About Tandem Utah
Tandem Utah is the only paragliding company in Utah that is 100 percent focused on providing tandem paragliding flights. Tandem Utah is a group of professional pilots that are dedicated to providing safe, enjoyable, and memorable flights day in and day out. Tandem Utah has been living up to this mission since 2007 and continues to enjoy a perfect safety record to this day. When you hire Tandem Utah you are hiring the best pilots that Utah has to offer, and you can rest assure that you will have a safe and enjoyable experience every time.
Below you will find an introduction to some of the pilots who work with Tandem Utah. Many of our pilots own and operate their own paragliding schools and teach people from the ground up to be fully rated pilots. All our pilots are United States Paragliding and Hangliding Association advanced rated tandem paragliding instructors.
Mike Semanoff Mike operates a non-profit company called Inspiration RX. He started Inspiration RX to boost the morale of disabled veterans and the children of fallen soldiers by providing them the opportunity to skydive, paraglide, or experience other exciting activities that inspire them to live. |
Justin Brim
|
Blake Pelton |
Billy Purden (flying California for the summer) Billy is living the dream, with the northside flight park literally being the backyard of his house. When he is not flying, boarding or biking you will find him creating tie dyes, such as his paraglider tie dye shirts, blowing glass in his studio or playing ball with his dog blu. |
Justin Brim has grown up around aviation his whole life. From the early years as a rug rat running around skydiving drop zones to flying around in Cessnas, Metros, and Dash-8’s with his commercial airline pilot father, flying was destined to be a part of his life. Justin and his father took their first lesson paragliding in 2004 and the hook was set. Since then, Justin has made a life revolving around the art of paragliding. Fast forward 10 years and flying tandems, teaching, and founding a company which designs and manufactures towing equipment for hang gliders and paragliders just became the natural course. On any given day, you can find Justin and his wife Becky taking turns flying at the Point of the Mountain flight park while their daughter Bella Brim, the next aviator in the family, enjoys the wind, sun, and warmth that comes from a raising a child in a family that chases their dreams.
Blake Pelton has been flying things made of nylon since 1984. As a child he was enthralled with designing, building and flying kites of all shapes and sizes. As a young adult he made ram air traction kite design his career. Living his life as a full-time wind junkie, paragliding was always on his radar. It wasn't long before Blake would eat, sleep and breath paragliding 24/7. Living on Colorado's Eastern Slope flying opportunities at home were sparse. So, Blake spent a few years traveling the world chasing down world class flying sites. He found himself spending much of each summer at Point of the Mountain in Draper Utah. In 2012, he and his wife decided to move to the famous paragliding destination where he now flies full time. 
Billy Purden was obsessed with the thought of flying before he could walk, he first started paragliding in 2000, when coming home from wakeboarding he saw paragliders at the point of the mountain. Exiting the freeway immediately he met Dexter Clearwater and Josh Waldrop with cloud 9 and started lessons the next morning at 7am. He became a tandem pilot in 2003 and has flown well over 1,000 people. HT has logged hours all over the US, Canada, Mexico, Africa, Spain, the Dominican republic and South America. He has competed several years in cross country competitions and has flown as an Air Marshall in the PWC Pre-world's Competition. Billy is an avid acrobatic pilot and you will regularly see him spiraling, spinning and looping around the sky, you will know it is him by his loud hooting and hollering. 