Rick Grimm and his
AIRFER Tornado
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My first experience with flight occurred during my college years when I built a homemade delta wing hangglider from plans I bought from Popular Science. After not getting much airtime running down low training hills, I combined ski-jouring behind a snowmobile with the hangglider to achieve longer flights. My flying days were cut short by a hard landing and a damaged glider. I put off my dreams for 25 years until I discovered PPGs and Bruce Brown who I happen to live close to. After a tandem into flight, I was hooked. I purchased an Airfer motor, Trekking wing and trained with Bruce, soloing in June of 2002. I have since logged over 30 hours and 60 flights. I'm an electronics engineer and currently work an Information Systems manager at a Whirlpool manufacturing plant.
I have a GPS (Garmin GPS12) that I wanted to use while flying, but couldn't find a good place to hang it on my Airfer Tornado. I looked into handlebar mounts from Garmin and a piece of short tubing attached to the distance bar, but didn't like the location, too hard to reach.
I had an old leather cell phone case laying around (the phones become obsolete every 2 years now) that fit the GPS very well, all I needed was something to attach it to. I came across some elastic multi-use straps with velcro at both ends at a sporting goods store (Gander Mountain). The straps are called STRAPits, made by a company called Liston (www.liston.com). The straps are available in 10,12,14,18, and 22 inch lengths. I found the 18 inch length stretches nicely around my thigh enough to hold the GPS secure.
I sewed 2 straps onto the back of the cell phone case and strap the GPS around my left thigh.
This give me excellent viewing and access to the buttons with my free left hand. It works well regardless of the type of clothes you are wearing and stays in place when running during take-offs.
Rick Grimm
Bowling Green, Ohio
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