Last big ESP club meet of 2007 - Morrone near Braemar
December 9, 2007 on 7:24 pm | In Paragliding | No Comments
The last big club meet of 2007 For East Scotland Paragliding was planned to also be the first club day at a new site, one which only Duncan Booth, who had re-trained with me back in 2003, had flown before. Another re-training pilot Ian Archer, had arranged access with his friends at the estate as well as a second 4×4. The logistics of getting all the pilot members & students, plus all the equipment, including a couple of tandems (to cover the weight range) as well as the folk from the estate who would be flying with me make the logistics a VITAL part of any good club day! With ten years of running the club and providing training to pilots this is a well practiced fine art for me! The common additional problem this day being getting pilots from all over Scotland to the location at the same time, as despite the name of East Scotland Paragliding club we are attracting pilots from all over Scotland not to mention a few from England & Wales! As it ended up we had (after a
LOT of time on the mobile over a couple of days!) in the end just two ‘up-lifts’ needed, and with a 20 min drive up that was just as well, the second near midday for those with family commitments in the morning!
Picture: Just a few of the pilot members, students & friends out to enjoy the sunny winter flying.
With the MET office aviation weather & enough A4 maps printed (Memory Map) of the flying site, it was time for me to do a quick, top landing, solo site/wind/lift check on Nova Vertex then the final site brief/discussion. The ‘top’ LZ was set to enable all the pilots to top land and keep the launch window clear, this LZ was in fact off to the left 200ft lower in a dip (col) in the ridge so even if the lift dropped/was flown out of, little to no vertical walking over snow would be required!
Picture: For those interested in the physics the top right image that looks like ‘left weight shifted’ in fact shows the white Vertex held in a RIGHT beat all the way along the ridge as I hold it in a “Vectored Side Slip”… this looks from the ground (I am told) “VERY weird” and rather proves some of the points I have been making for 10 years about standard PG theory!
Landing next the snow covered track meant pilots were back at the launch site by 4×4 under 5 minutes later so a LOT of flying with almost no sweat was the order of the day in mellow light lift until near sundown when the forecast conditions were due to start to pick up.
As this was a new site a number of the students each did a short tandem flight prior to soloing flying their own equipment, Alan and Duncan were away then Jonathan, who is still at the stage to need the odd radio instruction followed, but took one beat too many deciding to “turn in lift”, which he did.. but promptly flew out of…. Giving him about his only (modest) ‘hike’ up… assisted by yours truly, having brought the retrieve vehicle down jogged down the slope to carry then fly JR’s wing back up! Meantime Nairn was again showing just how far he had progressed in his re-training, it appeared he was only going to land if he got cold!
During the day between checking students per-launch/reviewing flights, the folk from the estate were flying tandem with me, all as ‘first timers’. Barry’s two sons, first Ryan with two 15-20 minutes flights on the Dual Controls of G-BZJI, then young Lee (aged 3!) on a Philou 29, rigged as a tandem and finally their dad Barry, who said he could hardly go home and say he had not flown when both the boys had!
As it got near dusk those with more flight time/experience were getting longer and higher flights but with the changing conditions it was time for another site/weather review. JR having had a fantastic day decided that it was time to stop, and would drive the pickup rather than tandem to the LZ (Thanks JR!) while both Alan & Duncan, having a lot of hours airtime, opted to fly north from the launch site towards Braemar before cutting SE around Morrone towards the parking area. Next away about quarter of an hour later, was Ian Archer who is very ‘current’ but has a lower total hours flight time than Alan & Duncan, he took my advice and followed the simpler route downwind over the smooth rounded shape of the hill via the col which let him fly near the track all the way to land near those that had already bottom landed by the vehicles.
With the pilots on the ground taking advantage of the drive down the SE side of the hill in the two 4×4’s, I was off the ground for a quick beat to get just enough height in the now strong conditions to clear the ridge and carve downwind, with Nairn several hundred feet above the hill top just waiting for me ready to ‘convoy’ for his first ‘over the back’ LZ flight… Immediately I went to full speed bar and then with the back of the hill smoothly dropping away below me into the valley 2km downwind it was ‘Bar & Big Ears’ punching both well ahead & below to asses the conditions/landing options. This was going to be a guaranteed way of meeting wind shear where the prevailing NW wind would rub against the light valley wind above the LZ… and it did! Prompted a ‘interesting’ Acro show from the Vertex, with I am told those several 100 feet below at the vehicles having a good view of the top of my wing a few times! Nairn having plenty of spare height with at least 1,500ft above the valley floor and following my radio instructions passed high over the valley at it’s broadest point, and then it was a case of him spending time doing smooth 360* to the right & left to ‘burn’ altitude, showing just how efficient his Skywalk wing is by gaining height again at one point when he let the Ear’s out! Big Ears back in it was down to a couple of 100 ft on the far side of the valley then head back across the river to land about 15 minutes later within 20 feet of my touch down! A cracking landing to end a fantastic day, Nair is clearly another one of the rising stars of the club, rapidly building the hours and site experience so I expect it will not be long before he catches up with Alan who has done almost 100 hours since starting re-training in late November last year.
Murray Hay
http://www.paraglidingscotland.co.uk
Born in Kenya from Scottish parents, 'full time' job is commercial photography but the last ten years has seen me fly over 3,000 hours, paragliding all over Scotland!
