Vincene Muller at Windsports <<fly>>
writes:

Congratulations to Brett, great flight

Just a little history here.

First Canadian to fly more than + 300k was Randy Haney back in 1986 who flew
from lower launch at Golden to Trevo Montana. Around 320k. It was a world open
distance record at that time. Randy flew an Airwave Magic 1V and his flight was
10 hours. Landed due to darkness and there was no landing areas that he could
see ahead.

Willi had his flight in 1989 off tow in Alberta. 5-1/2 hours. Retrieval truck
with Vincene and Stew Cameron could not keep up. Landed due to no further
landing areas.

Doug Litzenberger, Steve Preboy of Alberta and Barney Sullivan of Saskatchewan
all flew around the same distance as Willi but did not exceed his distance by
the required percentage. Barney’s flight was notable because he was ahead of a
‘front’ and did it in 4-1/2 hours.

Chris flew from Golden to south of Trevo Montana in 2003 or 4. His flight took
5-1/2 hours and was around the same distance as Willi’s. He too ran out of
landing areas.

After that flight he said that he was glad that he hadn’t beaten Willi’s record
by the required percentage but was truly amazed at the flight that Randy did
back in 1986.

Willi Gadd actually flew further than all of them on a paraglider for a World
Record flight in Texas.

I guess the interesting facts here were:

Willi, Doug, Steve, Barney and Will did their flights off tow in strong winds.

Randy, Chris and Brett foot launched. Randy and Chris did not fly in strong
winds.