Mission in Guayaquil, Ecuador is still receiving our assistance, and we're committed to raising $500 per month to send him for medicines and nutritional supplements in his clinic.

Father Frank's website

Here are excerpts from Father Frank's latest e-mails:

WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRISE!!THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH. THE $1000 ARRIVED IN MY BANK READY TO BE USED. YOU AND THE TEAM HAVE HELPED US TREMENDOUSLY IN THE DISPENSARY. MARIA LUISA WILL ORDER THE MEDICINES TOMORROW.


Father Frank has been sending me receipts of his purchases.

WE ORDERED THE MEDICINES AND THEY ARE NOW IN OUR BOTICA IN THE DISPENSARY.I ENCLOSE A COPY OF THE PAYMENTS. I HOPE THEY WILL BE CLEAR TO READ. THE TOTAL AMOUNT COMES TO JUST OVER $1000. MANY MANY THANKS. THERE IS A LOT OF SICKNESS AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR.THE HEAT IS SUFFOCATING. THE HOSPITALS ARE FULL ASND SOME PEOPLE ARE BEING NTURNED AWAY.

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Quick update from Brasil:

Jack Simmons and I flew down here for the first stage of the nationals in Sapiranga. Most locals don't like it for the lack of big distances and powerful air but I think it's heaven. Jack agrees. Out of 9 days we flew 7, probably around 3 hours average each day. Unfortunately the comp committee only thought 2 days were suitable for a task. The tasks were slightly overcalled given the fact that we were running over saturated ground, mostly rice fields. Goal was never made but the flying was still moderately fast and fairly tactical. Ferro is the current Brasilian champ and walked all over everyone else, winning both days. He wasn't gliding the best and he wasn't climbing the best (nearly), but he was clearly making the best decisions of anyone and walked away with the trophy.

The day after the comp we headed north with Eduardo from Mato Grosso and his awesome driver Flavia. We were intent on bagging a site on the precipice of the Atlantic range overlooking the ocean 50km distant. We arrived a day and a half later to find three wile e. coyote concrete ramps hanging over the edge of a cliff completely socked in by cloud. Long story short, we all flew, it was epic, and I consider it one of my best flights ever. About three hours after launching I landed just short of the beach in a beautiful field in a tiny village.

Next stop Betinho's chalet in Garopaba. Betinho Schmidt was good enough to lend us his chalet overlooking a lake next to the beach Praia do Rosa. We spent a day hiking the coastal cliffs and soaking up the sun. Betinho is doing great and planning a stand-up paddle from Floripa to Garopaba...too much open ocean for me. Good luck man.

Then Floripa - I had planned to show Jack some great island flying at some of the best beaches of Brasil. The wind swung too north after a frontal passage and left us stranded on Praia Mole, nothing to do but soak up the sun, sand, and surf for a day. I made a go at the PG launch above the beach but by the time I got up there it was simply unlaunchable. The guy up there saw me shouldering the wing on to the launch and questioned the wisdom of flying a hang glider there. He told me in all his years there he had only ever seen one hang glider fly there.. about two years ago.. gray top, yellow bottom with blue stripe? Yeah. Looping out over the surf for a couple hours? Yeah.. Ahh those were good times..

The group had to split up at that point. I headed due west to Foz do Iguaçu, and currently Jack and Eduardo are near the Pantanal and planning to fly Corumbá tomorrow.

Back in one week to Quest to take care of tandems and harness back plates. Deep in materials research right now, and after several protos the harness appears to be nearing production.

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