The history of Ground Launching goes way back to the 1960s. In 1965 American skydiver and aeronautical engineer David Barish started ground launching while testing a single surface parachute for NASA.
Groundlaunching and Bladerunning:
Skydivers have created a new form of parachuting different from skydiving or traditional paragliding. The new form of extreme ground launching is called „Bladerunning“.
The Goal of this sport is to launch high performance Parachutes into flight in order to fly down slopes and cliffs with an average Speed of 40- 50 miles per hour with a distance of 2 metres above the ground.This kind of sport is a great challenge for the canopy pilots and therefore a highly interesting discipline.
We started our trip after Flobert and me finished work on Thursday late afternoon in Vienna. It was a 7 hour drive and we were quite happy when we arrived. The mountain area was very impressive and we enjoyed the view of the surrounding area.
The Adidas Groundlaunching Team gave us a warm welcome and invited us for some glasses of beer. We talked about the their experiences they collected during the last two years and we watched some of their videos. The weather was just amazing and we had blue sky.
On Friday morning we pulled together our equipment and the guys showed us the start- and landing area. The landing area was blocked by an avalanche and a bit challenging. A friend of Wolf came with caterpillar and prepared the spot for us.
Flobert and Miguel launched their parachutes after a short briefing immediatly off the ground. I had some problems and crashed at least 5 times before I gave up on the first day. I was very exhausted and went to bed at 9 o´clock in the evening. Miguel once did not hit the landing area and came down on the slope. It was funny to see the faces of the people who witnessed his crash.
My parachute was a bit tricky to start and Flobert offered me to swap our parachutes the next morning. I accepted his offer and started the next day with new energy and motivation. Wolf and Berni gave me some extra lessons and I had my first successful start.
I will never forget the feeling when the parachute lifted off the ground the first time. The speed was just amazing and I couldn´t stop laughing after I landed in the valley. At this day we made around 5 amazing flights and we had a great time! ;-)
The Groundlaunching Weekend in Tirol was a huge success. Many thanks to Wolf, Berni and Urmi who organised the whole trip for us and shared their experiences with us.
I really enjoyed this trip a lot and I can´t wait to go ground launching with my friends again.
www.canopygroundlaunch.com
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