Feliz Cumpleanos!

Happy Birthday Ron!!

What better way to celebrate your 70th birthday than running off a mountain in Saliente Alto - heres Ron raring to go and with a good luck kiss from partner Jean...the first 2 minutes were fantastic Ron says but he blames his cousin Brian (of the Star Bar in Velez Rubio) and too much ice cream for the rest of the flight!

Landing supervisor Ramon remains unmoved by the news that our latest passenger is 70 today - he is 80 something and and still maintains that anyone who wants to fly is crazy (he wont let his wife do a tandem either).......

happy birthday dad

well we sold a lot of tandem vouchers over xmas and have
people been slow to contact us re the flight!!!
well done sam who gave us a ring having been bought one
for his 50th birthday but he ended up with a flop to bottom
on the sat- so we couldn't have that, and conditions looked better
for sunday , so now an old hand , sam had a great flight
saw dolly and had a close encounter with an eagle !

meanwhile max and heidi had kite fun on the take off

joaquin and his trike

Joaquin bought a brand new airfer v200 paramotor and
trike and after waiting for a few weeks for suitable weather
we went off to aguilas to try it all out. Sebastian a trike pilot
was testing it all out ,unfortunately it kept loosing power
and Joaquin was limited to using it as a expensive
powered go-cart!


I'm sure it will all get sorted and joaquin will take to the skies
without having to run at all!

lorca's first thermal !

lorca catches a thermal with a kite and
loves it !

parawaiting

April wasn't a good month ! apart from the occasional day
we had soooo much wind from the west and so what better
than publish a picture of the much practiced activity
of parawaiting , to be fair we do a lot less than in the UK
waiting for the wind to drop , pick up, come round on to the hill,
smooth out, wait for thermals to start, there are many reasons
why we adopt the above pose! all you need is a massive dose of
optimism.

At last, John gets in the air!

We've been trying to arrange to give John of Search Almeria; Valle Radio and the soon to be Albox TV station a tandem flight since before christmas.
Finally all of us were in the same place at the same time and the weather conditions promised a cracking flight. John and Steve flew for 40 minutes above the Estancias, saw Dolly the Sheep - and John was even heard saying he enjoyed the spiral dive! Great afternoon - thanks for the beers John and the use of your zoom lens - heres a photo of Steve and John in the air - they were miles away when i took this - honest!

Salvemos el Palacio del Almanzora

A campaign has been launched to restore the beautiful old palace in Almanzora designed by 18th century architect Ventura Rodríguez.
Juan 'Medico' of Club Gecko Fly is currently the chairman (isn't he busy enough?) of the 'Amigos del Palacio del Almanzora' who want to see el Palacio turned into a centre for education, enjoyment, culture and arts.......for those of you who've never seen it and don't know where it is - take a look - its behind the Plaza in Almanzora village.
More information, photos and to support the campaign check out
http://www.portalmanzora.es/salvemoselpalacio
or visit Freebird's stall at the Albox/Arboleas Rastro - Cafe Bar Internacional on Saturdays - for an update and to add your name to their petition

carlsberg beer commercial

The latest carlsberg commercial is being made in tabernas.
Film set for many a famous western
the boys are back this time as cowboys.
We got a call to do some aerial filming after the director
had an idea for an aerial shot and obviously no budget
for helicopters

So this was a first for us but good experience not least
working out how best to carry the 35mm film camera
battery pack and video monitor an extra 12kg



Thanks to mathias the grip who sorted out the kit!
we didnt have the best conditions to fly with the wind
dropping off very late and even then it was a bit turbulent
with a front fast approaching



But what could be better than chasing and filming galloping
cowboys yeeeehaaaa !!!

So far March has been a great month for publicity.....

here's an article on tandem paragliding with Gecko Fly

in local magazine 89.8 - the Whats on Guide to Almeria

- and an interview at Valle Radio coming up next week!

http://www.search-almeria.com/

and

http://www.valleradio.net/

mojacar magazine online

steve's on front page again !!
http://www.mojacarmagazine.com/

flying jesús!

Jesus de Madrid y Gales y www.sierrawoodworks.co.uk en su vuelo en biplaza con Steve:
















Para alguien loco por las aves es lo mas cerca que se puede estar
de ser una de ellas. Es como ser un aguila perdicera durante
media hora... Totalmente recomendable.
For someone mad about birds it´s as close as you can get to becoming
one of them. It´s like being a Bonelli´s eagle
for half an hour... Absolutely recommendable.

You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky.
— Amelia Earhart

New landscape aerial photos - nuevas fotos aéreas de paisajes

Take a look - new photos at http://www.picassaweb.google.com/ or click on the slideshow to the right to be taken straight there

Mira! Fotos nuevas en http://www.picasaweb.google.com/
o haz click en el proyeccion a la derecha

almond blossom almeria spain

almendros en flor - almond blossom!

Almond blossom in the Sierra de las Estancias - this was

last year, more coming soon!

All our images can be ordered as prints, on canvas or

greetings cards

gecko fly over mojacar again!

gecko fly gets another photo on the front of
mojacar magazine, 3 out of 3 aint bad!
http://www.mojacarmagazine.com/

puta motors

We have adopted Jose Manuel (from granada) in to club gecko
whilst he is here for the next two years teaching in the college
in albox. off we went today for a bit of paramotoring , only Jose's
machine stopped and then wouldn't start! here he is resorting
to pouring fuel straight in to the cylinder head ?
(should have bought a pap Jose ! je je je )

oranges are not the only fruit

orange picking season! but hey we dont want oranges we
want almond blossom and it is comming !! a bit early, hope
we dont get a gota fria (a cold snap) .Its a bit stupendous
when the blossom comes out, (the only advantage to monoculture i can see)
being surrounded by hectares and hectares of almonds
it does someting to your creative juices! , our best selling
/liked photo is of the blossom last year! more soooooon!

west winds

With westerly winds we usually can't fly , normally
too strong and today was no exception with gusts around 56kmh
what we do get with the upper air mass more north westerly
are beautiful cloudscapes and lenticular or wave clouds
set up like dolphins over the sierra filabres
what with seasonal flue, trips to the uk and strong winds
are feathers are getting rusty!

sierra marias cara norte

sierra maria the north side!!!
well it looks like a fab site for those winter days
with a northerly wind and i've lost count the number
of times i've been here with a good forcast only
to have a short flight down or the wind swings around
and then game over! anyway the photo is of club Gecko
arriving last sunday only to find a almost nil wind situation
with nothing happening!!!
what do you do ? Hector (phenomeno) who recently announced
he was a black belt karate champion gave us all a first lesson !


and after that what do bored pilots do ? go for a
flop to bottom , only trouble is this site has such a
shallow and woody take off ,in light winds ......

you end up with many tree/bush incidents!

Must clean this take off but need a good day to show
that it might be worth the effort!