After being convinced to brave a fairly dubious weather forecast, I headed down to Buttermere in Cumbria for the Lakes Charity Classic.
Gerald was already there, installed beside the Pennine boys and Chris Booth.
Friday dawned with driving rain and horribleness, but we decamped to the coast where it was dry, and had a rather strong wind flight at Whitehaven. On the task that was set for the A comp, I chose not to fly out to the St Abbs headland due to the advancing whitecaps on the sea. A good choice, since one bloke ended up piling in on his reserve into the cliffs and got a free helicopter ride to hospital courtesy of a handy RN Sea King.
Saturday was a short (again strong wind) flight from Swinside back to the head of the Buttermere valley. Flying around the hills really brought home how the Lakes are a 2/3 scale version of Scotland, with smaller lumps and transitions. Unfortunately the B comp and coaching group couldn’t get flying on the Saturday.
After being warned not to land at the campsite due to turbulence and switching winds, one low airtime pilot chose to do exactly that on Saturday evening, and became the second person to get a free helicopter ride, proving yet again that humans don't bounce well when you drop them from 50ft.
As part of the Saturday evening entertainment, several acro pilots were persuaded to fly down on speed wings - it looked very rough and deeply unpleasant for all concerned. A final bit of drama ensued when one of them got dumped at high speed into the tents and campervans. She should by rights be dead after that impact, but managed to hit a tent/awning that acted like a giant airbag and walked away from it leaving only a damaged tent and dented vehicle. Horrible to watch. So the entertainment value was reduced a bit as we just wanted to see these folk back on the ground in one piece.
In the best traditions of a paragliding event though, nobody let the traumas dampen the spirits, and the partying kicked off in full swing on Saturday night.
So overall, 2 in hospital, another used up a lifetime's luck in one day, good flying, good food, good beer, good mates, questionable loud music and well-used wellies.
Just a normal weekend really.
I uploaded Saturday’s short but sweet tracklog to http://www.doarama.com/view/337905 - it seems to work best with Google Chome as a browser.
Derek
