Morning fog in the valleys, low clouds breaking up later in the day to clear or partially cloudy skies. Wind weak, variable, changing to westerly to southwesterly and strengthening from 3 to 7 m/s. Now that's the forecast we'd been waiting for. It is Monday November 1, 1999 and a beautiful autumn day is beginning. I pick up my cell phone and send my friend Camilla a text message: "Get the parachute, backpack and car ready, I'll be at your place at 1 p.m. - we're going flying." Up until now I've always flown alone with the motorized backpack, but in summer I met Kamil, who had also been smitten by motorized paragliding, and so I was looking to finally flying together.

    I had agreed to help my friend Michal with moving furniture into his weekend house in the Beskyd Mountains that morning.




    But by the time we got there, the wind was already blowing at around 5 m/s and so I began to be worried that by the time we finished moving it would be too strong to take off in. And so we stepped up our pace a little and were at Kamil's shortly after 12. Kamil was a bit surprised by our early arrival. He ran around for a while between the house, the car and the shop, where he was supposed to be working that afternoon and was now arranging something. Finally he managed to convince his brother to take over for him in the shop and we were able to head out. We threw the parachutes, backpacks, canisters of gasoline, helmets, variometers, maps, cameras ... succinctly put, all those silly things needed for flying and we started off.

    I even managed to talk Michal into going with us and so we didn't have to worry about who would drive for us. Only then did we begin actually planning our flight, along the way. It was clear to us that if we wanted to fly anywhere in this wind; we'd have to fly with the wind at our backs. So we chose a route from Belotin over the Odras, Vitkov and Podradi to Hradec nad Maravici and for landing ground we chose a small airfield between Chvalikovice and Opava, where usually we go flying with a motorized chute and a winch. We wanted to see the places where, when we were young, we used to go camping and the river Moravice on which we sometimes go canoeing, from above. We planned the flight over castle Vikstejn and the chateau in Hradec nad Moravici, so as to have something to look at. The other reason for flying this way was to avoid the airspace of CTR-Mosnov and LKR-Libava. We arrived in Belotin, turned off at the first intersection heading somewhere out of the village and there we stopped by a pile of manure in the first field that was at least somewhat covered with grass. We got out of the car. The wind was only blowing at 2 to 3 m/s. It was the best wind strength that could exist for a motor-paraglider. Not too much, not too little.




    We quickly began to prepare for flight.



    We filled up, adjusted and warmed up the motors, spread the parachutes, put on the overalls, put the packs on our backs, fastened the parachutes and finally we were both ready to fly.

    It was 3 p.m., high time to start if we wanted to get there before sundown. Kamil goes first. He lifts the parachute over his head, now to brake, turn, throttle, a few steps and he's already gaining altitude and flying over the road and a row of trees.



    I go right after him. We circle around the field for a while for our friends who'd come out to see just what those flying machines of ours look like in action.



    But time there's no time or gas to waste and so after a few minutes of flying and gathering about 150 meters of altitude we head out on our route.



    Our motors, which now are only keeping our flight path straight, growl in satisfaction, at not even half throttle, and the parachutes with the wind at their backs swiftly make for the Odras.



    I barely managed to take three photgrahps of Kamil, who was flying next to me, and we were almost in the Odras. So here in order to avoid CTR-Mosnov, we had to pick up altitude, veer left over the hills and continue on towards Vitkov. We go full throttle, turn and slowly climb over the hill.



    But what's going on? We want to fly to the left towards Vitkov and, to keep that direction, our parachutes must be turned against the wind and we have to back up to the right. The wind at this altitude, about 400 m above our starting place, is somewhat stronger than we expected. It's beginning to get very interesting. With this strange method of flying, our travelling speed has markedly decreased. Fortunately our planned route turns back at Vitkov in the wind direction. Had we been flying directly, we would soon be landing by Opava. A little ways before Jakubcovice, widespread forests appear below us. Had we wanted to fly over them safely, we would have had to climb much higher. But since the wind grew stronger with every meter of altitude, we flew instead over the Jakubcovice quarry along the other side of the valley where there were meadows and fields. Here we caught what was probably the last riser of the year, almost 2 m/s. Actually, only I caught it. Kamil flew into a downdraft, which evidently neighbored the riser, and soon there was a large altitude difference between us. So I eased off on the throttle, Kamil added throttle and soon we were flying next to each other again. We slowly began to adjust our flight direction with the wind direction and in a while were over Vitkov.