Ozone Alpina 4 - Redrocks '22 Fly-in, 16,184' with O2

Finally got to fly the Redrocks Fall fly-in in Monroe Utah! This is an amazing event, superbly organized, with consistently great weather and huge attendance. Goto www.cuasa.com/ for details.
Many thanks to Max Montgomery and Jonathan Luesden for tips on using the Mountain High Oxygen system, and to Paul for his daily refills!
Due to my wife's illness, I was only able to attend three days, so I missed the Richmond Realtors' steak dinner and the talk by Gavin McGlurg. Gavin organizes the X-Redrocks competition that occurs roughly at the same time as the fly-in.
#paragliding #Redrocks #Alpina4

[@schmohawk_]

Nice captures - wonderful. Best wishes for your wife!

[@NelsonsWings]

Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm sorry, I'm not caught up on your channel but I'm hoping over the next few days to get caught up and watch some of your excellent videos. Keep them coming!

[@MitchG]

Amazing flight!

[@NelsonsWings]

Thanks! It will be a long time, if ever I have one like that again. I need to come up with a plan for a way to care for my wife during these paragliding trips. Until then, I'm limited to short flights from the Franklin's or possibly Magdalena rim.

[@ripmanridin7092]

Oxygen?.......your hardcore! Loved all the landings!!

[@NelsonsWings]

Thanks man! I had 20 more minutes of landings, but the video is already stupidly long. And that's just day one, I still have day two and three that I need to prepare. Regarding oxygen, I'd say about half of the pilots had oxygen systems. There was a guy in the LZ, his name was Paul, he had a really sophisticated three-stage refilling set up, so he could give everybody a good 1300 PSI charge on their bottles. $20 a fill. What's funny though, is there were some European competitors, who were there for the X-RedRocks. These guys were X-Alps athletes (Aaron Duragatti, Patrick Von Kannel) as well as USA pilots like Ben Abruzzo, and they flew without oxygen. They really can't carry oxygen because it's a hike and fly comp, and they're just in really good shape and they apparently they don't need it for anything up to about 17,000 under a few hours.

[@Starfightingf104]

I miss your videos! Where you been?

[@NelsonsWings]

Thank you! That's a very nice thing to say. I have been flying, and I've accumulated quite a bit of footage on my Swift 6. I finally got to fly it in some decent thermals this Monday, 5 days ago. So now I have all the footage I need to do my Swift 6 First Impressions video and I have started working on it. Another reason why I have not been publishing videos is my wife is very ill and it requires a lot of my time to care for her. But t videos will be up soon!

[@iandayble]

Brilliant flight ! So scenic too. What was launch height ? After all your left hand turns to height, I was glad you got to unwind to the right for the LZ ! Liked the comment about the Hubble field !

[@NelsonsWings]

Thanks very much for watching and your kind words man. I'm sorry I haven't been commenting on your videos, things are pretty hectic for me right now with my wife bedridden and me pretty much having to care for her 100% without assistance. But I have watched a few of your videos I need to hop on and give you some likes and give you some comments. I really appreciate all of your flying Adventures down there, down under. Cove Launch is about 8,500 ft. Because I had to cut the trip short, I didn't have a chance to launch from Monroe peak, which is about 11,000, and is a really spectacular Lodge from what I hear and the videos I've watched.

[@iandayble]

@@NelsonsWings Feeling for you mate.. My previous partner, Ann got early onset Alzheimer's and it was very difficult. Its important to take care of your health, physical and mental too... I hope you can find a balance.

[@NelsonsWings]

Wow, sorry about Ann. It's surprising how many people I'm meeting, that have a similar situation to mine. I was able to get in a short flight today before rain cut it off. It's good that I live with my daughter and son-in-law, so they can at least keep an eye on my wife while I go for a short excursions.

[@MikeJTPG]

Nice one Steve. Sixteen grand is some height, so well done! Only made it to about 12500’ myself in Piedrahita, so oxi is a great idea out there. Ive never seen so many pilots in one of your videos, and see you also suffer with consistent turn direction some times. In Europe we generally follow the turn direction of the first person in the gaggle, but it doesn’t always work. Lots of interesting bits in the vid there. A nice climb out with some lovely scenery and lots of thermal markers. What sort of climb rates were you getting? Sounded like 3+ m/s on the Flymaster but I couldn’t see. The Oxi setup is interesting. Does it squirt some every few seconds? Sounded that way from the audio. I also like the cobwebs, it’s surreal that the little spiders get so high to hitch a ride with us. I really enjoyed it mate. Nice one.

[@NelsonsWings]

Thanks mike! It's always great when someone watches the full video and has excellent questions like you do. Here is a link to the mountain high oxygen system that I use. The little controller senses when you inhale, and give you a little burst of oxygen for every inhalation. That way the small tanks last a long time. www.mhoxygen.com/product-category/portable-pulse-demand/o2d1/ My total cost for the kit was about $950. I bought the one with the smallest bottle. We also let the first person in the Gaggle choose the direction, and everyone was doing pretty good except for that guy on the orange nova. He was trying to join the gaggle, but he doesn't know the way to do it is to approach from the outside, at a tangent, in the direction of the gaggle's rotation. You are correct about the climb rates, maybe 3 m/s occasionally 4. Most of the time about 2 to 3. The next day, was much stronger much crazier, I was getting six meters per second at times, which scares me so I did not try to get high instead I was looking for areas of less lift.