We awoke to sunny skies so compared to the overcast weather of yesterday, today looked more promising for a good flight. I joked with Gans and Deano that I could smell something in the air. Gans immediately said "Excuse me" while Deano worried it was his armpits...no guys, I smell "epic-ness". Well, it turns out I have a poor sense of smell as the day was very stable with hardly any clouds forming. The sun was beating down but there was an obvious inversion layer and we were just below it. We hung out at camp and then at the alternate take off area, waiting for the conditions to improve. I was impressed with Gans’ patience as normally he just wants to huck off right away.
Many wings in the air (although you can barely see them in this photo!):
Eventually we took to the skies but it was a fairly uneventful flight of boating around and seeking what little lift there was. It got quite busy with paragliders along the ridge at times so you had to keep your head on a swivel, making sure you weren’t going to bump into anyone. I guess the flight wasn’t totally uneventful as about 10 minutes into it, I was about 50 meters above the ridge and let go of one of the brakes to press play on my iPod and suddenly the wing tip folded under and became a small cravat (this is a potentially dangerous situation where one or more of the lines go over the top of the wing and pull it down under load, misshaping the paraglider). I weight shifted a bit to the other side and then flew away from the mountain so I would have a lot of height to try and deal with it. In the end I just pumped the brake a few times pretty deeply and it popped out. Unfortunately after that I never did get above the ridge again. Some pics in flight:
My little cravat:
My rating of the cliff:
A little vid in flight:
And a spot landing!
After a post flight drink by the landing zone, Deano, Gans and I took the funiculaire back up to launch and walked to camp. We heard on the radio that Alex, Kes (who had just arrived from Annecy...he was one of the other Brits I hung out with in June) and a couple others were going for an early evening flight to do some SATs (an acrobatic manoeuvre). They weren’t able to launch as we watched a helicopter approach the takeoff and land briefly and then we saw some people scramble down the steep treed slope in front of the astro-turf (we were viewing from near our camp, about 600 meters away along a curved ridge). We found out from Alex that a speed glider (a small and fast type of paraglider) had botched a launch and gone into the bushes. Hopefully the guy’s alright.
Deano about to launch for an evening paramotor flight:
Kes joined us at our campsite later and it was good to see him again. He had helped me a fair bit with Betty issues earlier in the summer. That evening we sat around chatting and having a few drinks. We then ventured through some wet grassy fields to try and find “Fantastic Fred” and his crew, some guys that Kes had been flying with in Annecy. We eventually located them (after hopping a number of fences, scaring a herd of sheep and getting wet feet). Nice guys, good times and good laughs. This is going to be a very fun festival...
A little late night tomfoolery...
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