Wild Adventures of the New Aviators: Challenges and Thrills of Paragliding, Hang-gliding, Paramotoring and Micro-lighting

This book covers many exhilarating and enthralling stories from New Aviation, including paragliding, hang-gliding, paramotoring, and micro-lighting. It also discusses the challenges explored by the renowned New Aviation expert Brian Milton, such as Rich Pfieffer's legal charges of assault with a deadly weapon for flying a hang-glider over California's Rose Bowl American College Football competition, Judy Ledens balloon drop from 40,000 feet over Jordan, and the return to competitions in which the original British innovators lost their dominant status. The author also explores the tragedies that have befallen some pilots, such as the Great Italian Killer Storm of 1989, and explains why the New Aviators keep flying. The ultimate ambition of the best flyers is to learn how to migrate using only the power of the wind and the sun.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 07 June 2024
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Soaring over forest fires, a moonlight New Years Eve flight over the Pennines, bungee-jumping from a paraglider as a birthday celebration, jumping off Mount Everest, or numerous several-hundred-mile flights over open country and on different continents. This book covering many exhilarating and enthralling stories from New Aviation – including paragliding, hang-gliding, paramotoring and micro-lighting – has them all. There is even the story of a pilot using flexwings to teach geese how to migrate – and of a marriage proposal at 500 feet. The challenges explored by the renowned New Aviation expert Brian Milton include Rich Pfieffers legal charges of assault with a deadly weapon for flying a hang-glider over Californias Rose Bowl American College Football competition, or Judy Ledens balloon drop from 40,000 feet over Jordan, with Israel on one side and Saudi on the other, despite her eyes being frozen shut. Along with this latter story, the author also discusses how women overcame prejudice and scorn to take on the men in the deathly arid wastes of Owens Valley, and the ways in which eagles and vultures – and sometimes crows – reacted violently to humans flying in their air and at their speed. The author describes the return to competitions in which the original British innovators lost their dominant status and how new champions emerged. A chapter is also devoted entirely into the tragedies that have befallen some pilots. This includes a chilling account of the Great Italian Killer Storm of 1989 when six top pilots lost their lives in just one day. As well as relating the dramatic stories about those that died, the author explains why, despite the risks, the New Aviators keep flying. The final story is about the _Beau Ideal_, the great Swiss pilot Didier Favre, ‘Vagabond of the Air.’

Weight: 542g
Dimension: 240 x 164 x 34 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399048637