More details

Here are some
more details then....

I'd been flying above the ridge for about 40mins and was getting pretty high. Suddenly the
wind picked up and I was flying backwards. I had no speed bar system fitted
so I tried pulling down o. The a risers. But was still going backwards.

Next I tried big ears but by now I was behind the ridge in rotar and coming down

all I could do was try to stay out of the bad rotar and get on the ground
but there was only one small patch to land in and it had 3 trees in the middle of it

I managed to land on the ground but the wing got tangled in the trees.

After About 40 mins of tryo g to get it out a local guy turned up with achainsaw

Trees

Had great 40 min soaring flight this morning


However..... Wind then got up and I was dragged over the back of the hill


In the end I managed to land on the only patch of flat land but unforynately my wing had other ideas...

An hour later, and 3 less trees in the world -thanks to the land owner and his chainsaw and I have survived another adventure

Tuesday

Tuesday was flyable, but the wind was moving around all over the place.

We went to a site called 'sedgefield' for the morning. Awesome views from the top of the hill of the bay in front then the indian ocean.

Got 2 flights in there, but not much soaring - the wind just wasn't strong enough coming up the hill most of the time, though a few people did manage a top landing.

We then grabbed some lunch and headed back the the Map of Africa site but it wasn't great conditions either, however I did manage to get one quick top to bottom flight in.

More cool was the 7 Southern Right whales we saw. They were all playing with each other near the beach for at least 30 mins.

We then decided to hit the town for cocktail hour... which sort of extended into a pissup...

I woke up lying in a field at 6.30am....

When I got back to the house, I went straight to my bed and slept for the next 24 hours.. missing wednesday completely... thankfully I didn't miss anything as it wasn't flyable.

Tests

Pissing down rain and blowing a gale today - so a day for the theory.

Today I learned stuff like what can fly:

- birds

- planes

- paragliders

- witches

- little stones

I believe I am well on the way to my south african pilot license.

I also hired a quality ching Deathmaster car for the 2 weeks - bargain at 10 quid a day. It has seats and everything.

First videoed flight and landing - Map of Africa

Hill launch followed by 15-20 mins of soaring the cliff wall above the road, then landing on the beach. sweet. This was my second flight of the day (and second free flight in nearly 10 years). Also the first 2 flights on my Ozone Geo light weight mountain glider which flew really nicely too. Hill is 'Map of Africa'. Landed on the beach ok right next to car to go back up again!

Next launch went fine though

Just to prove I'm not a total muppet, the next one went fine.

How not to launch a paraglider

Ok, here's the video.

Basically a reverse inflation, but when I turned round I screwed it up and didn't get on the left brake quick enough. The result was that the glider started moving to the right. Not usually a problem... however more of a problem when there is a bloke in front of you to the right also about to launch his glider....

My muppet like brain decided that the best thing to do under the circumstances was not to abort the launch.. oh no... I decided that the best thing to do was to continue, leap over the bloke's lines trying to launch, then try to straighten out the wing and take off....

Somehow I actually did manage to jump over all his lines, much to his surprise.. however by the time I landed the wing had collapsed.

Moral of this story: god knows - my brain makes these decisions with no active input from me... so if it happens again, so be it !

Serf Africa - oct 2009 the return!

Well, I'm here! Arrived late sat night in joburg feeling pretty much worse for wear after taking advantage of the free BA booze a bit too much... well 6 miniatures, 5 bottles of wine and a beer.

I think it was a bad beer.

Arrived in George at 2pm, got to Wilderness at 3pm, and was airborne at 4pm!!

Didn't video first flight, but did the second and will post some video tomorrow from a faster connection.

Managed to persuade Jan and Kobi that I could control my glider and they were happy for me to go for a flight.

Ozone Geo flew well - got a decent amount of life and ridge soared for a while before landing on the beach.

Then went up for another flight.

Had a wee mishap that time, as there were a few folk on the hill and I had to jump over one of them... cough... video to follow.

For now, here is a picture from the top of the hill.

Airvault, France

I was just over at Airvault in France weekend before last - first time flying my new PAP paramotor, and fiirst flight since my knee op back in April.

Great flights, and one perfect one flying in/round/through clouds which was awesome.

here's a pic