me     myself	Paragliders, Kites, and other aloft stuff Click on the pictures to see them better   Quito , our wonderful city, lays in a large valley between huge mountain ranges. If you follow a narrow mountain road, after 40 minutes you will reach the takeoff, 8 miles to the NE of the volcano crater named Guagua Pichincha and less than 3 miles away from runway 35 of the local airport (picture at left). Your flight begins at 13 thousand feet above the sea level, and, if you do not find areas of rising air, after 15 minutes or so you'll be safely touching the grass in Altamira, a large green square 10 thousand feet above the sea level surrounded by the city. Altamira is just a few blocks away from my own home. more... If you prefer warm places, Crucita in the Pacific Ocean coast of Ecuador offers a great place to learn or, if you are already a paraglider or hang glider pilot, to enjoy a 250 feet high hill with enough strength to push you up to 1200 feet. It is easy to soar two or three hours from the very beginning. Crucita was the place we chose for our first flights without instructors, and there we met Felice Anghileri, an italian instructor on vacation that taught us a lot about paraglider control and new ways to eat our own seafood. more... The Delta-Conyne kite at left is a computer generated image from my AutoCad drawings before the real kite was built. Pictures of this and other hand crafted kites like my 8 feet wide model of Cody's Man Lifter kite (year 1903) will be in this site soon. Fireworks and hot air balloons are present in all popular and religious celebrations throughout the country. I'm not interested in explosives, but I can afford a bit of fire to warm up this hot air balloon built from silk paper, a ring of thin wire and some home made glue. The picture records the new year's celebration at my father's house where the whole family helped around to protect the small balloon from the wind. more... About me : I'm an electronic engineer born some day between the nuclear explosions above Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invention of the transistor. The kites, model airplanes, radio controlled airplanes, hot air balloons built from paper, and eventually, the paragliders, have been part of my life, and so are my two sons Rafael Antonio and Juan Esteban. They ride their bikes better than me, fly paragliders better than me, sing songs and play music much better than me, but I do not find the way to let them be better than me while flying kites in easy winds. Pictures of Ecuador : Click on them, they grow