What Hugh saw...

I was out for a walk late this afternoon at Beachy head and within the space of 10 minutes saw one pilot top land two metres away from a 3 year old and his family on the footpath (after nearly landing on another walker), then saw another pilot get a low collapse through poor pitch control / very old glider and get dragged, reserve out, across the top. Both were fine, and understood what had happened after talking to them, but this just wasn't the place to be practising low level soaring with so many walkers and young families around. Either incident could have been very serious. Honestly I was watching the 3 people flying just thinking, 'something is going to go very wrong here very soon' and I don't often think that... and it did. I think there needs to be an explicit rule around avoiding the footpath and definitely not landing on the shoulder to the right where the bench is, and often several people. Also, from what I saw today, maybe some pilots just don't get how quickly things can go wrong.... maybe more work needs to be done here. Or to spell it out YOU CAN'T SOAR A FEW FEET ABOVE WALKERS' HEADS. Happy to help if I can (think I'm still a club coach though may have lapsed). Hugh Miller, Copied from Facebook