Noah Alexander Franks Born July 16th,2006

Well, we have a new addition to the Franks family and his name is Noah Alexander Franks born on July 16th, 2006 at 15:47. He weighed 5lbs and 12 ounces, 17 3/4 inches long. Noah came 4 weeks early, but since Leah's blood pressure became elevated due to pre-eclampsia the doctors decided to induce her. The baby was 36 weeks so they were not to concerned about any problems due to early delivery. Leah was amazing during the entire process never complaining about anything and having no problems. We are all resting at the hospital together and will probably be released on Tuesday to go home as long as their are no problems. Thanks to all the family and friends that came by and called w/ support and we look forward to sharing more pictures as we get them.

Where I spend my days not flying!

I finally got a shot of the firehouse where Kiwi and I work. We spend our days looking at the weather for upcoming flying days and searching all the other powered parachute sites. We have an engine, medic truck, one reserve engine, and than we have on the back side the ARFF trucks. Kiwi has been w/ the city for 23 years and he now on the ARFF crew as a Lt. so he can drool over planes coming and going from the airport.
I have been w/ the city for 2 years now and ride on the engine and the medic truck. We have a good time while working at the station messing around w/ each other to help the time go by. Kiwi is one of the best pranksters in the city so we hardly have a dull day or night around here. I will try to get a shot of all the nuts I work w/ one day if I can get them all awake at the same time.

Family Reunion Powered Parachute Flying

Here are a couple shots from the family reunion at Joe's this year. I wasn't at the house this day to fly, but the wife got some good shots of Joe and Frank flying. Frank is a BFI so he was able to take some family up and show them what its like to fly in a powered parachute. The 4-wheeler you see is loaded down w/ the wife's cousins that were out watching the flying or maybe they were to interested in seeing how many clowns they could get on one 4-wheeler. I was able to come over the next day and get about an hour of good flying in. I hope to have my BFI by next year so I can take people up and show them what it is like to see everything from the air. I know my parents are both very eager to go up.
Joe and Diane have their family reunion at their house every year and I don't know how they do it. They have anywhere from 40 to 60 people stay at their house and they stay anywhere from a couple days to a week. I couldn't imagine having that many people stay w/ us that long, I think I would go insane. It is neat to see all the family get together every year and basically have a week long party at the funny farm. I know that all the kids love it and most of them do not want to leave when its over.

Flying Powered Parachutes at the Family-Reunion

Here are a couple shots from the Family Reunion this year at the Joe's place. This is a picture of Frank(Half-Rack) posing w/ his Buckeye right before heading home. The other is a shot of a couple signs we have that warn drivers of potential low flying powered parachutes coming in and taking off from the field. I really like these signs as long as I don't catch one w/ the machine on the way up or down...haha.
Frank got his nickname this weekend at the reunion because of his great idea of trying to para-sail behind a 4-wheeler. Frank had a parachute, a harness, 100' of rope, and a 4-wheeler w/ driver to pull him across the field w/ dreams of flying like a bird. Frank's plan was working like a charm until some minor design flaws and Frank fell out of the sky more like a rock than a feather from about 30 to 50', depending on who you ask? This is where the nickname comes in Half-Rack, due to his 6 broken ribs he suffered from the fall and thankfully nothing else was broken except his pride.
I have more photos of the reunion but they are on a different camera, and as usual for around here I have misplaced the cord to download them to the computer. Soon as I find it I will post some more shots of us flying at the reunion.

Terrible weather for Powered Parachutes

We are having terrible weather lately for any kind of flying. We have needed the rain for quite a while now so I can't complain to bad. At least my yard might actually look green again for a while. These are shots of some more Brookneal training and the one on the left is our instructor Jeff Jenson watching Kiwi perform his pre-flight.

The machine I fly is tore apart right now or at least the gear box is. We were changing the oil in all our machines not to long ago and found a washer in the bottom, which could not be good. I am pretty much just a pilot and trying to learn more about the mechanical part of the machine. Joe does all the work to the machines and w/out him I would never leave the ground. I believe he enjoys working on the machine as much as flying them. Joe tore the gear box down and found a thrust washer missing but no damage to the gears which was a relief. So with the machine out of commission for flying right now and until all the parts come in to replace it this bad weather is not as hard on me.

More shots of Ky Fly-in

Here are a couple more shots I got while in Ky and I thought they were pretty good. You can see Joe and Frank taking it easy as we were watching the flight competition. I believe if we go next year Frank and I are going to enter and see how well we do against the other pilots. While I was at the Fly-in I ran into a guy that sold and installed brakes for your PPC. He does a great job and is very competitive with his prices, actually cheaper than I have seen any where including magazines and on the web. If you are looking for a brake I highly recommend checking out his web site, Believeaviation.com and his name is Craig Steffen. I had him install a brake on my machine and Chris had one put on his as well. I am very satisfied w/ my new brake, but the best thing is having that extra comfort knowing I can stop anywhere I land now.

Brookneal Training

Here are a couple shots I got the yesterday at Brookneal where we do our training w/ our instructor Jeff Jenson. Yesterday John(kiwi) went up hoping to get his letter to fly but was denied by Jeff yet the other pilot was signed off w/ his letter. He did a great job while he was there, but when you are flying for Jeff it's easy to be a little nervous to perform for him and trust me I know this first hand. I believe if I was the instructor I would have signed both off w/ helpful pointers on what they need to be working on by the time they come back for their check ride or next letter signing, but than again I am not their instructor. I stayed on the ground and took photos and video of Kiwi flying and learned quite a bit from Jeff just listening to him train. I watched both pilots do their T & Gs and dead stick landings and saw very little difference in their flying. Jeff told me he was looking for a more consistant flying, but that seems like something you get w/ experience and that is hard to do w/ out having a letter so you can fly legal. The flip side of that is Jeff having to stick his neck out and put you under his wing saying you are ready to fly on your own therefore signing you off. I would like to get some peoples opinions on training and what they think is the best way and also the safest way for someone to fly these machines.

Kentucky Fly-in 06

Here are some pictures from our trip to the Kentucky Fly-in this past weekend. We had a great time even though the weather did not want to cooperate. Instead of a lot of flying in the sky, their was a lot of time for everyone's stories that involved the sky from the ground. We met a lot of people on our trip and learned a lot of new things. Chris and I flew for about 45 minutes on Saturday Morning and it was quite an experience being in the air w/ approx. 25 other machines. Only problem I had was not being prepared for the trip since the temperature dropped while we were there. I only packed t-shirts and shorts so I had to make a stop by the local Wal-Mart to get some jeans. The Ragwing Flyers were the ones that put the Fly-in on and they did a nice job so we are all hoping to make it again next year and maybe than we will compete in the competitions they had. I have a ton of photos and I plan to go through them and pick out some more for a later post.

Heading to Ky for Buckeye Fly-in

We are heading up to Ky this weekend for the Buckeye Powered Parachute Fly-in. Their will be five of us and none of us really have any idea of what to expect. Only thing we are sure of is we will have fun whether we fly or not. We hope to learn some neat stuff and meet a lot of new friends. I didn't have any new photos of us flying due to windy conditions latley so I decided to put a shot of the boss of the house. This is our house horse, Ginger. She is always at the field w/ us when were flying and tries to slip into the back seat to go up for a flight. Also have some great news to share about the wife and I.We are expecting our first baby in August and we found out it is going to be a boy, so everyone knows what that means, another Buckeye pilot in training...ha

Smith Mountain Lake

These are some shots I got yesterday as Kiwi and I went flying. The photo of the water is Smith Mountain Lake near Hales Ford Bridge. I found out yesterday that it only takes around 15 minutes by air to get to the lake. It was some of the best scenery I have flown over yet. We have not had the best weather lately for flying so when we can get up we take advantage of it. Hopefully we will get into summer and have some great flying weather. I know I watch the weather now like I have never before looking for calm days.

Staunton River High School Baseball Photo

Here is a shot I got tonight as we were flying near Staunton River High School . I couldn't tell who was winning when we flew over but it was a great night for a baseball game. The school is only about 5 miles from the funny farm and we make frequent trips to the area.

Finally Have a Pic of The Chief of the Funny Farm

These are a couple pics I took today of Joe flying his PPC and of his ARFF(Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting) Tractor PR#2. This is just in case of any PPC crashes, notice the piercing nozzle on the front, haha. Joe is the man that got all of us started in PPCs and the one we all go to when we have any problems or need to make any changes. Joe stays pretty busy working at the farm but sometimes we get him out to fly w/ us and its always a treat.

Funny Farm Pics

This is a picture taken from the air of Joe's Funny Farm and also this is our runway we use right in front of his house.

Another PPC pilot at the funny farm.

Here is a picture of Chris about to take off at Joe's place the other week. Chris is the bravest pilot of all of us because as long as he has forward ground speed he thinks it is a good day to fly(haha).

Cross Country Powered Parachute Flight

Here is a link to a site about a guy who is attempting to make a cross-country flight in a powered parachute. Their is a log where you can keep up w/ their progress as the flight starts in CA and works its way to GA.
Good Luck
WWW.PCEfoundation.org

This is a cool shot I got of Kiwi doing a low pass over the field using his new million dollar camera. I can't believe he even let me touch it..ha just kidding their Kiwi, but looks like the camera takes pretty good pictures.

Here is a picture taken a couple days ago at Rowell international of John aka "Kiwi" taking off for an afternoon flight.

Tree Top Flying

This was taken back in March on a nice calm day. This one was also at the Rowell International Tree Top Airport (my father-in-laws place).