Speedflying over the past few years has led to many novel experiences with friends. These have more often than not been in beautiful settings as we searched for the emotional thrill that comes from quickly descending mountain slopes. It began during a paragliding trip to the well known flying site Point of the Mountain just south of Salt Lake City, Utah. While there, I took two days of lessons with a very experienced and knowledgeable instructor, Justin White.
Justin methodically led me through the skills needed to fly this style of wing, one smaller and much more re actively dynamic to pilot inputs than the paraglider I had learned to fly a year earlier.
Due to the convenience of site access and good weather, I completed 40 flights under his observation, including some very fun high wind soaring, and Justin signed my rating to fly independently. Equipped with a good foundation in the basics so as to appreciate the risks involved, I set out to learn as much as I could and to see what fun there was to be had in this sport.
Since that initial training, speedflying has become to mean to me an opportunity to combine effort, placement in the moment, dreaming, and appreciation of beauty into a wildly irresistible way of getting down the mountain.
In order to fly off of a mountain, you have to first get up there. While some sites offer road access to the launch, many do not. I would also argue that there is something of value in hoofing yourself and your kit to the top, for each vertical foot gained is another you get to revel in on the flight down. Our local launches vary from 1500 to 1900 feet in elevation. The calories burned after 3 to 5 hikes a day more than justify the pizza and beer enjoyed with your flying mates that evening!
Additionally, launching and landing a wing with a relatively fast airspeed at trim calls for agility and nimbleness. So far, I have been fortunate to only have had one real blunder. I aborted a launch too late and subsequently tumbled town the hillside for a few yards, which caused a few sore rib but thankfully nothing more.
That day I learned that athleticism does not mean much if proper safety parameters are not adhered to. I had a conversation with one of my good friends and mentor Neil Amonson about it later. He has kindly shared with me many tips he learned from his own history in speedflying. Having people like Neil to remind you to be safe and share in the joys helps to keep the perspective clear and true.
Most of my mental bandwidth is taken up when I am speedflying because of one hard and fast rule:
Do not touch anything!
My friend Nick and I describe the time between launching and landing in the designated landing zone as very similar to the childhood game “Floor is Lava.” Part of the excitement comes from the sensation of your speed when flying in close proximity to the terrain, trees, waterfalls, a friend, etc. To do so sustainably means deep absorption in the your senses. I need to pay attention not only to avoid the trees coming up in a 200 feet, but I also need to keep in mind the distance to landing and the whereabouts of the friends that are also gleefully buzzing down the landscape. There is a rush back to the reality of the world at large that comes after landing. I prize those moments where I only need to observe and act.
It is a big world out there with a bounty of adventures to be had! We live in a time with so many tools to help plan our outings, from the serious endeavors to quixotic shenanigans.
For me, I have found that GoogleEarth and the equation for slope learned from middle school algebra has unleashed a huge potential of mountains to speedfly off. GoogleEarth’s satellite and 3D features quicken the search for sizable, clear launches and landing areas. Then I calculate the glide ratio needed based the vertical change (elevation) over the horizontal change (distance) between the launching and landing.
My favorite application of this equation came this past August in Missoula. We have a paragliding and hang gliding site here that no one had yet flown a speedwing from. I did some scouting and found a suitable landing area on a portion of the river bed that had recently become exposed due to the late season decreased water flows.
I enjoyed a nice hike, watched my friends delight in the evening flying on another nearby site, and did my final approach over the Clark Fork before landing on the smoothed down river rocks. It is always rewarding to have a goal come to fruition!
Oh, the things I have encountered... the metallic call of meadowlarks during a summer sunrise hike up the hill... obscenely pink Bitterroot on the first day of their bloom... a Red-tailed Hawk perched on a rock as fly by... a family of deer bedded down in the tall grass that only could be spotted from above... cherries pilfered from wild trees while walking back to my car after a flight... the sunrises... the sunsets... larches yellowing before their needles totally drop.. diamond dust glittering in the air during a terribly cold winter hike... chasing my shadow...
This has been a fantastic way to expand my horizons. Undoubtedly, one of the coolest offsprings of this pursuit was my first helicopter ride with some very close friends this past fall at the Chelan Speedfest.
I have a big list of skills I would like to improve and mountains that I dream of flying off. Speedflyin' is one of the countless ways to create a create a KAVU day.
Jacob Glass FB
© 2026 KAVU
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