Tag Archives: holy fucking shit that’s cool

The “Apple of Airplanes” Moving to Deland?

Skydive Deland might be getting a cool new neighbor soon. The obvious question is: Will they let us jump it?

Okay seriously, this could have some implications for the state of skydiving and aviation here in Deeeland. What are the chances something this fun will move to The Athens of Florida?

From The Daytona Beach News-Journal:

ICON Aircraft

For those humble fishing days with your boy.

Aircraft maker considers DeLand for new home
BY CLAYTON PARK, BUSINESS WRITER
An aircraft manufacturing startup with aspirations of becoming the “Apple of airplanes” has included DeLand on its short list of sites in five states under consideration for its new home.

Kirk Hawkins, founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based ICON Aircraft, said he hopes to make his decision on where to relocate his company’s headquarters and manufacturing operations within the next six months.

If the company moves to DeLand, it would initially bring and/or create 100 jobs with the goal of growing its work force to 600 employees within five years of arriving, Hawkins said Tuesday. He said his company would like to be in its new headquarters/manufacturing plant by the end of 2013.

The plant will produce a lightweight two-seat single-propeller plane called the ICON A5. Designed to take off from both land and water, the A5 has wings that fold so it can be stored in a car garage and towed on roads via a trailer. Its price tag is about $139,000.

…

Source: News-Journal
Photos: ICON Aircraft

Snowkiting in Iceland

I guess it’s turning into snow week on the blog! Today’s beauty comes from my old stomping grounds in Iceland, where I was born and raised. Yes, the home of Eyjafjallajökull volcano. And this is not just Iceland, this is the very area surrounding my hometown Akureyri. It’s an awesome place for pretty much everything except skydiving. Paragliding is on the rise in the area and evidently it’s a heaven for snow kiting. Back in the day we played with rounds and cross country skis, but there was absolutely nothing graceful about that – unlike this French ballet we see here.

So now that I am sufficiently homesick for snow, mountains, the best water in the world, awesome food, friends and family, let’s watch this stunning video on snowkiting as featured by the Iceland Kite Experience. And lets go visit sometime. Who’s in?

Black and White Heaven (GG on Iceland) – Teaser from Film IT on Vimeo.

Hellgate Speedflying

Kevin Hintze

It seems fitting to start this chilly week in Florida (yes, it dipped down to 49 this morning, the outrage!) with a nice snowy video, put together by Kevin Hintze paragliding guru. Who is obviously pretty handy at this speedflying thing as well. Since I’m not fluent in English snow speak, I had to do some googling to figure out what exactly Kevin was saying in the video.
“Boot packing” seems to be a rather fancy term for walking in the snow, uphill, both ways, in your ski boots and “trekkers” are those bindings that let you turn your alpine skis into touring ones for walking and back into alpine skis for skiing or flying. When your trekkers break, you end up boot packing, which is a terrible fate.

With that out of the way, it’s on to the video. Speedflying Hellgate cliff line, across from Snowbird/Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. That cliff was as close as it seems :)

Hellgate Speed Fly 2011 from Kevin Hintze on Vimeo.

We hope you enjoyed – and for those of you that want to get into speeflying – see a pro like Kevin and get some instruction – because this ain’t your daddy’s skydiving parachute.

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