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Saturday, April 21, 2012

What Is This? Paragliding?


3 comments:

  1. Yep---powered. A neighbor?

    A new hobby for you!

    My grandfather who was a retired American Airlines 747 flight engineer had 90 acres in Tehachapi and the neighbor who lived behind him was a retired Captain he used to fly with. This captain would drive from Palos Verdes (I think) on the weekends to get away from the wife and fly his ultralight planes around the place. He was around my grandpa' age at the time (late 60's/early 70's) and he sure had a lot of fun doing that.

    He kept the planes in a large steel building and he also kept a collection of antique tractors and classic cars in there. I saw a few of them when he brought them out, but never got into the building to see them all and I sure wish I had (this was over 20 years ago).

    Believe it or not Jack Palance lived a few miles or so the other way and he also had a collection of cars in his barn.

    Horseshoe Bend reminds me a little of how Tehachpi used to be. This was 20+ years ago before it became a prison community and the place for workers from Bakersfield and Lancaster and LA to commute from.

    BTW, Tehachapi is also famous for the sea of windmills running since the late 1970's!

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  2. Could be a powered paraglider, the pilot sits in a rig with a small gas motor, a variation on ultralights. I knew a guy who had a frame/fabric ultralight, with a big chute above the center. in theory, as long as you were high enough, you could descend with the chute and survive a stall.

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