The Timbo & Seanski Files
A paragliding documentary of two friends sharing the joys of Paragliding in some of the most exotic and popular flying locations around the world. What more can we say...
THE TIMBO & SEANSKI FILES
ABOUT US
TRIP JOURNAL & VIDEOS
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About Timbo & Seanski
About Seanski (Sean Thompson)
 My interest in flight and aviation in general began as a child when I got my first balsa wood model aircraft from my Oupa(Grandfather) at about age 9. It was one of those balsa and tissue free flight models that required weeks of construction to build and only a split second to destroy. My Oupa helped me build and cover the model in the fragile tissue and dope covering after which it looked just like the picture on the box! I couldn't stop going back to the garage to stare it for hours on end each night before bed. Sunday finally came and it was off to our local flying field for the maiden flight. We hooked up a tow line and let her rip, my mate running as fast as his little legs could carry him with towline in hand. As my labour of love got to about 200ft the aircraft banked to the side in what I would soon learn is known as a "lockout" in towing terms. My once majestically lofting model suddenly tilted over on a knife edge bank still attached to the towline and speared into the turf at a hundred miles an hour, leaving nothing but balsa splinters and tiny fragments of tissue paper in what looked like a miniature disaster scene. However those few seconds of flight I witnessed had me hooked and I was soon building my next model aircraft determined to taste sweet success.
Since that fateful day and I have designed, built and flown a great number of powered and unpowered r/c aircraft, and this exposure to modeling aviation was to shape my future for many years to come. I studied hard at school wanting to become a fighter pilot when I came of age and joined the Australian Air Cadets which was an after school program run by the Australian Defense Force. By the time I reached my late teens I understood the physics of flight intimately, was already designing my own wing profiles for 1/4 size radio controlled aircraft, and had some limited full size light-aircraft experience thanks to the Air Cadets, so some might say I was a "shoe in" for the RAAF. Unfortunately this was not to be due a turbid family life seeing me homeless by age 16. I lived in a 13ft bondwood boat for quite sometime using my meager $20.00 a week milk run wages to buy the bare essentials. For a longtime any dreams of being a pilot were dashed in the wake of more important things.. Survival!
My dreams of flying were to manifest again in my 20's as I got on top of things, started living life for all it was worth and enjoying every minute of it! Soon I was sky diving, training for my hang gliders license, designing and building new large scale model aircraft, in fact doing anything that involved flying. Being in the air made me happy, relaxed and I felt in control of my immediate destiny for the first time in a longtime.
My first exposure to paragliding was on a tandem flight from Tamborine Mountain in Queensland Australia not so long ago. This almost spiritual experience was to change me forever as I had finally found what I had been searching for... EXACTLY what I had been searching for! Paragliding now plays an important role in my life and will continue to do so until I am old and grey. For me it embodies freedom, promotes self control, and eases the stress of everyday life the moment your feet leave the ground. There is no better feeling!
About Timbo (Tim Ng)
I have always approached paragliding more as a sport rather than a pastime, probably due to the thriving sport culture in Australia. Growing up in Brisbane, Queensland, sport has always played an important role in my life, teaching many values such as teamwork, friendship, confidence and competitiveness. In my pre-teens I sampled a rather large range of games, actively participating in cricket, football (all codes), basketball, swimming and tennis. Slowly narrowing down my selection, I eventually found that tennis would be the sport that I would spend the most time trying to master.
After graduating from high school, my attention drew away from active sports to cyber sports, spending most of my time in front of the computer playing either Counter-Strike or WoW. Living this lifestyle for about a year resulted in a dramatic increase in weight jumping to as high as 125kg. Finally deciding that enough was enough, I looked for a simple way to introduce more exercise into my life. Walking was the key for me. Walking to and from work everyday combined with portioned dieting, helped me shave off about 40kg =). But just walking as your primary source of exercise gets pretty boring after a while, so I tried to get back into some sports again.
Tennis seemed like the way to go because of my previously high interest in the past, it was free to play and you only had to have a few playing partners to get some decent court time, but my passion for tennis wasn’t what it used to be. Motivation waning, I thought to myself “I have to find a sport I can get motivated to play” and so began my search.
A year went by and still wasn’t regularly playing any sport until one night at Sean’s place; we watched a film called Never Ending Thermal and I have to say that watching that movie was the hook-point for me, my search was over, my new sport would be paragliding. Free flight was all I could think about during the day and all I would dream about at night. I had to get up into the air, so Sean and I traveled up to the Sunshine Coast to try a tandem flight. An overwhelming sense of freedom is the best I can describe it. It was a day I’ll never forget.
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