Note 2: In March, 2017, Kris Erickson sent this news:
Jim is a good friend of mine - unfortunately he had a serious fall at a building site shortly before his planned paramotoring trip and had bad concussion - so that is why the adventure was cancelled. He actually became quite depressed for a while but he has now bounced back and is now successfully making and selling bell drums. Here is his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jim.wafer?fref=ts
Note 1: On April 24, 2002, I realized that Jim Wafer's web pages and email connection are no longer active. Consider this a page out of history.
This is a support page for the "New Zealand Spirit Paragliding Flight". It could be called the "flight of the long white cloud" after the meaning of the native Maori name used for New Zealand. The flight is all around the north and south islands of NZ. Jim Wafer is going it by paramotor. Shouldn't that be "motorpara", as in "motorcycle"? Maybe in the land where paramotors were invented, motorized cycles are called "cyclemotors."
Joking aside, accept the word paramotor for a new-fangled way to fly that looks like a large fan attached to the pilot of a paraglider. This arrangement is no doubt the envy of birds and other denizens of the airways. The picture is from Jim's site.
Flight across the Cook Strait between North Island and South Island is planned. The time is 8 or 9 a.m. in NZ. That is 20 or 21 hours UTC/GMT* the day before. That is about 1 or 2 p.m. PDT in USA a day before. See http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ for time conversions. The trip starts on the first day with good weather. Watch it on Jim's livelink page.
All needed equipment is sponsored, but the rest of the following 1998 information is generally true. Later messages appear on this page.
I visited the home page and emailed the pilot, Jim. Here is his reply of June
17, 1998:
"My homepage address is http://www.actrix.gen.nz/users/nzflight/. I'm going to be getting some pretty wild pics from around New Zealand Also any good advice hints are always appreciated from more experienced pilots.Best wishes, Jim"
Here is a 1998 quote from Jim's site that clearly describes the exciting Internet aspect of his project:
"I intend to send digital pictures directly to this homepage from the air during the flight. This means that people all over the world will be able to see what I am seeing from the air while I am flying. The views should be quite spectacular when I fly over places such as Fiordland or the Bay of Islands, the Coromandel etc. I will also be able to link up to schools who are connected to the Internet and maybe even land at the schools! (see section on Internet link up to Schools) The downloads will happen once or twice a day, with an edited version of the days highlights downloaded to the homepage in the evening, where it can be looked at later by netsurfers on our page."
