Finally, the Team Kamikazes Paramotor Puerto Rico had an excellent day of flights. This means a lot of action and adventure of each of the pilots and friends who said present. Unfortunately some pilots could not make the trip either because of personal commitments or that the trip was hard to make on road. The final meeting point was Rancho Grande of Anasco. Although we knew that conditions would be good for flying, the fact that it was Anasco, is a problem of distance for some who have to travel more than two hours to get there.
The detail is that both, the North and the South coast had windy conditions higher than 20 mph intensity making the flight unpleasant. Neither were recommended conditions for novice pilots. In the end, Anasco looked like the best option and finally we headed there. Before starting the story, here are the present Kamikazes pilots in the activity.
• Luis Ruiz, his wife Jessica and children Ian Darrell and Noah Enrique
• Pablo Cruz and his wife Millie
• Chey Sánchez and his wife Arlene
• Ricardo González and his wife Ermelinda
• Antonio Arias
• David Silva
• Omar Román
• Michael Diaz
• Dimas Ruiz
• Robert Rodríguez
• Berto García
The pilots and their families started arriving at 10 AM. The wind direction was from East, not good for flying. So, we need to wait and have patient. Luis Ruiz was predicting in the area that the crossing of winds from East to West in the area would occur at midday, and he fail only for 5 minutes! At 11:55 AM the winds of the West began to enter, which in turn activated all the present pilots.
https://www.facebook.com/LuisRuizParapentePR/videos/10157175309510229/?t=0
Chey, Omar and Pablo would be the first to go flying, followed by Michael, Robert and Dimas. Ricardo prepared his equipment, but when he manage to inflate the paraglider he had problems with the direction of his race in the takeoff. So he had to abort on a couple of occasions and them preferred to simply take out her hammock and spend the afternoon sharing with us. More practice of his technical launch is necessary.
In other hand, it was a pleasant surprise to see Robert Rodriguez arrive. He had not been able to fly for months, mostly due to problems with his paramotor. Now he was back and not only that, but made an excellent takeoff and landing and his flight lasted for more than a hour. Nice to have it back. Berto Garcia, also arrived, he was not ready to fly, but he show to have a great afternoon sharing with his friends. Next week he will travel to Dominican Republic for personal reasons.
https://www.facebook.com/100000961630656/videos/2568220583219971/?t=0
Another remarkable story was the “cross” flights made by Michael and Omar, these were flying twice to the Rincón Public Beach, in a northerly direction and to the coast of Mayaguez flying south. Both flights lasted more than a hour and a half and their flights were full of adventure. Michael tells us that when they arrived flying at Rincón, they approached the point where the West and East winds crossed. Finally they found the “monster” of turbulence of the crossing of winds in the Municipal Beach. When turning back, Michael registered an ascent of his equipment in which he had to release all the “Trimmers” of his paraglider to be able to leave the ascent winds and Omar also had to do something similar. Scary brief moments for the two pilots.
In other hand, Ian Darrell, goes flying, this time using his new Go Pro camera, and here his first video from air…
😏😏Ian Darrell Video joining the Team💪💪
Another who flew to exhaustion was Antonio. He initially flew for more than an hour using the paraglider Apco Lift EZ of Chey. At dusk he would fly with the paraglider BGD Luna from Luis this time accompanied by Chey in flight. Both also went all the way to Rincón, then back to Mayaguez where they even flew to the Professional Baseball Park “Cholo” Garcia. On the way back they went to fly into the town of Anasco and landed at sunset. Antonio is a pilot with great skill. With these executions he has earned his third star of Team Kamikazes level and we do not doubt that more progress is in a close future.
Now, we need to talk about David. This is already tradition, we brought donuts to all those present, which we are very grateful. However, today was an unusual day in his attempts to take off. David is facing problems with his takeoffs in gentle winds. At the turn around he is losing contact with the paraglider. Initially failed several times and his paraglider, which is already kind of old, is not helping either. He achieve to take off after several attempts and it did not looks elegant. Already in the air, and as usual, everything works fine with him. However, in the afternoon, already with strong winds, again he had problems launching. This time, he inflated his paraglider very close to the flag of winds. The actual strong wind, could not prevent the paraglider embrace the flag post. It took that Ricardo, Pablo and Chey need to helped him to get the paraglider out of the pole of the flag🙄🙄😱😱. This time he decided not to try again. As we mentioned, this is unusual since David is doing much better than that.
For his part, Luis Ruiz, made a passenger flight to Jerry Aponte. He traveled from Ponce to enjoy the experience of flying in the paramotor. There are chances that he will be encouraged to take classes in the process of being a new Kamikaze pilot. Time will tell… The flight was very good and in part of this they accompanied Chey and Antonio on their flights through the area.
We ended up at dusk having dinner at Rancho Grande, where as always we are treated like a kings. As expected, it was a day of many adventures and stories. We hope that weather conditions continue to improve in the coming days. And we always thank God for these opportunities that allow us to live.
