You know folks, I don't know how many of you are able to watch
any of the Canadian TV specialty channels that we have up here,
but there is one called OLN - Outdoor Life Network.

It has a weekly show with two or more hosts that travel Canada
with an EZ Flyer that can be packed into a special trailer. The crew
has a pilot who does the flying and a couple of ladies who do the
ground interviews and provide background commentary.

The program is an hour long and always features lots or flying
episodes. This particular plane that they use has about 8 cameras
attached and the aerial shots are always interesting. As is the
narration and ground exploration.

For instance, last week they did a program on the Alberta badlands,
where the dinosaurs once roamed and they had some fantastic low level
shots of the hoodoos (SP), coulees (SP) and river systems that wind
their way down to the Montana border.

Now with a description like that, you would think that the Bunion could
tell you the name of the show, but unfortunately the brain cells arn't
firing on all 7 cylinders today and the name escapes me.

BUT... Hopefully another fellow Canadian will jump in with the name.

AS WELL..... Last night this network had an absolutely fascinating
program on soaring in New Zealand. The one hour program followed
a ten day international contest of men and women who were competing
in a "wave" contest. This particular type of wave is extreme and caused
by the turbulence of air from the ocean hiting a mountainous ridge about
one thousand kilometers long.

The result is a wave of air like no other wave found in the world.

One of the old timers had really discovered the power of the wave some
years ago and rode it up to new world records around 36,ooo feet.

To say it was an interesting one hour program is an understatement.

There were dozens of participants airborne in varius types of high tech
modern design gliders, all at once. Each pilot trying to position
themselves as high a possible before beginning their individual run.

The run is a fixed distance flight and obviously the higher the glider
is to begin with the faster the distance can be covered.

Black boxes, computer monitored, GPS, Oxygen, these babies had
the works, and within minutes of landing the data from the gliders
black box could be downloaded and the pilots score plotted.

The clould formation was something to see. Clouds like I've never seen
before and I presume these stratified clouds moving at incredible speed
were unique to areas of the world that have these types of waves.

Don't know if there are any soarers here but if you ever come across
that particular program on your local cable station you should take
the opportunity to watch it. It was a real treat.

Bernie