Adam Roadcap is fairly new to Wyoming, but so far he’s not having any trouble meeting his neighbors and making friends. That might be because he’s got a very unique way to meet new people, one not many people can claim.
Roadcap flies in and around Burns, a southeast Wyoming community not too far from Cheyenne, on what’s called a paramotor device.
It’s similar to a hang glider or paraglider, but with a motor. The motor lets Roadcap zigzag across the sky with ease, as well as rise up and down at will. That means if someone on the ground below waves up at him, he can easily drop down from his heavenly heights for a moment to toss them a little parachute figurine, along with a nice smile and a wave.
“These are like little plastic skydiver guys, with a little fabric parachute,” Roadcap said, chuckling a little at himself. “They’re just super fun to toss down to people.”
The figurines are a new thing he just decided to start after moving to Wyoming for “better weather, better housing and better people.”
“I work in IT, and my company actually offered recently to let me go fully remote,” Roadcap said. “That let me pull the trigger on everything.”
So far, he’s loving the Cowboy State, where he’s finding freedom on the ground as well as in the sky, and friendly, welcoming, people.
“Wyoming is the best state in the country,” Roadcap said. “That’s my opinion.”
Fascinated With Flight
Roadcap can’t remember a time when he wasn’t fascinated by all things aviation.
“I’ve probably been obsessed with aviation since about 2, 3 years old,” he said. “For me, it’s open cockpits, which I like, because I like the wind, and the views are unbeatable compared to other aircraft.”
The earliest flight he can remember was a departing flight from a Mexican vacation, where the pilot he was seated next to wasn’t afraid to provide a 100% thrilling ride for his 5-year-old “copilot.”
“The pilot did some very unsafe flying, very low to the beach,” Roadcap recalled. “My parents were terrified, but I was in the seat next to him just laughing and enjoying and having a lot of fun looking out the window at the beach like 100 feet below us.”
Roadcap said he was not so young that he didn’t appreciate that there was some level of danger to what the pilot was doing.
But it was just way too much fun for a 5-year-old to care.
Growing up, Roadcap did a lot of what he calls “ground” school, an informal term that refers to learning everything about aviation that he could while still on the ground. To that end, he joined the Experimental Aircraft Association when he was just 12. They offered free rides to youths, as well as lots of aviation education opportunities. The members, who ranged in age from 55 to 104, took him under their wing, teaching him about their airplanes, and taking him on plane rides in the sky.
“My original plan growing up was to become a commercial pilot,” Roadcap said. “And I was working toward that for ages. But then I kind of realized how boring that would be for me. It’s a great career — great for a lot of pilots — but it wouldn’t really work for me.”
Freedom In The Sky
That’s because Roadcap prefers open cockpits to closed, and he loves the thrill of joy riding in the sky without a particular destination in mind.
“I just kind of like to meander around, flying over fields and such, enjoying the weather,” Roadcap said. “I describe it as dirt biking, but in the sky.”
Roadcap started casting about for flying alternatives after deciding piloting planes wasn’t the career for him. Airplanes are rather expensive, so he started with the idea of paragliding. That’s very similar to hang gliding, but with better safety and a wider range of flying conditions.
“The views are just unbeatable, because there’s no cockpit in the way there’s no control panels in the way,” Roadcap said. “There’s just you in a seat and the endless sky in front.”
In short, bright blue freedom blowing in the wind, lifting gliders to the heavens.
“When I found paramotoring, though, I realized that would be way better, because there’s not a whole lot of hills near me,” Roadcap said. “Paramotors can be launched from pretty much anywhere that there’s a field with no trees in the way. And then it’s easier to stay up in the air, because we don’t have to seek out rising air currents and stuff. We can just use the motor power to stay aloft.”
The motorized control is also what allows him to readily pop back down to earth if he sees a potential new friend waving at him from below.
“On my most recent flight around Burns, I saw a kid and tossed him down a parachute toy,” Roadcap said.
He loved seeing the kid’s just face light up as he realized a man from the sky riding in a most ingenious device was sending a toy down to earth, just for him.
“It’s just good public relations,” Roadcap said, adding it’s important to him that his new neighbors and friends realize he’s not interested in buzzing anyone’s livestock or encroaching on anyone’s privacy.
“I really want people to know that if they have any problems, they can reach out to me and I can just avoid their property, or anywhere near their property,” Roadcap said. “Whatever they want. It’s all about mutual respect. I’m just passing through, and I’m not there to spook horses or cattle.”
In fact, the moment he sees any livestock on the horizon, he’s changing directions, to find a different route to travel, and make sure he’s not bothering anyone or anything.
An Inexpensive Hobby
Paramotors, for those interested in the hobby, are relatively inexpensive devices, which can be built by hobbyists. They typically start in the $4,000 range and run on up to $13,000 or so for what Roadcap said would be a “really fancy one.”
They cost around $11 an hour to operate, including maintenance, which is a bargain compared to small airplane, which tallies up to more like $40 to $60 an hour. Roadcap’s device carries up to 5 gallons of fuel, burning about one gallon per hour. On a windless day, he could travel at up to 50 mph.
While he could stay up in the air for five hours at a time, most of Roadcap’s excursions are more like 20 to 30 miles at a stretch, leaving plenty of fuel for the next trip.
He doesn’t do a whole lot of tricks, other than a few sharp turns and some zipping back and forth for fun. Mostly he just enjoys the endless views, the feel of the wind on his face, and the sense of freedom it brings.
“We do have what are called visual flight rules,” he said. “You can’t fly through clouds, you can’t fly at night, and you can only fly 30 minutes after sunset or before sunrise.”
Paramotors also may not have super powerful motors and can’t carry more than 5 gallons of fuel at one time.
“We can’t operate over cities, and we have to operate where there’s kind of nothing below,” Roadcap said.
Hitting The High Points, Literally
Roadcap enjoys the hobby with his wife, who also flies a paramotoring device. In fact, he met his wife at a gathering of fellow paramotoring enthusiasts, and their first official date was a paramotoring adventure to a radio tower in Colorado that is 1,600 feet tall.
“At the top are a bunch of metal flowers that someone made and welded onto the top of these radios towers,” Roadcap said. “So I took her out to see that.”
The couple even eventually rolled their wedding into a paramotoring vacation in Buena Vista, Colorado. Rest assured, there were lots of flying, cake, and fun for that one, as well as lots of beautiful vistas and sunsets enjoyed while up in the sky. Literally celebrating a high point in life by visiting a high point on earth.
Roadcap has several favorite paramotoring vacation spots in the Rocky Mountain West. Among those at the top of the list, though, is Devils Tower in Wyoming which he said is just stunning from the sky.
Roadcap and his wife also have a bucket list of places where they’d like to go paramotoring, like Iceland, which Roadcap said he has heard is unbelievable.
No matter where he roams, however, freedom is always the biggest sensation he feels when he’s flying up in the sky. And he feels that most especially in Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and friendly faces.
Eventually he hopes to have an electrical engine instead of gas-powered, which will be a little quieter he believes, for more sky freedom adventures all over the world — but especially in the new place he now calls home in Wyoming.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
