Slope landing at Dungiven.

I got a phone call from Bertie this afternoon asking "are you coming out?"

A few frantic phone calls to the missus and work to make sure I wasn't needed for a few hours and I was ready to go. We thought we would give Dungiven a try and see how it goes. While on the way there it looked like there was no wind at all. Another CP student rang Bertie en route to say he was heading down as well.

Waiting for the wind at Dungiven

Got to the site and there were other pilots about but no-one was flying due to lack of wind. Along with the usual horse play when there is no flying, a couple of pilots were gloating about being right out over the town earlier in the day

By the time I got set up, the other student had arrived and I had got my daily checks done the wind had picked up to just about soar-able levels almost directly onto the hill.
The other student went first and was bearly managing to soar and ended by just getting enough height for a slope landing.

I went up next, and the wind picked up a little for me, I managed to soar for a while, then the instructor got on the radio and got me to fly out from the hill to perform an asymmetric collapse. This is where you reach up and grab a A line on one side and pull it until the canopy collapses (or tucks). This is a bit scary because the glider begins turning towards the collapsed side as well as banking. When I performed this maneuver I didn’t need to wait until my instructor told me to let go of the line, I had automatically let go. The glider almost immediately recovered by re-inflating the collapsed part of the wing, and I quite impressively remembered that I am to keep my “hands up” (i.e. do not pull on the controls) and let the glider settle before pointing the paraglider where I want to go next, which was back at the hill for more soaring fun.

A bit more soaring later and Bertie asked me back to the hill for my first slope landing. Wow I can run fast if I have to. A slope landing is across wind and because of this the ground speed is much faster, however, I managed to land and collapse the canopy in an acceptable manner. Yes!!!

So now I can soar, top land, slope land (well I did it once, no reason to think I can’t do it again) and not soil my underwear when the canopy tucks and recovers..... next stop may well be the site I now want to fly the most.....Magilligan, back to where this all started.

Unfortunately the weather forecast isn’t looking good for the coming week (what is left of Hurricane Katia is on it’s way to Ireland, Scotland and Northern England.

On the way home Bertie pointed out that I got a mention in Skywings magazine (the BHPA member's monthly magazine) which was his doing:

More First Flights. Ian Fraser (that is me that is) recently gained his EP qualification in record time (for Northern Ireland) with First Flight Paragliding. Thanks are due to some co-operative weather, and encouragement from Ian's wife, reported to have said she has never seen him so enthusiastic about anything.

 So you heard it here first folks, an Englishman breaking Northern Ireland records. I do suspect that if this is really a record it wont be long before it is broken.

When to not fly

We were out training at Big Collin Mountain again today. There were a few other (qualified) pilots there and it is always nice to see other people about when training. I have mentioned previously what a pleasant and approachable bunch they are. There is also plenty of friendly banter (or craic) and often encouragement.

I managed a flight from the top with an accurate landing next to the wind sock. Climbed back up the hill for another go, but by the time I got my breath back the conditions had become too gusty. This is an important lesson right here. Even if you have climbed to the top of the hill and put significant effort doing it, you should only fly when the conditions are suitable. I unfortunately had to pack away my wing, even though I was raring to go for another flight (second flight of the day always seems more exciting than the first to me because the first seems to clear the cobwebs from your mind). Even though other pilots were still flying, you have to remember that they have been doing it longer than you. I comfort myself in the confidence I have built up from the ever increasing height and distance that my flights have given me. It would be a shame to rock that confidence prematurely with what my instructor calls a "roller-coaster ride." Besides anything else, if an instructor with 20 years paragliding experience behind him says it is too gusty for you, then it is "TOO GUSTY FOR YOU."

This reminds me of some wise advice:

It is better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.

Although I only got one flight in, I hand made enough (including previous outings) spot landings to sign that off as a task on my way to my club pilot qualification. I also got reverse launches signed off.

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.

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. 

My First days training

Big Collin Mountain near BallyClare

The Thursday after Easter was a lovely sunny day and I was glad I had put my sunscreen on. I phoned Bertie (Chief flying instructor for First Flight Paragliding) about 9.30 am that morning and he asked me to meet him just up the road from where we both live so I could follow him to the training site (as my local geography knowledge is rubbish). I followed him out to the other side of Ballyclare.

When we arrived, there was already another pilot there, it seems they always fly in at least twos because generally paragliding takes place in isolated areas, if you twist an ankle on uneven ground (or something worse befalls you),  you are a good distance away from anyone to help you. After some necessary paperwork, you have to join the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (BHPA) for insurance reasons, and you have to sign a form stating that you are not suffering from any heart problems, etc.

We started by putting up wind socks, then Bertie found me a helmet and a pair of gloves, then a glider and harness for my weight range (they look like a large rucksack when packed away). On a gentle slope  We learnt and practiced parachute landing falls (PLFs) Bertie talked me through the process of unpacking the glider and checking the harness, lines and canopy (called a "daily inspection"). This seemed like laborious work, but Bertie soon had my interest by explaining why and recounting the close shaves of others that had let this important part of checking their kit lapse.

Bertie demonstrated a forward (alpine) launch, at this point we were only trying to get the wing up and over our heads and keep it there. This is a lot harder than Bertie made it seem. When it was my turn I made a complete hash of things, but reassured that this is normal I persevered and fortunately so did Bertie. There is initially something alien about trying to control the wing and not looking at it (you must look where you are going, not up otherwise you'll end up with your foot in a rabbit hole). The wind picked up a bit and fortunately so because I simply wasn't getting the hang of the forward launch. So we switched to reverse launches. This involved trying to get the wing above your head while facing it, this allows you to see what is going on and make adjustments to the wing with the inputs (also known as brakes or controls). This sounds easier, but it wasn't for me, I simply could not get the hang of pulling the correct control when facing the wing, it just seemed wrong to pull the control in your left hand when the left side of the wing was going down.

We spent most to the rest of the day ground handling. And then in the late afternoon it was time to have a short hop off the hill, just to get your feet of the ground for a few seconds. You get fitted with a radio so the instructor can give you instructions and while you get the paraglider fully inflated above your head and run down a slope until you get to the bottom, or the wing lifts you off the ground.

On my first attempt I did more or less run down the slope to the bottom and only managed to fly about  15 feet in distance (probably only four feet of the ground). Bertie was on the radio encouraging me to run and then to collapse the canopy once I had landed. Bertie asked if I felt up to having another go a bit higher up the slope. So I gathered up the glider and walked back up the slope. This time I managed maybe 30 feet in distance. When I landed this time there was no mention of flying again over the radio, so I optimistically gathered the glider up again and set off up the hill to a higher position than before. To my delight Bertie directed me even further up the hill facing a slightly different direction. Bertie explained that this will be the last flight of the day because I would be tired both physically and mentally, and that goes against a safe environment.

My last flight of the day was over 100 feet in distance and probably closer to 150 feet. We then went through the process of how to fold a paraglider away.

I left the training site with a stupid grin and that night I dreamt with my feet off the ground :)