Passed EP exam, first soaring flight at Dungiven

Back to my Favourite training site so far, Dungiven. Bottom landings are so far away that you have to be picked up in a car, and you can park next to take off. This saves on much huffing and puffing climbing hills with harnesses and gliders attached to you.

When I arrived my Instructor was in the air, so I went and sat on the wall next to the 6 or so pilots that were chatting away. Friendly bunch and I was soon talking away and explaining how I got into the sport and a few of them remembered me from my tandem flight back in April. A while later my instructor landed and he got me to sit in my car (which was at the back of a load of parked cars, away from the noisy rabble of pilots and their horse play), to complete my examination paper.... 10 minutes later I had passed with full marks.

I was instantly congratulated by several pilots, and the weather seemed to be good enough for flying and another of Bertie's students had arrived, so we made our way out into the takeoff area to do a site assessment. The wind was a little stronger than last time I was here and it was directly onto the hill. I could see from the flying pilots' height that there was plenty of lift coming off the ridge. The other student went first, she took off and seemed to go straight up. After a short while she finished with a top landing.

Then came my turn, the training instructor had brought along a wing that he had for sale and he said that it might suit me. Try before you buy style, we laid it out and performed a daily inspection on it and it was practically brand new (apparently it had only ever been test flown).

The instructor went over the flight plan with me again, and it seemed to be the same (except with a bottom landing next to the wind sock) as the previous student's who was more experienced than me. I questioned him on this as it sounded like he wanted me to ridge soar, and he did.

At this point all I wanted to do was ridge soar, the act of staying aloft using a wind that is hitting a ridge and being deflected up provides lift. If the wind is strong enough this can be used to stay up as long as the weather persists in this condition. Hence the term free-flight (I like things that are free), and at my stage in training and having experienced it before on my first tandem paragliding flight, this is exactly what I am striving for.

So excitedly I got the wing above my head and took off, got instructions over the radio from Bertie to turn slightly into the ridge to the right of take off, and then told to turn around when I got so far along the ridge, and that was it, he didn't speak to me on the radio again until I landed about 10 minutes later. I was buzzing. I had taken off, gained height of a couple of hundred feet above take off and flown to and fro in the ridge lift, moved out of the ridge lift and burned off height with 'S' turns and landed close enough to the windsock that I could have spat on it. All with other pilots in the air with me (although they are smart enough to give me a wide berth, it didn't stop them shouting encouragement at me) I quizzed Bertie afterwards and he said that he didn't speak to me on the radio because I was doing fine.

Soaring: tick. Another land mark on my way to being a proficient pilot. 2 days before my fortnight's holiday. Happy days!

Completed EP tasks at Big Collin Mountain

In order to take my Elementary Pilot examination I needed to complete 3 successful flight plans, I already had one in the bag from Dungiven.

It was physically harder than thought, mainly because my flying has improved to the point that I am launching from the top of the hill at Big Collin mountain (nearly 200 feet above take off). As I am still doing top to bottom flights I have to gather up the rather heavy and awkward paraglider and walk back up to have another go. This leaves me with a need for at least a 5 minute breather at the top before I do anything constructive.

I managed to pull off 2 takeoff and landings that qualified for my last outstanding task. My instructor said I was ready for my exam, so the date was set for the following day, and maybe some flying as well if the weather was kind. So I went home, ran through a few subjects for revision and crossed my fingers.

600ft flight, Dungiven

This was an awesome day. With only one thing that I would have changed, one less thistle in the landing field. Bertie (my instructor) took me to a new site that overlooked the town of Dungiven. We stopped at the bottom of a steep road and climbed into a field which I was to land in, we surveyed the site from this angle and talked about the hazards (telegraph poles, power lines and stone walls), set up a wind sock and then set off up the hill road in the car.

Dungiven, 600 feet above the landing field.

At the top there was the view of the town of Dungiven below and mountains in the distance. I laid out the glider and did my daily inspection. Discussed my flight plan, by the time it came for me to attempt the flight the wind had moved from W to WNW, which was just about ok for me to fly. After one false start (make sure the glider is above your head before you stop leaning into the hardness) in a reverse launch I got the glider above my head and stable, so I turned and ran and ran, and ran (with the encouragement of Bertie, "run, run, run" on the radio). Eventually I took off (it seems there was a short lull in wind at the exact moment I decided to take off) and was happily flying according to my flight plan, got a few 180 degree turns in, and generally enjoyed myself.

After I had lost enough height I started my final approach to the landing field. I was aiming for landing on the wind sock, but as I was coming in, the landing slope seemed to be about the same gradient as my wing's glide angle and I just flew on and on past the wind sock with my boots about 8 feet of the ground. Eventually I realised that I need to do something so I slowly pulled the controls for a fairly gentle (if at a jogging pace) landing directly on top of a thistle. It went straight between my legs, spiking both as it passed. It wasn't yet time to cry though as I had to concentrate on collapsing the canopy in a controlled manner, and I sort of succeeded. I spent the next fifteen minutes alternating between packing the glider away and picking thorns out of my jeans.

Dungiven is a great site because if you land in the bottom field, some kindly soul will drive down and collect you. When Bertie picked me up I asked what height that was, so he got out a variometer (a device for measuring rates of lift and sink, plus it tells you your altitude) and reset it before we drove back up the hill, it turns out it was 600 feet!

After some messing with Google Earth (an invaluable tool for wannabe paraglider pilots' daydreaming I might add) I worked out that I would have flown over a mile in distance albeit repeatedly over the same area multiple times.


After this flight the wind moved around more to the north, rendering the site un-flyable (at least for me). At this point I would have called it a day and gone home, but my instructor had other ideas, we went to a private site called White mountain. Site familiarisation is a very important part of paragliding but unfortunately this is all the weather allowed me to do, then again the pain of not flying is dulled by views like these.

That is Lough Neagh in the distance

100 feet high

Big Collin Mountain

Same site as the previous day, but with bigger fish to fly.

Met around 11 am. You definitely can't over practice ground handling. The more time you can spend controlling something that could happily lift 8 times your weight if the wind is right (or do I mean wrong) the better. Thankfully your paragliding instructor wont let you out when there is that sort of wind about.

Another student joined us in the early afternoon. She was just finishing off her CP (Club Pilot) tasks before her exam and had previously been on two foreign paragliding training courses to get her to where she is in her the training.

View of Lough Neagh from Big Collin Mountain

We moved much further up the hill than yesterday, we were aiming for 100ft flights. We ran through a flight plan that would involve a few gentle turns and a landing near the wind sock. By the time I had done my preflight checks and gotten off the ground a couple of ramblers had come into view on the road at the bottom of the site and I actually flew right above their heads. One of the walkers was happy enough to take photographs of me as I flew maybe 20 feet above their heads, the other was a little less sure and performed what can best be described as a unsure shuffle left then right as he was trying to work out whether I was going to land on him, or in the field next to him. I am sure he was glad when I landed on the grass and collapsed the glider well away from him.

I got another 100 foot flight in (I am hoping I come across all casual about it now) which was more or less a straight top to bottom flight. It was then time for the other student to use the same kit as I had just used. As I watched her take off and perform many turns, then land a good way further out than my landing in the field. I asked my instructor about this and the chances of her catching thermals on her way down which is the only difference between this and my flight, and he just pointed out my wing loading talent was better then hers. I am starting to get a complex.

50 ft flights at Big Collin Mountain

I met my instructor at Big Collin Mountain with a student on a days taster course. We started with some parachute landing fall (PLF) practice. I think I did about 5, the other student struggled a bit, she couldn't seem to get the hang of rolling into it, so I got to see many a failed PLF before she finally "got it" and then, annoyingly, she was able to perform them as well as the instructor.

We took turns ground handling and this was interesting for me to watch someone who hasn't tried paragliding before struggling with it. She made all the mistakes I made and repeated them like I did, it is obvious that paragliding instructors need plenty of patience.

I got a flight in from a good way up the hill, then the other student got a go from much further down the hill. I asked my instructor (tongue in cheek) whether this was because of my superior talent, he just said I was higher up because of my superior wing loading talent. I wonder what he could have meant.


In total I got three fifty feet high flights. Although I had probably done fifty feet once before, it gave me a real sense of achievement and I felt my confidence grow with each flight.