Paragliding

Paraglider Drop to Wingsuit Under The Bridge

5. 9. 2019

Backstory: The leading up to this flight was far scarier than the flight itself. A year prior on instagram, I saw a speedflyer fly this line, but in his comments he didn't give away the location. So I screenshot'd the bridge & reverse google imaged it. It took a couple hrs, but I finally found it. Interesting enough I had driven by it probably every year prior, & had never seen it hidden on the other side of the valley. I randomly called a paraglide co., Airvolution, & luckily found a paraglider, Raoul, that was dope enough to let a stranger (& maniac) like me to convince him to drop me outta his paraglider. & fly under a bridge. Lol. We made a game plan, but the initial launching location was too gnarly. So, we found another that looked decent (but not ideal; both in it's runnup, & b/c it was a 100m lower.) Our 1st runnup was aborted last sec on the edge, as we'd probably not had the lift or speed to make it through the tree gates soon after the super steep (kind of a cliff) take off. Lol. After a couple more practises, we launched. Phase 1 complete. There were no thermals that day, so we knew we'd lose altitude right from the start. Not ideal. It was only a few seconds after launch that the bridge was in sight. I disconnected from the harness, zipped up my arm/legwings, & then Raoul handed me my laser rangefinder. Through my partly closed visor I sideways lasered the altitude as we flew, & got a fluctuating reading of, basically, 160m. I was cool with that. Phase 2 was done. We continued the traverse for a few seconds, & did a 180 to head back on the same trajectory. This was Phase 3, where I had to stand up...which was...hard AF, due to...well, having never frickin paraglided, the difficulty of standing up in a tandem paraglider, & moreso, the time constraint; if I wasn't up in the few seconds it took to head back, we'd miss our opportunity. Plus, as mentioned, we had no thermals, so, I knew we had lost another however many meters, & I had to make a quick decision. To go or not to go. In that split second when I looked to the ground below, & the line to the bridge, I felt like I had seen & exited this type of altitude before, & it seemed steep enough. So, it was go-time. & that's how I flew under the bridge.

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