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!