Rocket Man

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Today I flew around a canyon in a little rocket and it was pretty cool.

This is one of the many ways to kill yourself on offer in Quennstown. Well like many of the activities its probably perfectly safe but Queenstown is the extreme sports capital of New Zealand and there is loads to do here.

This particular activity is called Fly By Wire and it quite literally allows you to fly a little rocket on a 400m span around a canyon and it is suspended high ion the air from a cable to prevent you from flying off or crashing into anything.

It's quite simple to operate, you have an accelerator and all you have to do is keep that nailed on the whole time for maximum velocity and then just steer it like a motorbike. It does 171kmph and when you start getting on some real high loops you can experience up to 3.17seconds of weightlessness.

They strap you in, hoist you right up in the air tail end first so that your nose is pointing straight down towards the canyon floor. As the pilot you then have to pull the release leaver nail the throttle and the rest is up to you. The guys on the ground floor hold up signs giving you advice and instructions in order to get maximum height and speed but it is up to you to fly it.

I got some pretty awesome height out of it as you can see from the photo's

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