A pretty good friend of mine has been flying a powered parachute for a couple years now. He's always told me I could take it up, and this evening we finally got together and I did it!!! He gave me about 15 minutes of instruction, then took it up himself for 10 minutes or so, did some touch and go landings in front of me, set her down and said "now it's your turn". When the wheels left the ground, I thought What in the hell have I gotten myself into?
But about 2 minutes later I was as comfortable as could be. Honestly, It's a lot harder to ride a motorcycle than it is to fly one of those. I spent an hour and 4 minutes in the air according to the instrument readout, did a bunch of touch and goes, had it up over 1000 feet, and just had a great time. I though landing would be scary but I probably had as much fun doing touch and goes as anything else. When I finally set down, a buddy of his had landed in the feild, and they had a cold beer and handshakes for me for my first solo flight.
When I got home, my wife (who I had buzzed on my flight) saw my grin and asked "OK, so how much is your new hobby going to cost this time?" I told her my buddy wants to upgrade sometime fairly soon, prolly about 9 grand, including the trailer.
It was an evening I won't soon forget.
