What brought me to South America?
During the 2004 Big Spring hang gliding competition, the prize at stake was a paid trip to Rio de Janeiro with Red Bull to compete in a multi-discipline event with 500 other athletes. With a great dose of luck I managed to snag that trip, and have traveled to South America nearly 50 times in the 17 years since then. I've gained a couple of languages and a continent of friends. I know the area like the back of my hand, in the air and on the ground. I truly love the place and am keen to share it with my friends!
Dustin Martin
Some personal accomplishments:
Qualified for the US team for the last consecutive five World HG Championships (skipped Valle, but flew the Worlds in Australia, USA, France, and Italy).
- Competed since '98 in 11 countries.
- Set the Puerto Rico distance record (east to west, one end of the island to the other).
- Set the East Coast US record (283 miles jointly with Jonny Durand).
- Set the Ecuador distance record (since eclipsed by a paraglider!).
- Made four separate trips to Zapata campaigning for the record, flying 202, 220, 410, and finally the current 475 mile World Record.
- Set the current World Record for speed over a 100 km triangle.
- Guided the Zeno on a 300km Arizona record flight a couple seasons back, after an early season of thousands of kilometers getting to know my new wing.
- Have flown hundreds (thousands?) of tandems.
- Have towed hundreds (thousands?) of gliders with the Dragonfly.
- Sew many kinds of harnesses, from cocoons to race harnesses to tandem harnesses. If you took a hang glider tandem at a flight park, there's a good chance that you flew in one of my harnesses.
- Flytec USA team pilot
I feel that with this accumulation of experience I can offer pilots - especially the up and coming crowd of intermediate, super excited, keen to explore types - a boost up the learning curve.