Although Dungiven is my favourite site so far for training, Magilliagan has to be seen to be believed. The photograph doesn't do it justice. 5 miles of golden sands and an amazing view of Donegal. Plus this is the site where I got my first taste of paragliding.
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| The view from take off, overlooking Magilligan point, NI. The mountains in the distance are on the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal, Ireland. |
When we arrived there were lots of other paragliders about. Unfortunately the conditions were too bumpy for me. So I encouraged my instructor to go up and have some fun (no point in both of us being grounded and miserable).
While I sat and chatted to the other pilots that were on the ground, there were a few passers by that stopped and came over for a look. One of them came up and started talking about getting into the sport. Phil (the guy that took me up on the tandem) had recently qualified as a paragliding instructor and was explaining what was involved in training and mentioned that I was training. A short while later the guy came up to me and said he was thinking about buying a wing and trying it himself.... on his own..... with no instructor. I explained that I didn't think that was a good idea, I can see that learning yourself could easily be a dangerous thing to do. It is fun, but boy you have to work at it and I think I would have given up a long time ago if it weren't for the support and encouragement of my instructor and to a lesser degree the other pilots.
After a while my instructor landed and he decided I haven't had enough of the training wing, so I spent an hour on it with me collapsing it in the instructor, myself and most parts of the hill I was running around on. I was getting better though. By this time most of the pilots had gone home but the wind had smoothed out.
Then my instructor decided conditions were probably good enough for a tandem flight. He often carries the club tandem wing and harnesses in his car, so I ran to the car to get the gear and we lugged it down to take off.
Having been briefed on what to do, the wing was inflated and up and I charged down the hill for a bit (the tandem passenger is at the front and does the running at take off) then left the ground, I then landed about 20 feet further down the hill and forged on until I ran out of field and for the first time take off was actually like running off a cliff. At the start the wing was way over to the left behind me, but I figured that the instructor can handle the wing, and would tell me if I needed to stop running.
So we got airborne. It was great, just like I remembered it, only with a lot less height so the water falls and fields of sheep were a good bit closer. We performed several beats back and forth along the cliffs but we were not getting much height, as we flew past the take off area it was obvious we were going to have to do a bottom landing. We landed in a large field full of cows, except the cows got spooked as we came into land (we were probably the biggest bird they have seen for a while) so they were well clear when we touched down. I completely misjudged the landing so I ended up on my front, with the instructor on top. We then phoned one of the other pilots and they kindly drove down to collected us while we packed the gear away.
While I sat and chatted to the other pilots that were on the ground, there were a few passers by that stopped and came over for a look. One of them came up and started talking about getting into the sport. Phil (the guy that took me up on the tandem) had recently qualified as a paragliding instructor and was explaining what was involved in training and mentioned that I was training. A short while later the guy came up to me and said he was thinking about buying a wing and trying it himself.... on his own..... with no instructor. I explained that I didn't think that was a good idea, I can see that learning yourself could easily be a dangerous thing to do. It is fun, but boy you have to work at it and I think I would have given up a long time ago if it weren't for the support and encouragement of my instructor and to a lesser degree the other pilots.
After a while my instructor landed and he decided I haven't had enough of the training wing, so I spent an hour on it with me collapsing it in the instructor, myself and most parts of the hill I was running around on. I was getting better though. By this time most of the pilots had gone home but the wind had smoothed out.
Then my instructor decided conditions were probably good enough for a tandem flight. He often carries the club tandem wing and harnesses in his car, so I ran to the car to get the gear and we lugged it down to take off.
Having been briefed on what to do, the wing was inflated and up and I charged down the hill for a bit (the tandem passenger is at the front and does the running at take off) then left the ground, I then landed about 20 feet further down the hill and forged on until I ran out of field and for the first time take off was actually like running off a cliff. At the start the wing was way over to the left behind me, but I figured that the instructor can handle the wing, and would tell me if I needed to stop running.
So we got airborne. It was great, just like I remembered it, only with a lot less height so the water falls and fields of sheep were a good bit closer. We performed several beats back and forth along the cliffs but we were not getting much height, as we flew past the take off area it was obvious we were going to have to do a bottom landing. We landed in a large field full of cows, except the cows got spooked as we came into land (we were probably the biggest bird they have seen for a while) so they were well clear when we touched down. I completely misjudged the landing so I ended up on my front, with the instructor on top. We then phoned one of the other pilots and they kindly drove down to collected us while we packed the gear away.
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