A short look back at the first quarter of 2008
May 6, 2008 on 10:40 pm | In Paragliding |
Despite a weather imposed slow start to the flying year the club has, during Jan-April, seen members out flying in Scotland (and some ‘doon south’) on over fifty days so far, in addition to flying abroad, this year India has been added to the countries already flown by ESP club members.
With several 100 hours airtime safely flown already this year, despite the fairly few flying days we had in Jan/Feb, it is looking like this year could even exceed the exceptionally good year we had last year!
Over the next few months several members and associate members of the club are planning (or have already booked) more trips abroad, either as individuals or in small groups. As the returning pilots pass on photographs & stories on their return, for the clubs own blog I will post the ’highlights’ on this site.
On the training side: Several of the new students who are just entering the sport for the first time in 2008, are lady pilots, I hope with the continuing steady increase in pilot numbers, that over the next decade we will slowly see a better ballance in what is still at least in the UK, a male dominated sport.
In a sport that has the potential to have almost no accidents, provided the issues in training standards are addressed, I hope more and more individuals in the UK will take note of the standard the members & students display in the many 100’s of YouTube clips the club now has on-line, the last few years has seen an increase in information/advice requests coming from non-UK pilots also seeking to improve with re-training, the feedback from other countries showing that as has been the case often in the past Scotland easily leads the world in inovation and improvement, this time in aviation!
Any non-pilots reading the articles on this blog, and who are intrested in finding out more about the sport in Scotland are always welcome to phone to find out where we are flying and/or training on any day, and come out to meet the members and ‘pick their brains’ regarding both ’AB intro’ training and the re-training options for those already in the sport.
Murray Hay, 6th May 2008 (four days flying so far this month!)
Murray Hay
http://www.paraglidingscotland.co.uk
Born in Kenya from Scottish parents, 'full time' job is commercial photography but the last ten plus years has seen me fly well over 3,500 hours, paragliding all over Scotland!
