http://www.couchballoons.com/googlemap

MachNoneFLying reporter Danlives in bend and caught this video of the launch in the early morning sun.

It’s 100 percent good time.

For those who have never experienced riding in a powered parachute, it’s almost impossible to accurately describe the feeling of floating effortlessly through the air 1,000 feet above the ground.

People around the nation have turned this experience into their hobby and dozens came to Carthage for the 13th annual Baugh Flight Park Fly-In, hosted by the Sho-Me Chute Flyers, to share their passion.

They also come together to give back. Ernie Baugh, owner of Baugh Flight Park and original member of the Show-Me Chute Flyers, said event attendees try to get at least one sponsor for $100 or “as many as you can get.”

Baugh said the group realized that most people who have the opportunity to fly powered parachutes are fortunate so they wanted to give back.

“We realized it’s a blessing to get to own these and fly them,” Baugh said. “Not everybody gets the opportunity to go out and purchase one of these.”

The money raised goes to Camp Quality of the Ozarks. Baugh said the first year of the fundraiser their group instantly became the largest Camp Quality of the Ozarks contributor.

It’s been so successful the Sho-Me Flyers have started splitting the funds between charities.

“For the last two years we’ve given to camp quality and the crisis center,” Baugh said.

It’s also a unique experience for the pilots. Fields like Baugh’s aren’t all that common.

Even rarer is Baugh’s control tower. He said it helps convey a professional flying experience to the pilots.

Powered parachutes

The name pretty much says it all about powered parachutes.

The chutes are 40-feet wide and encompass 500 square feet. They’re attached to a three-wheeled, often two-seated frame with a fan cage in the back. It resembles an airboat with wheels.

Gary Lewis, a Sho-Me Flyers member and avid powered parachuter, said in the right conditions the aircraft can get off the ground in almost no time at all. The conditions have to be right though. Baugh said the best time of day to fly is early in the morning or in the evening when there is little-to-no wind.

Flying in the middle of the day can be rough because… read more

Park authorities first became concerned about the man’s well-being when he told people he would be paragliding off the mountain, a prohibited activity in national parks without special permission. He was on the mountain unguided and alone. He also demonstrated poor glacier travel techniques, flouted park rules about proper human waste disposal and littering, and talked as if he was preoccupied with death, the Park Service said.

His behavior was not like that of … read more

Rossy realized his first flight in formation with two other aircraft at the Breitling Flying days in Buochs, Switzerland. After jumping out of a Pilatus PC-6 at an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,483-feet), Rossy made his way down to two Boeing Stearman wingwalker biplanes, which were waiting for him at an altitude of 1,000 meters (3,280-feet). Showing off his formation and precision flight abilities, Rossy flew alongside the Breitling Wingwalkers for more than six minutes separated by distances of only a few meters. Quite a feat considering .. read more

So what, then, does that make the members of the Falcon Club, an Iraqi group of daredevils who sail through the air above Mosul, which is perhaps Iraq’s most dangerous city?

Holly Pickett for The New York Times Ahmed Assad prepares his parachute before paragliding with the group.

As if flying flimsy contraptions in a war zone was not enough, the Falcon Club faces the added danger of having been a favorite of Saddam Hussein – whose former friends and allies continue to be hunted down by Shiite militias and others.

Indeed, their recklessness leaves even the club’s members seeking a reasonable explanation.

“Flying is like a disease,” said Saba Yasin Fathi, 43, the club’s leader and a former Iraqi air force pilot who lost his left pinky finger to a propeller last year. “You do it once, you want to do it again and again.”

So the Falcon Club endures the suspicions of Iraqi soldiers at Mosul’s innumerable checkpoints who have never heard of a paraglider, have never seen a hot air balloon outside of an American movie and who believe — reasonably — that Iraq is dangerous enough without courting death.

None of this — or getting permission from the Americans to fly — had been a problem when Mr. Hussein himself became enthralled by their derring-do.

Read More

44-year-old Jonathan Kurilla crashed the plane into the lake on June 20th, 2009 and was sentenced Tuesday to one year in jail and a 3 thousand dollar fine. He was found guilty on four of the eight criminal counts he was charged with in Cass County, including Criminal Vehicular Operation Resulting in Bodily Harm.

Kurilla claimed he had not consumed any alcohol prior to flying the plane and that.. read more

— Lyrics by Ron Goodwin

The machine looks simple: a go-kart-type frame, propeller and engine on the back and a colorful parachute.

The word “contraption” comes to mind. “Airworthy” does not.

But they do fly.

On a recent summer-like evening, five powered parachutes took off from a grass runway northwest of Lincoln.

“I always had to sit by the window when I flew commercial, and you can’t get any closer than this to the window. The view is absolutely spectacular,” said Bob Workman, one of the flyers and a Lancaster County commissioner.

Powered parachutes can fly 500 feet above the ground or higher than 10,000 feet, depending on conditions, the pilot’s skill and his or her thirst for adventure. Air speeds range from 30 mph to nearly 70 mph with a strong tail wind.

A 5-gallon tank of gas provides about three hours in the air. Workman’s machine holds 15, allowing him to stay up for five hours.

Butch Lottman of Lincoln has tail-gated eagles over the Platte River and… Read more

We had our quarterly “barf” gathering, at Port Mansfield, Texas. And here it show the nice things that this town has as a tourist attraction, The white tailed deer, roam the city limits like if they were th common Dog or cat, its amazing, how nature bring the deer to coinside with humans, with not a shred of fear in them.

Trying out a camera.

The plane crossed from Mexico into Arizona just after 6 a.m. Sunday. NORAD dispatched two F-16s from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson and they shadowed the ultralight for about 30 minutes until it flew back into Mexico.

Lt. Cmdr. Gary Ross says he was unaware of any radio contact with the small plane.

Ultralight aircraft are sometimes used to carry drugs and other contraband across the border.

NORAD responds about 200 times a year to aircraft flying without radio contact or in restricted airspace, but Ross says… Read More