Bigfoot, Sauk City and Syvrud...

Tuesday morning Neil was dropped off at the hanger for an orientation session. We spent a couple hours going over the training program, trying his hand at wing handling, feeling the liftoff in the simulator and having the motor push him around the field. He loved it and he plans to begin training very soon.
Tuesday evening Andriew, Del and Mark met me at Bigfoot airport near Lake Geneva. This was my first time visiting this airfield and I loved it! Wide open and a well manicured lawn, what more could a paramotor pilot wish for.
Andriew was a machine, he cranked out 13 flights that night and polished off all his in flight skills! Just 5 flights remaining for him to earn his PPG2 rating. Way to go Andriew!!
Wednesday morning it was off to Sauk City with the winch to meet Adam and Mariyan. The plan was to get Adam his first tow behind the Jeep. He is already a PPG pilot and we are in the process of making him a PG (no motor) pilot as well. We did some short pay-in tows at the airport previously but this would be his first time at altitude without a motor. Despite the extreme heat and lack of breeze he did great.
The winch trailer, on the other hand, did not do as well as Adam. When the wind changed direction from east to south midday we changed roads to match the new heading. We were just given permission to use a private farm road nearby and today seemed like a good day to give it a test run. Unfortunately this road isn’t quite as smooth as the others we’ve been using. The bumps proved to be too much for the aluminum trailer and the tongue ended up cracking in half. Fortunately this was at after we decided to call it quits for the day and so it was only a minor inconvenience. I’ll have back together this morning I’m sure.
Then it was off to Syvrud Airport to meet Brad. Jason even showed up to see his buddy fly. Brad had just a few flights left to meet the requirements for PPG2. After that, he and I took a nice long flight together around the nearby town of Brooklyn returning right as the sun set. So beautiful!