LEGACY PILOT NO

15 REBECA PERREN

LEGACY PILOT #

15

WING

INDEPENDENCE GARUDA

REBORN AS

IN-FLIGHT SIDEKICK

FAVORITE/HOME FLYING SITE

TORREY PINES GLIDERPORT

YEARS FLOWN

2016

OTHER SITES FLOWN

N/A

PILOT QUOTE

For a wing that represents a second chapter in my own life, that feels especially fitting.

/ THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

THE EPIC FLIGHTS

/ THE INTERVIEW

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Every wing has a story. We sat down with the pilot to capture the moments, the conditions, and the decisions that shaped this canopy's life in the sky.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE FLIGHT

I don’t know that I have one specific favorite flight on this wing. What I remember most is what the wing represented: my return to flight.

I started paragliding at Torrey Pines in 2016 after more than a decade away from the sky. I didn’t fly this particular wing for very long, but it was part of those early days when I was rediscovering something that had once been a huge part of my life, while learning an entirely new way to fly.

I eventually went on to earn my P4 Advanced rating and have had countless adventures on other wings, but this one will always be part of where that second chapter began.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SEND YOUR WING OFF FOR A NEW LIFE?

It feels very full-circle. This wing helped me start a new chapter in my own life, so I love that it gets to have another life too.

After I moved on from it, I donated it to the school at Torrey rather than letting it sit unused. Now, instead of eventually becoming waste, pieces of it will continue on in an entirely different form. There is something pretty special about that.

DO YOU FEEL MORE CONNECTED TO THE PLANET BECAUSE OF FLYING?

Absolutely 100%. Paragliding makes you incredibly aware of the natural world because you aren’t simply moving through it; you are working with it. The wind, terrain, sun, clouds, thermals, seasons, and even subtle changes in the air become things you pay attention to.

I’ve also always been deeply inspired by birds. There’s something humbling about watching them move through the sky with such efficiency and grace, reading the air instinctively. In many ways, I feel like paragliding is a constant lesson in trying to understand what they already know. I find myself learning from them every time I fly—how they bank into lift, how they adjust effortlessly to changing conditions, how they seem to belong in the air in a way we’re always just trying to catch up to.

There is something remarkable about being high above the landscape with no engine and realizing that the energy keeping you there came from the sun heating the earth beneath you. It’s difficult not to feel connected to the planet when you experience it that way.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THE PERSON WHO ENDS UP WEARING A PIECE OF YOUR STORY?

You’re carrying a little piece of the wing that helped bring me back to the sky after more than a decade away.

I hope you take it somewhere interesting, do something that scares you just a little, stay curious, and collect some great stories of your own.

And if you ever find yourself looking up at a paraglider—or watching a bird circle effortlessly overhead—and wondering what it would feel like to be up there, I can tell you: it’s worth finding out.

WHAT'S ONE WORD YOU'D USE TO DESCRIBE YOUR GLIDER AND WHY?

Comeback.

I had been away from flying for more than a decade when I discovered paragliding. This wing was part of my return to the sky.

I didn’t fly it for very long, and it isn’t the wing on which I had my biggest adventures. Its importance is much simpler: it helped me get back into the air.

IN THE AIR I FEEL....

myself

WHAT FIRST DREW YOU TO FLYING?

Flying fascinated me long before I ever actually flew. As a child, I was obsessed with birds. I remember swimming in our backyard pool and pretending I was flying, imagining that I was a bird moving through the sky rather than a kid moving through the water. That fascination with flight never really left me.

I started skydiving at 18 and immediately felt like I had found my calling. I went on to make more than 1,200 jumps. I became deeply involved in both the sport and the industry, including doing marketing work for Performance Designs, a parachute manufacturer, and several drop zones.

When I had children, I stepped away from skydiving and, without really realizing it at the time, from flying altogether. More than a decade passed before I found my way back to the sky through paragliding at Torrey Pines.

Paragliding became my comeback to flight, but it also felt like a return to that childhood fascination with birds. I already knew how much I loved being in the air, but this was an entirely different relationship with flight. Skydiving had taught me to love the air; paragliding taught me how to stay there. I had to become a beginner again, learning to read the air and understand lift in an entirely new way.

Perhaps that is what captivated me most. Paragliding felt closer to the kind of flight I had imagined as a child in that backyard pool. I wasn’t just passing through the sky anymore. I could circle in rising air, follow lift, and try to read the same invisible landscape that birds navigate so naturally.

This wing was part of that return. It helped bring me back into the sky, and now, nearly a decade later, I’m still flying and still love it.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO DONATE YOUR WING TO OUTSPIREX?

I originally donated this wing to the school at Torrey after I stopped flying it, because I wanted it to keep being useful rather than sitting unused. I love that it now gets another chapter through OutspireX. A paraglider is an extraordinary piece of material and engineering. It seems a shame for all of that fabric, and all of the memories attached to it, to become waste.

There is also something especially fitting about this particular wing being given another life. It was part of my own second chapter in flight, and now it gets another chapter of its own <3

WHAT DO YOU HOPE YOUR WING INSPIRES?

I hope it inspires someone to begin, or begin again.

Paragliding showed me that walking away from something doesn’t necessarily mean that part of you is gone. Sometimes you find your way back to it in a form you never expected—and sometimes that new form gives you an entirely different way of seeing the world around you.

DO YOU HAVE ADVICE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF ADVENTURE SEEKERS?

Stay curious. Respect the risks, learn from people with more experience than you, and never let experience convince you that you have nothing left to learn.

And pay attention to the world around you. Some of the best teachers aren’t people. In paragliding, I’ve learned an enormous amount simply by watching birds and paying attention to what the air, terrain, and weather are telling me.

Don’t be afraid to become a beginner again. And don’t assume that because you stepped away from something you loved, that chapter is necessarily over.

Some of the best adventures begin when you find your way back.

BEFORE THE CANOPY WAS UPCYCLED

/ WING SPECS

WING

INDEPENDENCE GARUDA

COLORWAY

RED/BLACK/WHITE/GREY

YEARS FLOWN

2016

OUTSPIREX DROP #

/ MADE FROM THIS WING

THE WING TRANSFORMED

THIS GLIDER AVOIDED THE LANDFILL AND BECAME PART OF A MOVEMENT.