Jeff O'Brien

Jamie
Shelden

Alex Cuddy

What is the deal here in Ecuador? The crowds came out again to watch the hang
gliding, both foot launched and aerotowed. Don't they know that there was at
least one soccer game on? I guess because we are not too far from town, and they
were serving beer and plenty of food, that we represented a pretty good way to
spend an afternoon.

We also had some media with video cameras in the LZ and up at the launch. Dustin
was asked by Manino (organizer) to perform some aerial ballet for the cameras
and he happily obliged.

Instead of the usual overcast skies, we had a bit of sun (maybe 10% at first and
much more later) mixed with the cu's. This made for up and down flying, nice
thermals, but the two Jeff's went down early (second and third to launch). Raul
in his new Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 and Matrix harness got off first and skyed
out.

I waited until Dustin launched (fifth) and went right after him. He found 400
fpm to the left of launch (launch is 1000' above the LZ) and I just stayed in it
while he used it to get high enough to do the show for the TV guys.

I got to 3,200' and was a bit worried about the cu's sucking me up as there were
so few holes around. I found some sink to get down a bit away from the clouds
then headed down the range. It took a second effort but I later hooked up with
Jack Simmons after getting down to 800' and we flew to the east end of the ridge
line to town for a little cross country excursion. Maybe the real thing tomorrow
when the two day cross country competition begins.

Many pilots flew, some for not too long., I was able to get in a couple of hours
again. The lift was extremely pleasant. There seemed to be plenty of places to
land if one couldn't make it back to the designated LZ.

The Jeff's got pulled back into the air after Raul landed (I assume after being
very happy that he stayed up as he watched them land). The whole US National
team is here other than Zac Majors. Of course, numerous other US pilots and
pilots from other countries including Colombia and Australia (Kraig).

From Ecuador's point of view, the more international pilots the better, because
really they are the only ones with the authority and connections (through social
media) to get the word out about the good flying here.

The sponsors (click above to see the actual sponsors).

Branding a country.

The LZ. These are not flags, so pay no attention to the wind direction that they
would supposedly be showing.

The local Toyota dealer is a sponsor (we pay the insurance). The Americans have
two trucks to use for whatever they need.

See the blogs for more pictures.