12 years ago
Dell Shanze (alias “SuperDell”) performed probably one of the coolest Speed-Wing launches ever but got arrested the next day. He was using a 14m2 Speedmaster from U-Turn, the wind was smooth laminar around 16 km/h.
Catched him on the phone a bit to chat about what actually happened:
Pal: Hey man, how is it going?
Dell: „Everything's good, just having fun, flew off the tower the other day that was cool, got lot's of work and 17 students right now, they're having a blast paramotoring.”
Pal: Man, that flight down from the tower is truly a masterpiece, love it!
Dell: "Yeah, it was pretty wild but kinda' fun, flew down from the 125 feet (38m) high Astoria column in Oregon (USA). It was a blast, instead of a BASE jump, so cool just to fly down the speed-wing, yuuuhuu!"
Sweet. Then you published the video on Youtube and on next day you got arrested by the police, what was that?
"I would not put the video on-line if I knew it is a problem, some people let me to believe it is actually legal. They even sell model airplanes and launch them from the top of the tower. I taught they are gonna love it and be happy about it not mad. There are no signs nor a single person to say anything. I had no reason at all to believe it was illegal. Then the next day I was on the beach paramotoring with my students when the police came and arrested me in front of my 10 year old kid. They were kinda jerky and instead of just giving me a ticket or something they put me in the back of the police car and bring me to jail for like an hour. Now I have to go to court and probably pay some penalty, but no big deal...But the good thing is that the police sent the video to the media to spot me so it was in all TV stations in the United States, the Youtube clicks are going mad :-)"
So how did you actually got up on the fence? Unfortunately this part is cut out of the video...
"I walked up on one of the guys, first stepped on his knee, then on shoulder and the railing. Another big guy was just holding me to secure before I was ready to go. The wind was 9 miles (14,5 km/h) an hour so the glider wasn't dragging me at all. I could feel the pressure so I knew it is ok and I just slowly let go sideways to make sure that nothing entangles with the tower, so there was really no danger, it was just perfect man!"
Sweet, thanks for the infos, I hope they're not gonna make you pay a lot, keep up the good work :-)
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By the looks of things that cop had no idea what he was talking about... :-) Good on ya..... If it's high, fly of it :-)
And any ways, if it is not legal why don't they put a sign on the tower?
Probably the most exitment there was in Oregon in years :-)
wow your so cool not wearing a helmet how do you do it ????? ,,,,,
wish I was American