| Flight details: | Laying in bed without many thoughts to disturb the peace my phone went and it was Luke wondering whether to go to the Dyke or to Firle. After seeing the south east in doldrums on RASP the day before I had not thought to go flying so the question was a jolt to the system.
On my way out I visited Firle but soon felt that it was not where I wanted to be so drove on to the Dyke where I had heard there was a gathering on pilots on a scale not present at Firle. Sure enough they were everywhere.
Taking my time to rig as it was very light, I got easily but pleasurably distracted with chatting here and there to my pilot friends only eventually finding that I was ready to go. We all lined up at the edge of the paddock and waited for some sign of lift.
People started to launch and then I found my laces were undone !! everyone was getting off quickly now - and I mean everyone - I was terrified that I would miss the chance and called out frantically to a tourist to hold my nose wires so I could re-tie my lace - then after a wait for all the crossing paragliders traffic I too was finally off.
http://youtu.be/9hO_9my1k3c
What a beautiful day, the light in the autumn has a saturated textural quality because of how it strikes so obliquely. The clouds were forming strongly and well spaced coalescing into defined streets, lift was easy to find, although became broken and more difficult to follow the higher you got.
I had an interesting chat with Ozzie about my thermalling after him seeing my "video to self" on YouTube. It was great to have been able to do that, a validation of the process of making my videos. While thermalling this time I put into practice some of that advice and really feel within me that I am making progress. I felt it differently to other times and was able to slow and balance my glider better than before - but still not anywhere good enough yet... what a challenge to have though... in the scale of things to work on and improve, thermalling, has t |
