Geoff writes: a windy, but sunny day. Amazingly, Graeme flew his PG early on, well done to him! Dave T also flew later, and got reasonably high under a threatening sky – and the wind picked up massively in our garden just after he landed. The sun came out a bit later, but the wind also picked up more. Most of the day was devoted to more gardening (such is our life when it’s not flyable!), but we were hoping to fly and/or do archery later. So around 6 or so, we started to load up the car with everything – archery equipment, PG and HG stuff. Getting to the top of the Long Mynd, it was still very strong, too strong for PGs, so I rigged the hang glider. By the time I rigged it was dropping a little, but still strong, so I launched. At which point it dropped even more, I scratched around a bit, and managed to scrape back in on top.

In the meantime Mark H. had decided to get his PG ready, so I decided to fly the paraglider. I’ve been waiting for ages to test fly Judith’s harness, an Impress. She has got a new one, a very posh something or other. Looks a lot like the old one, but much more expensive, or would be if she hadn’t got a discount as her prize for the highest placed DHV1/2/EN B glider in the UK XC League. So we quickly set it up, went to the front, and I launched, kind of. Though the wind wasn’t that strong, I got hoofed off my feet, and straight up. It quickly became apparent that there was some wave around. I flew for a short while, the wind got stronger, the lift got stronger, and it was pretty rough. Could have been the harness, more likely it was the conditions. I tried and failed to top land, and eventually gave up, and decided to bottom land. All the while, it was very lifty and the wind was strong. I eventually tried one of the most extreme SIV maneuvers I do – big ears. So you could be sure I really didn’t like the conditions. Eventually, I did get to the bottom, but it took a while.

I’ll try the harness again, though – this was not ideal conditions at all!

See photos of today.

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