A powered paraglider pilot catches fire in the air and plummets to earth…. Like most of the videos, this was shot in three different cities. A big thanks to Don Jordan and the crew at his fly-in.
Thanks also goes to the talented, intelligent, diverse, and above all, patient group of flyers known as the Indy Airhogs who always, I’m sure, wear tennis shoes with their suits.
The catchy, bluesy song is by PPG pilot Scott Adair. Turns out he’s a talented musician also. Hopefully, he’ll send more songs for me to use.
The other music throughout is from Kevin Macleod who generously offers his music for free on his website Incompetech(dot)com.
Troy Hartman is a parachutist who has done many wild and crazy stunts. The chute was lit with a flare gun, after it burned up, he fell and pulled his reserve. You can find his risky behavior on his site Troyhartman(dot)com.
Yes, I actually did light my shoes on fire and yes they got hot, burned the shoe laces and singed the hair on my skinny, white legs.
Ron Hogan played the concerned friend at the begining of the video (Ron has a PPG parts website).
Jeremy Mann was the guy in the coffin (he was probably dreaming about computers).
Dave Halcomb portrayed the priest (he’s also the Midwest PPG instructor and he’s in a rock band).
Ola Wesstrom (Indy Airhog) is quite often the camera man by default (He and his wife, Faith, go to EVERY fly-in possible) because he’s always there AND he’s intelligent and practically good at everything– makes you sick, doesn’t it.
The camera-man is usually the person I give the camera to and say, “Push this thing with the red dot- it’s the record button.”
Any special effects are done with a crayon and a piece of construction paper, because computers have me baffled.
Aerial footage is shot by me holding a camera mounted on the end of several small pieces of PVC pipe that I assemble after I launch. I sit on the pipe and control it with my knees. It is very unnerving. In this video’s scene I was being bounced around by an approaching weather front. You can see the threatening clouds around me.
After the pond scene, I stunk like pond scum for two days. Women were avoiding me but, for some reason, frogs were following me everywhere.
