Geoff writes: stunning XC sky, definitely a day for lots of paragliders doing 100km plus from the Long Mynd, except that for most of the day it was way too windy for them. I had a fun time on the hang glider.

Low down, it was fairly bumpy, with lots of very broken thermals. Every so often you would get a really strong thermal which overcame the met wind, and you screamed up. I didn’t bother going XC, but it was certainly possible, and easy to go on a hang glider. I’ve got a bit more nervous about landing out on the hang glider, having got used to the incredible easiness of landing out on a paraglider, where you can land it almost anywhere – whereas the hang glider, you need a nice flat field, preferably with no high crops in it and a clean approach.

One bit of excitement today was seeing a sailplane badly mess up his approach and crash by the road, fortunately with no injuries, except a written off glider. He was lucky there were no tourists around, and the two horses nearby weren’t spooked too much by it. It was quite dramatic.

After a couple of flights, and early evening, we decided not to bother waiting to fly the PGs, and went and did some shooting at the archery field.

Oh, and we were out a bit late today – a nearly four hour phone meeting for our next conference in the morning, which delayed us somewhat.

See photos of today.

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