Flight

Most of the hangies arrived around 10-ish to find a light NW wind and the hill shrouded in fog. But we rigged and waited for it to clear, which it did by about 11:30-ish. Then within a few minutes there was an impenetrable wall of paragliders scratching the ridge in front of take off, between 50ft below and 150ft above. Only Luke and JamesG were brave enough to take off, with help from SteveP keeping the space in front of launch clear for a few minutes. Within a couple of beats, Luke had dodged and climbed above all the PGs on his VR. I knew that if I could just take off and dodge PGs for a couple of beats myself, I'd be up there too but I didn't have the confidence to launch and play dodgems. So the rest of us hangies retired to the pub for hot drinks, hoping the wind would pick up enough to ground some of the paragliders or at least give them enough height to make room for us to launch.

When we came back out the conditions hadn't changed but Luke (and SteveP?) asked the PGs to make room for us to launch for a while. Which they did most graciously so that within a few minutes enough had landed to make room and the rest of the hangies all took off at about 2:00-ish. We should have asked earlier! It was very smooth to start with and easy enough to stay up. I topped out at just over 600ft ATO just flying slow and making flat S-turns in any scraps of lift.  Luke and I on our VRs flew 3/4 of the way to Truleigh and back. There was light rain for a few minutes but it soon passed. The air was a bit more choppy after the rain but not properly rough and we all had a good time boating about for an hour or so before landing at about 3:00ish, in time to derig before dark. Then some of us retired again to the pub for hot drinks before going home.