Aerial cowboys use the Pluses!
Thursday, 25 August 2011
It turned out that a PPG can be a perfect cowboy vehicle. At least at a Greenland caribou farm it proved to be a perfect replacement for a much more expensive and troublesome helicopter.
Robert Machel reports:
Farmers of the biggest Greenlandi caribou farm (1500 sq. km) bought Polish gear (2 Dudek Plus canopies and 2 EcExtreme paramotors), trained in my school as PPG pilots and finally invited to caribou herding. The idea worked great - the helicopter they've been using so far proved to be too expensive. Our part was to drive the wild reindeer form distant corners of south Greenland to the ranch, where thery were to be selected and vaccinated or slaughtered (some 600 of them).
The Eskimo regard all natural resources as theirs and hunt the reindeer regarded by the farmer as his own. Thus, an old conflict persists with accompanying legal cases, courts, bullying, documenting the poachers' boats from the air etc. If and when a culmination happens, we will be afraid to be shoot at. Maybe Dudek will have to invent some battle paragliders?
Beside reindeer herding I was active as a courier and delivery pilot, commuting between the farm and field camps. There are no cars at all over there, and all transport is done mainly on boats, through the fjords and passages bewteen ocean islands.
All the time I was refining the farmers' piloting. Next year I am going teach flying to several Eskimos working for the farmer, who is going to build a real paramotor airfield by means of bulldozer and some dynamite.
More detailed account and some pictures can be found at: http://paraklif.blogspot.com/2011/08/island-greenland-wyprawa.html
Regards, Robert Machel
Gdynia Paragliding School "KLIF"
