THE 21ST century is beginning to provide us with new technologies already, technologies that just 10 years ago we could only have dreamed of. Mobile phones that can play youTube videos, handheld PDA's that are more useful than a paper & pen and cameras with millions of pixels the size of a matchbox. Ingenious, clever, technological things. Things that are totally useless in the grand scale of things, but none the less things that look really good in matte silver. That was until we recieved an anonymous magazine article about the things that are giving new life to the old flying lawnmowers.
Powered paragliders are going electric, we're told. Well, that's not a bad thing we thought, and after a quick show of hands in the Pie offices we concluded that maybe we'd have a go on one if they actually didn't make that racket. Obviously, we all agreed that we would never buy one, but we'd have a lash at it all the same. After further thought, we also realised that here at Pie, we might have to tone down the humour with respect to PPGs too, let's face it, if the bloody things hardly make a sound we can't really see a problem with them anymore. So we set off to find out how this technology was coming along, how they worked, when might they be available and whether we would have to change our editorial slant in the future.
We spent $9000 on flight tickets to visit the worlds biggest players in the PPG market and have a chat with the designers and developers. Unfortunately, 20 minutes into the first interview and we'd lost track of the theory they were explaining to us and had inadvertantly started asking about the colour schemes they were planning. We never quite understood what a direct drive was or why you needed to brush your engine, and clearly we'd been mistaken for years in our belief that Lithium was a ladies bath soap and that Poly Mer was a Disney cartoon character. Most importantly, though, we were disappointed to discover that they aren't silent, they still weigh a ton and it was nothing like the pocket-sized gadget we had been expecting. So we left. 5 minutes later we'd cancelled our other interviews as we'd completely gone off the whole stupid idea of PPG'ing. We had simply realised that we still didn't want to fly with all that crap on our back, whether it was powered by gas, electric, coal or nuclear reactor, although we did resolve to try again in 10 years when it all folds neatly into a container the size of a reserve compartment.
All was not lost as we had two things going for us, positive attitudes and a shit load of airline tickets in our pockets, so we re-routed our flights to get a weeks free-flying in Marshall where we had a great time with the locals and had some very relax thermic flying. We then headed down to some of the valleys on the Mexico border and posted some more superb distance flights. We then started our journey home, although not directly, as we organised a 2 day stop-over in Vegas where, sadly, we lost most of our cash. We also squeezed in a long weekend in Amsterdam, where the only electric powered gadgets we saw here seemed to be specifically designed to induce noises, and vibrations were deemed a bonus. We then rapidly lost the rest of our cash during a 36 hour visit to "Hansje's Pay for what you Smoke" coffee house.
Back home again with no money, but surrounded by open spaces and big hills, we concluded the only silent thing in our PPG flying would be the first P.
Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos
Funnier than the 1494 "Leonardo da Vinci Training Hill" videos