Four in a Row

Today made the 4th day in a row for a paramotor flight.  The winds aloft looked good on the forecast for a bit of exploring to the south, but were expected to switch from SE to N later in the day and get stronger.

I took off around 9:20 and climbed up to 3000 feet before crossing all the trees to the south.  I wanted to check out some clear cuts from old strip mines in an area off Coalmont road.  We used to ride dirt bikes there and I figured it might make a good spot for a motor-bivy one day.


The air was cool and smooth, but sometime about 15 minutes into the flight the wind switched to the NE and picked up considerably.  My ground speed increased to 41 mph about the time I reached the cut outs.  Given that the wind was stronger up high, I had to drop lower than I would I liked to penetrate on the way back.  Landed after a 50 min flight, but the route back had me low in some bad spots if the motor quit.

Here's the GPS track in Leonardo.