In this article I mentioned how him and pilot Lee Boone have two events coming up, the Amego Airshow and the Extremo Air Show.

They just finished the Amego Airshow on October 20th. and 21st. Along with the GTR display team there were 13 other performances coming from all over the USA including the Air Force Thunderbirds and the Army Golden Knights.

Enjoy the photos and stay tuned because Had and Lee will be doing another display with the Extremo Air Show in Chihuahua City, Chih., Mexico October 27-28, that is in just a couple days!

The Extremo Air Show brings thousands of people to watch hot air balloons, motorcycle stunt riding and circus rides of all kinds. Expect great food and plenty of fun!

To view a more detailed report and description head to the El Paso Paragliding website.

Photos: John Shaw

He and pilot Lee Boone have been invited to perform a display at both the Amigo Airshow in El Paso, TX October 20-21 and at the Extremo Air Show in Chihuahua City, Chih., Mexico October 27-28. Had and Lee will be doing demonstrations with their GTR‘s at both events.

The Extremo Air Show brings thousands of people to watch hot air balloons, motorcycle stunt riding, circus rides of all kinds, and experience great food.

A LIVE webcast of the Red Bull Stratos will be live streamed at http://www.youtube.com/embed/MrIxH6DToXQ and http://redbullstratos.com

Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space that will try to surpass human limits that have existed for more than 50 years. Supported by a team of experts, Felix Baumgartner will undertake a stratospheric balloon flight to more than 120,000 feet / 36,576 meters and make a record-breaking freefall jump in the attempt to become the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall (an estimated 690 miles / 1,110 kilometers per hour), while delivering valuable data for medical and scientific advancement.

Unfortunately I had some problems getting the carburation sorted on my machine so spent the majority of the time fettling on the ground which was a little frustrating. In the end I found something that worked despite running hot and spent the final few minutes of daylight by myself on the course.

I then spent the whole evening with the Canadian Paramania pilots who have come down to support us, stripping the motor down and looking for anything that might be giving me an issue.

I really take my hat off to these guys for being so helpful and supportive to all of us Team Paramania pilots that have traveled here. It’s great being part of a big family wherever we are in the world!

Thankfully there are no issues with my wings, the only problem will be to decide whether I use my 18m or 20m GTR as it is not possible to change wings during the competition. The 18 is the faster of the two and it’s a pretty long circuit suited to this size but there are a few tasks where it is necessary to touch the wing tip on the water or have a heavy penalty and this favors the 20…

We have another day of testing today so I’ll make sure my Polini 200 is in tiptop shape and make a final decision after looking at the weather for race days. It could come down to being the 18 if it’s windy or the 20 if it looks to be calm…

- Dean Eldridge

I think tomorrow we finally get to fly, all for issue of permits and that everything here is a bit complicated.

-Daniel Crespo

Fly Games Series Quebec – preparativos.

I will use the blog over the next couple of days to hopefully get up to date reports and some photos from the pilots in Quebec.

Right after Deano landed he sent me this message:

We have arrived in Montreal and waiting connection for Mont Joli. Unfortunately Danny Crespo’s machine has been confiscated in transit in Frankfurt and they’ve taken my fuel tank too. All things to sort out in the coming days.

-Deano

The pilots have a tough competition coming up in the next couple of days and 100% of it is over water! Take off and landing is on a 50m x 50m platform.

Intense.

The event ended with 10 tasks.

Task 10 was an economy/ distance task the pilots were briefed to fly around pylons in a large track with 1kg of fuel (1.3L) and could exit at the Paramania flag to land and submit their times. If they did not make it around the track to the pull out point and had to “land out” then 20% was subtracted from the score for that task.

Unfortunately there was an issue with Dean Eldridges timing card and his track was not recorded but he counted 5 laps. If Deano would have been able to complete the final task the results would have placed him up high on the rankings.

Stats for the GTR 24

After looking back at the stats something I found very interesting was that Daniel Cresbo won the economy task on his GTR 24 by about 30 minutes in task 8, pure economy. This is a great stand out statistic by the 24, and to back it up Victor (Moncho) Rodriguez made 7 laps and “landed out” just before completing his 8th.

Unfortunately because of his landing out he was penalized 20% of his score for this task. But to note the winner of the pure economy for foot launch completed 8 laps.

It was a declared speed with hidden points and photos. You had to adjust your trajectory from the last point to the next. The wind was a challange and made the task a bit more difficult for the pilots as they not only had to get to photo of the point but maintain the declared speed.

In a conversation with Deano he said, “I could have declared a faster speed but was not expecting the wind to be like it was.” he concluded by saying. “There was a lot less wind speed up higher in the sky where it was a bit stronger on the ground.”

A massive cloud came rolling in late morning and rain was expected but has now left. The conditions are predicted to be bad for flying over the next couple of days, but lets hope for the best.

Tomorrow the 31st.

September 1st.

As the day comes to a close also do the official scores. Task Five is officially finished and published on the World championships website.

Task five saw many GTR’s in the top rankings, not surprising as the task was the figure 8. Dean Eldridge, Paco Guerra, Stefaan Michils all made a great effort to complete this task high in the rankings.

We are pulling for the whole Paramania team and they are all doing well. Here  are the Provisional scores for Task 7 the cloverleaf.

Hat exchange; Pilots from South Africa, Spain and the UK change hats for a photo shoot.

Stay tuned for more posts coming soon.

The opening ceremonies were great with Paco Diaz skydiving, low passes by airplanes and a promenade on the deck by all the teams from around the world.

We had a chance to rally up the Paramania Pilots and snap a quick photo. (Missing Daniel Cresbo)

Pilots were having some tweaking issues with carburetors especially float ball carbs as the tuning on them will make more efficient flying machines but can need some special attention to get the mixtures just right.

Also were the normal issues of getting all the gear necessary, sending people for parts and missing pieces.

It is a very active field with 117 pilots registered at this event; very exciting seeing all of the people gathering to compete in Spain and it has been about 4 years sense the last World championships the energy is high with a great destination for a comp like this.

It is hot! Desert like, in the evenings the temperature drops and the days get up past the 30’s but mornings have given way to tasks and we are making attempts to fly figure 8’s this evening – day one – if the wind lets up.

Pilots are sitting at the ready in three different decks. Splitting teams and pilots up into groups. The organizers have chosen some interesting ways to keep the playing field even for all countries. It has run smoothly and is looking to be a very interesting comp.

Below is a photo of our own Paco Guerra on the GTR and Paco Diaz on the Taxi.