Paramotor Magazine, issue 23, Feb/March 2011
Chris Santacroce is one of the good guys. A one-time hot shot, a founding member of the Red Bull Air Force, and a highly talented instructor his new passion is flying PPG and setting records. Ed Ewing listened in
“IT WAS LAST August and we did it in Texas,” says Chris Santacroce. “We didn’t get very good weather, but that wasn’t the point. We just wanted to get into the mode of doing records.”
Chris set a US open distance record for paramotoring last summer and it was ratified in December. It’s a long process, setting records, and this was no exception.
“A lot of times people do some pretty awesome flights and then the record is not ratified because they miss something. We just wanted to make a start,” he explains. “We fully expected to basically fail.”
With poor conditions – low cloudbase and no tail wind – they did a flight anyway. “And it turns out we got it.” There was no previous ‘limited fuel’ US record prior to it, so, “We set the bar, and we aim to go back and beat it.” It was 197 km over five hours 40 minutes, on just less than 10 litres of fuel.
Chris was flying with Othar Lawrence, a long time flying buddy and fellow Red Bull Air Force pilot. They get paid to do things like this. “It’s a fun thing for a handful of reasons,” Chris adds. “I don’t believe we’ll ever get the world record here in the United States because it’s not legal for us to fly with so much fuel, like Ramon [Morillas] does.
“But we’ll chase after this limited-fuel thing and then we’ll look for some other records.”
One of the records he has his eye on is the altitude gain: “We were talking about taking off in Death Valley, it’s below sea level, and with an epic cloudbase it’s possible.” Record-breaking where you can is almost a patriotic pilot’s duty, he laughs. “You know, we’re good American guys, we want to see some of these records held in the US. It’s fun stuff.”
Read the full 2,000 word article on subscription with Paramotor Magazine, issue 23
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