Wasted opportunity

I wasn't sure about the weather. I looked out of the window and on the weather sites and it looked like a maybe. Towards the end my day at work I sent a SMS message to see if my instructor was out and training but received no reply (this is common because if you are traipsing around a field you may not hear the phone and if you are already flying you definitely don't reply to a SMS).

When I finished work I thought I would go and potter around the garden for a bit doubtful that there would be any training now and if there was my instructor could always ring me or text me. Well he did call, several times but my phone wasn't in my pocket where I thought it was,  I had left my phone on my office desk, so I didn't hear it ringing it's little heart out.

By the time I had realised I was without phone, found it, cursed and rang the instructor back he was nearly home. I apologised and he explained that conditions were smooth light wind blowing onto the long slope facing the huge landing area. He also mentioned the phrases "perfect for you" and "I'll send the fire brigade out for you next time."

It is difficult to explain how frustrating this was without resorting to expletives, I just hope the memory of this wasted opportunity will make me ensure my phone is with me in future.

How to annoy your paragliding instructor.... not

At first I though my constant telephone calls to my flying instructor were simply annoying him but after a while I realised his responses were designed to make me think about the weather and the likelyhood of flying. Slowly I started putting together a list of what sites suited which wind direction.

My first port of call for weather details is the excellent XCWeather.co.uk. It isn't perfect (no weather site is until we can predict the weather with accuracy) but it does have a feature where you can put in the name of a town nearby the site you are thinking about flying and it will give you weather predictions for that small area

After a long break

The weather wasn’t kind, so it was a long time before I got any more training in. Things even got to the point where my instructor (Bertie) had sent me an email about the lack of flying days and being patient with the weather in Northern Ireland (imagine someone would move to a country with such bad weather!).

Bertie had given me a book to read while I was waiting on the weather to sort itself out. I read “Touching Cloudbase” by Ian Currer from cover to cover, at least once and have concentrated certain chapters that I was struggling to get the theory right on.

I got in one short Flight at a site called Skeagh and during the process I met two of Bertie's other students. The first was a Dutch guy who was very pleasant (but I have never met a Dutch person that isn't "dead on" as they say locally) and a very busy landscape gardener that unfortunately was booked solid until the August (at the time I was looking for someone to do a fair sized patio area). The second was a equally pleasant Polish guy who was more than happy to dispense friendly and constructive criticism on my attempts to get the wing above my head and to behave.

Skeagh, a pleasant side effect of Paragliding training is that you get views like this.

Unfortunately, later that day the Polish fellow landed his paraglider perfectly but tripped when he ran to get behind it (standard when controlling a wing in strong winds don't you know, see I am learning)  and dislocated his shoulder when he fell onto a very small mound. The instructor is trained in first aid, while he was attending to the injured party he suggested tucking the affected arm into the paraglider harness for support and while assisting this process (gently I must add) he felt a click and the patient felt all pain leave his shoulder. Despite this, the poor chap sent several hours in A & E later that day.

Bertie obviously detected my frustration where ground handling was involved and explained that it is just a case of sticking with it and the penny will drop. He went onto say that all pilots still spend time practicing ground handling whether they realise it or not. Ground handling a paraglider seemed to me to be the dark art of getting the wing to do what you want. There are a couple of things that you need to do that seems to go against the grain.

• Remember your left from right, so when the instructor gives you instructions you can carry them out quickly. This sounds daft, but as the excitement of getting the wing up off the ground hits you and you are trying for the 100th time not to let it crash back to the ground in an uncooperative heap you can’t always process instructions that quickly.
• When reverse launching (facing the glider) you need to remember that if you need to slow the left side of the glider (i.e. it is turning right) you need to pull the control that is in your right hand.
• Once the canopy is fully inflated above your head, you have to keep it there without looking at it, this means you have to learn to “feel” what is going on through the glider pulling on the harness.
• If the fully inflated canopy is pulling to left then step to the left, if it is pulling to the right step to the right. You basically need to stay underneath the centre of the canopy. This is one I had a lot of trouble with, it just seems wrong to allow this unwieldy thing to do what it wants so I was constantly pulling against the canopy, which made the glider end up as a messy heap on the ground.
• Persevere. There a lot of things to do all at once to get a paraglider to behave it’s self on the ground (fortunately things are easier once you have it in the air). Most to these things are not obvious, straight forward or intuitive.
• Don't get disheartened when the instructor demonstrates perfect control effortlessly. It can seem so effortlessly simple when someone shows you something that you have struggled with for hours.