2024 was a fantastic season at the Freedom Flight Park.  With many new students and lots of tandem flights, we were very grateful for all of those who chose to come to the Freedom Flight School to learn or to get a thrill.

We try not to talk about numbers much, such as asking a pilot after they land: "How long was your flight?   How high did you get?"  It's more about "Did you have fun?" or "What did you learn?".

However, this year a bunch of milestone numbers happened.  As mentioned in the previous post, we had our 200th P2 graduate.  Our chief paragliding instructor, Dave Underwood, flew his 1000th tandem flight and he had a special passenger, Lorelei, who is married to Randy Rauck and they are the owners of the Freedom Flight Park!  We also received our 300th Five-Star review on Google and to round it all out, an 80 year-old student received his P2 certification right at the tail end of the season! 

What a year!

We look forward to see what we can accomplish in 2025...come join us and be part of it!

Dave, our chief paragliding instructor, usually spends a few months near the end of winter helping Revelstoke Paragliding with some tandems off of the ski hill.  Today there were no tandems booked but a couple of recently graduated P2 pilots along with a Kiwi pilot who got her Canadian certification through our school...so it was "Ladies' Paraskiing Day" at Revy!

All three ladies nailed their launches on both of their flights.  It was the first time for all them to launch with skis on and they loved it.

Well done Julie, Laura and Kate!

Another year, another flying season.  2022 was a super year at the Freedom Flight Park!

We began in mid April and never stopped for 6 months.  In May, we welcomed the Amazing Race Canada for their filming of the episode "I'm a Human Kite", which aired in August and can be found here.  Our exposure on the show definitely had an impact as we flew more tandem paragliding flights than ever before.

The Freedom Flight Park was lucky enough to have CTV's Amazing Race Canada film the contestants of the show perform a "Road Block" back in May.   Seven teams were left in the show at the time of this episode.  The racers showed up on a Friday night to sign up for their flights the following morning.

Unfortunately the weather was not ideal and we could not launch from our main launch since the wind was blowing the wrong way.  Instead, seven tandem pilots launched with their racer from Saddle Mountain, a rocky, steep and not so friendly launch on the other side of the valley but the skilled pilots pulled it off and there were a lot of smiling faces on the contestants.

The show just aired and you can check out the action here:  ​https://www.ctv.ca/shows/the-amazing-race-canada/im-a-human-kite-s8e5.

#AmazingRaceCanada

Our first P2 graduates of 2022 happen to be twin brothers!  Originally from Venezuela, Diego now lives in Montreal and Daniel in Toronto.  They flew out from their respective cities for 12 days in hopes of obtaining both their P1 and P2 certifications...and they did it!  Both even had a bonus flight or two.

The happy and positive energy of these brothers was infectious around the flight park and they made a lot of friends in their short visit to Lumby.

​Great job guys and we look forward to seeing you back in the skies above the Freedom Flight Park in the near future!

From April 8-10th, senior instructor Randy Rauck held a 3 day hang glider instructor recertification course.  There were 4 instructors recertifying and 2 new hang gliding instructors working on the certification.  Due to inclement weather, the majority of the course was in the classroom which included a few presentations by all participants.  There was a great sharing of knowledge and camaraderie.

Thanks for holding the course Randy!

2021 was definitely a challenging year around the world with Covid-19 still causing all sorts of troubles, forest fires raging across BC followed by bad flooding in the fall.  But at the Freedom Flight Park we always try to make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in.

The flying season in Lumby was a great one and there were many smiling faces from both students, tandem passengers, solo pilots and even the instructors!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  After last year's hiatus due to Covid, the Freedom Flight Park held it's annual potluck dinner and bomb drop/spot landing competition.  If you are not familiar with the bomb drop, we take small paper bags and fill them with flour, loosely tape them up and while flying in your paraglider, hang glider or ultralight, attempt to drop them on a target.  Upon hitting the ground the bag explodes and the flour provides a bit of an explosion.

We had a great turn out and a wonderful dinner followed by the presentation of the awards.  Congratulations to our newly graduated paragliding student Maggie G. for winning first place in the bomb drop and to Daniel V. for winning the spot landing competition.

A relatively new tradition is the presentation of the coveted Incoming Award.  Inspired by Granny, a flight park personality who passed away a few years ago, the award recognizes a pilot who contributes to the flight park through their volunteering efforts, enthusiasm to fly.  The award itself is an amazing piece of bead work that Granny spent hours creating.  Due to Covid, we did not have a recipient last year.

This year the Incoming award was presented to an integral member of the Freedom Flight Park Community, Bryan Saulnier.  Having flown hang gliders for about 20 years, Bryan recently became "bi-wingual" by learning to paraglide.  You would think that since he's been free flying for so long, paragliding would be boring but no, he was one of the most excited and enthusiastic students in the last year.  Additionally, he works tirelessly at making the flight park a better place from minor maintenance to landscaping to improving launch.  He put in more hours and effort than anyone on our new astro-turfed launch.  Congratulations Bryan!  Granny would be proud.

Happy Thanksgiving!