Dusty Rhodes Paragliding

I finally got around to editing the footage that Dusty shot for me a couple of weeks ago. Nothing to special on the edit here. I basically just picked out 10 minutes of clips and rendered a video of them.

I reccomend going over to Vimeo for the HD version of the video



Dusty Rhodes Paragliding - Panasonic HDC-SD9 from David Aldrich on Vimeo.

Roll Into The XGames Contest

Hanggliding.org user alta8bird has motivated me to enter some hang gliding videos of my own in what ever contest I can. I entered into an Xgames video contest here: http://www.youtube.com/RollIntoTheXGames The goal is to make a 60 second max video about how "you bring the energy of the Xgames to your favorite activity."

Click the VIEW tab and search for designbydave or just go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBXAwsRJBtM (be sure to watch in high quality.) Or just watch the embedded version



The way this contest works is that the sponsors pick 3 finalists and then the public gets to vote on the winner. So I guess you all can't really help me right now. But it wouldn't hurt to have you watch, rate and comment to make the video more popular.

It would be really cool to win, but I am more interested in the overall goal of getting more hang gliding content out to the masses. They say that the 3 finalists will get air time on ESPN during the Xgames and I think it would be great to have some Hang Gliding in there.

Thanks all! Oh and don't forget to vote for alta8bird's video, when ever its up for voting again: http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=9297

CSS Promotional Video

http://designbydave.net/video/

At last weeks club meeting one of the board members suggested that the club hold a contest and offer a $100 prize to whoever could make the best 3 minute video to present to the San Bernardino City Council. But with the City Council meeting only a week from the club meeting there wasn't enough time to have an actual contest. And we all know who would have won anyways ;) It was actually pretty funny. As the suggestion for a video contest was being discussed, pretty much everyone at the meeting looked over at me. They were all thinking the same thing. So I volunteered to make a video and with only a week I had to get started right away, especially because I lacked quality paragliding video.

Fellow club member John Wright really came through and drove all the way out to the LZ to deliver 4 DVDs full of his HD video (which included some PG stuff) and his HD camcorder that I have used in the past due to its mic input. Thanks John, this video would not have been possible without you! I shot video on Monday and Tuesday for the project. I needed some little mini interviews and bunch of PG footage. The weather cooperated and Dusty let me strap my HD camcorder on his ankle and was able to get some really cool stuff.

I was able to finish up the video with plenty of time and was able to learn a couple of new tricks with Premiere that will help me in future projects.

Disaster almost struck when, at the City Council meeting we were told that unless we were on the "agenda" we would not be allowed to so anything (powerpoint or video.) Alan told me that the Mayor has discretion and that it wouldn't hurt to just ask him if I could show the video. So that's what I did. When it was my turn to speak I stated my name and address and then told the council that I had prepared a video about the club but was not able to show it. I politely asked for permission and the Maybe agreed. Good on him. There were some technical difficulties getting the video going at first (I love computers) so the first 30 seconds or so were not seen, but the rest of the video was. I am pretty sure I heard a few ohhs and aaahs in the audience (especially during Mitch's loop at the end.)

The council was not, however, impressed enough to change their votes. It was a unanimous vote in favor of the development. We have lost the first of three possible battles in this struggle, but it was also probably the least likely to be successful. The city seemed pretty much in favor of this plan from the beginning and their vote shows that they hadn't changed their minds. Next we will have to go to the State (Department of Water and Power.)

Flying 11-18-08

Another nice November day. We finally got a break from about a week of Santa Ana winds today and the flying was worth the wait. The air was surprisingly clear given all the recent fires in Southern California.

I got up to 7000 ft at the Billboard and tried to go east. I made it over to the Crestline Cut-off, but found it very light over there and I was only able to maintain, not climb. Back at the Billboard, I again got 7000 and this time went west to Pine. There I found another thermal and topped out at almost 7400 ft. I made it to the next peak past Sugarpine and hard to turn back.

I say the WillsWing test crew getting ready to launch The 750 and that prompted a fly-by with yelling. Then set up for a nice landing in almost no wind.

Pretty warm for this late in the year to. I think the minimum temperature was 60 degrees.

New Hang Gliding Video!

"Take A Long Ride With Me"

Featuring the song "California One / Youth And Beauty Brigade" by The Decemberists
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This video seeks to illustrate the natural beauty and diversity of the California Landscape, showcasing several great flying sites.

It comes in two flavors. Streaming Flash and 720p BitTorrent download. If you have the bandwidth and patients I recommend the higher resolution BT version. Its an h.264 .mp4 file that will play with Quicktime or VLC.

Marina State Beach Photos

I was playing around with the latest version of Photoshop and was able to make these pretty cool composite / panoramic images from Marina State Beach.







Photoshop did all the work for me, all I had to do was hit the "go" button. Pretty cool, but it doesn't give you the option to fine tune the images after it does its thing. ...or maybe it does and I just need to play around with it more

Flying 11-02-08

After a week of Santa Ana Winds and another week of a nasty head cold, I was finally able to get back in the air this weekend. Today was exceptionally good.

Cloud base was right at Marshall as I arrived to the LZ a little before noon. Disaster struck halfway up the mountain. One of the belts on the truck started slipping. Luckily we had a truck full of pilots willing to fix anything for a flight. Dusty, Tom and Gene got it fixed up in less than 20 minutes and we were on our way up the hill. Thanks guys!



We arrived at launch to find it blowing in a pretty still 15+ mph. I launched about 30 minutes later and had no trouble climbing right up to cloud base, about 500 ft over launch (4500 ft.)



Did someone say clouds?



Cloud base steadily climbed as the day rolled on. At first it was about 4500. Then next time I got up it was about 4800. It eventually rose up high enough to see most of Crestline ridge. I was able to get up to 5400 ft in a thermal between Cloud peak and Marshall that got me back to Crestline.



I had to fly back there with the bar fully stuffed however, to keep from climbing too high into the clouds. I made great time getting back there too. My GPS recorded 65 mph ground speed.



It was pretty windy and cold back there and there was just one RC pilot taking advantage of the ridge lift. There were some really spectacular views back there too. There were clouds forming on the ground and in the trees that were rising up like columns of steam. There were also some nice fall colors starting to show up there too. I got a few pictures.












I flew for about an hour and got pretty tired and cold so I decided to land.





Many more pictures on My Flickr Page.