BROOKHAVEN — A red, white and blue parawing nicknamed Daytona lifted up beyond the left field wall of Brookhaven High Schools baseball field on Drury Lane. David Young was practicing his handling of the parawing close to where The Dart landed Thursday. 

He is originally from St. Louis but his grandparents are from Brookhaven. A resident of Bogue Chitto, he was in town to take his mom to a doctor’s appointment. 

Young said he moved to Bogue Chitto in 2003 and washes windows in town. He is also an avid paramotor flyer. 

He explained parasailing is when you are pulled by a boat, paragliding is launching off of the ground and the paramotor is using a fan strapped to your back as a way to gain altitude. After his wife died from cancer in 2018, he found videos of people paramotoring and was curious about it. Two years ago he decided to pursue it. 

“I like to get up to 2,000 to 3,000 feet. I can see landmarks and you can feel yourself turning,” Young said. “I did have a situation where I needed an emergency landing. I was able to limp back to my takeoff area and land. Something broke off and caused prop damage and the fan was violently shaking. I was able to maintain control.” 

The man who trained him is from Louisiana. They both suffered an injury from paramotor flying. Young said he was taking off and something happened to his brake line causing his hand to go toward the propeller. He lost a little bit of the tip of his finger. His mentor lost more of his pinky in a similar accident a few months prior. 

Young said paramotoring is considered ultralight by the Federal Aviation Administration so he does not need a license. While he could take off from the field between Lipsey Middle School and Brookhaven High’s baseball field, he prefers to take off at the Lincoln County Airport. 

One of the reasons he likes the airport is the amount of options he has to land if he has problems there. His configuration is called a trike configuration and between the motor, parawing and training cost between $10,000 to $12,000. 

The paramotor typically cruises at speeds of 30 mph and up to 45 mph if there is a good tailwind. His flights typically last about 30 minutes to an hour.  

“It is fun if you are not scared of heights. It is the cheapest way to fly,” Young said. “You can actually fly for about 2 to 3 hours if you are conservative on fuel. I like sightseeing. It is mostly just farms and trees here but I would like to go to Mississippi’s gulf coast and fly there.” 

One of his favorite places to fly around here is along the Pearl River. Paramotoring eats up most of his time. 

Outside of flying and cleaning windows, he watches the St. Louis Blues in hockey and spends time in his shop at home. Woodworking and small engine repair are usually what he does in the shop. 

Before leaving St. Louis, he worked as a window washer on the skyscrapers there. There is no fear of heights in him as he said he started rock climbing and rappelling when he was 13. 

“We would rappel off of the roof in these chairs. We would then use a suction cup to hold on to the building and work our way down washing windows. When I was growing up my dad flew a small airplane too. I’ve always been around aviation and spending time away from the ground.”