American
As the pilot behind the hang-gliding website The Oz Report, Davis Straub could be called the hang-gliding world’s only new-media celebrity. He flies for the US team, once held the world record for distance, and divides his time between Australia, the States and competitions in Europe. In April 2008 he told Chabre2009.com about life on the road.
Big Spring, Texas, USA.
I've had about 4,000 flights, so the most memorable ones are the most recent ones. But still there in my memory is when I first broke the world record in 2000 with a 347-mile flight to just south of Big Spring. I had been in Zapata, Texas, all summer and not been able to have a super-long flight (over 300 miles). Finally, on August 9th, I was able to stay up long enough to land just before sundown at a lonely ranch, where three teenage girls found me and confirmed that I had indeed landed there.
I live on the road. I just spent almost five months in Australia in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, at Forbes, Bright, Mount Beauty, Newcastle, Gulgong, Dalby and Beechmont.
Since returning to the US in March 2007, I have stayed in Century City in Los Angeles, California, Cathedral City, California and Casa Grande, Arizona. I am now on the road, staying two nights ago in Las Cruces, New Mexico and last night in Big Spring, Texas. Tonight I will stay in Tyler, Texas, and by Friday I hope to be in Groveland, Florida, at Quest Air. Three weeks later I will spend10 days just outside Richmond at BlueSky, then 10 days in Ridgeley at Highland AeroSports before I fly from Washington to Nice, France. We'll be in southern France for a month.
Back in the US, we'll stop for two days in Knoxville to visit friends on our way to Zapata, Texas. Except for last year we’ve spent at least a month every summer since 2000 in Zapata at the World Record Encampment. After two weeks there it will be on to Big Spring, Texas, site of the 2007 Worlds, for the big tow meet there.
After that it’s unclear. Maybe Lakeview, Oregon, for a competition or Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for fun flying, before heading for the San Francisco Bay area for a week in September. We’ll have a week or two in Santa Barbara for the fall flying season, then we’ll head to Cathedral City, California to visit family. And then it’s back to Australia.