♪♪
-The wind can throw all kinds of curveballs at you,
and you need to be versed
in how you’re going to make it happen.
♪♪
Once into the air on a sweet day
when the air is smooth and lifting,
you’re a bird, you’re an eagle. you’re -- you’re flying aloft,
able to climb up to the clouds if the winds are right.
Unlike any other kind of flying,
you’re not in a cockpit, it’s quiet, there’s no motor.
♪♪
Tiger with its Poo Poo Point
is the queen jewel of Western Washington for paragliding.
From this starting point, gliders are able to climb.
They’ve flown as far as 100 miles to the south
and to the Canadian border to the north.
If you aren’t able to get up and fly these distances,
at all lands right down here at the same landing field.
This is a national destination now, Tiger Mountain,
and we’re right at the base of Tiger.
♪♪
We have flown all types of people.
-And conditions? the sky looks beautiful.
It’s a little bit windy from the northeast,
so it can be a little hard to launch.
A little turbulent, but --
but it looks okay, it looks nice.
-We fly upwards of 2,500 people a year.
-Whoo!
[ Laughs ]
First nervous on launch... -Run downhill, run downhill.
-...and then they get out into space.
And very common that three to four seconds after launching
they can go from wide-eyed fear of the unknown to...
-Hi! Mommy!
-...a big, smiling... -It’s really cool.
-...realization that their fear of heights isn’t there.
And they range from five-year-old tots...
-Hi. -Ooh, this is unreal.
-...to 94-year-old seniors to disabled.
♪♪
-Have you flown in the trike before?
No? It’s your first time, isn’t it?
-Have you flown the kite? Have you flown it before?
-Yeah, quite a few times.
You're not my first victim, Michael.
You're not my first victim.
-Project Airtime,
the founder and conceptor is Chris Santacroce.
He came up with the gift
of flying disabled people with this.
People that don’t have the use of their legs.
Even quadriplegics can be launched.
-This is what we’ll be flying Michael with today.
This is Super Fly/project, Project Airtime's
contraption invention even.
And basically it allows us to take someone who is less able
but still enthusiastic
to go tandem with a -- with an instructor.
[ Cheering ]
The conditions today.
It’s southwest wind right now, but we’re hoping
for a little bit more of a northerly influence.
-Here we go, guys.
Load it up.
I’m Michael Miller. I live in Issaquah.
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Michael’s disabled with cerebral palsy
and no longer is able to fly himself,
and they’re going to launch off in this Project Airtime
special trike cart.
♪♪
-It’s from the west. It’s coming across.
If it’s coming from the side, it can kind of create a turn
or the wing might not inflate symmetrically.
You have to kind of weigh the risks.
If you try and send it on a bad day,
you might end up in the trees.
-Just gonna wait for our moment.
We can pick our cycles when the wind is coming
in the right direction.
And that’s when we launch.
-It’s gonna be a good time.
[ Laughter ]
♪♪
-You’re gonna go a little bit harder.
-There we go.
-Whoo!
♪♪
-That panoramic view of everything 3D from space
above and down below and right and left,
it’s a view that a person normally doesn’t have.
It’s a feeling of elation, not fear.
It really surprises me yet today
how many people land and say,
that was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life?
♪♪
-Whoo-hoo!
-There we go. Lovely.
-[ Laughs ]
♪♪
-Watch CityStream Tuesday nights at seven on the
Seattle Channel. Or find us anytime online at
seattlechannel.org. ♪♪