A promising forecast. Thermals and light southerly breeze meant I sorted out a day off. School sports day in the morning. Paragliding in the afternoon. Sounded like a plan.
Not on the ball in the morning due to a morning out at the sports day meant i wasn't 1005 sure hwat was happening. Rob, Sean, Tommy and Dave were heading to Witchieknowe. Which sounded as good a place as any.
Picked Chris up at Samye Ling and happened to have a print out of the blacknowe head sites guide in the car. We were passing it on the way to witchieknowe so stopped at the bottom to check it out. Seemed on. So rather than heading to witchie we headed to blacknowe head to investigate it as I'd been up it once but not flown (bpcup) and Chris hadn't flown it either.
It's a big southerly face. had the sun on it and it was quite a light met wind.
Up we went. Bit of a slog but we made it up. Could see people flying at Witchie in the distance but we were here now so not worth the effort to head down and round.
Thermals were coming up the face quite nicely. not hugely strong but flyable.
Chris was off first. Straight into a thermal and got about 500ft up. Don't think his head was with it straight off and he didn't core it. he then flew about for a wee while exploring the ridge. I was on take off waiting for a breeze / thermal to appear as i had a wee faff while chris launched.
Got up and away eventually. Worked the ridge a bit but it wasn't a ballistic one like chris's first one. We both ended up slope landing.
Some kiting and groundhandling later the thermal cycles were back. We both had 4 or 5 little flights. 5 - 15 minutes. sometimes getting high and sometimes getting low. It's a cracking site and I'm very keen to try it again.
I managed to soar/ thermal up to the top of the hill but didn't get much higher. The thermals just didn't seem fully formed(?) and my thermalling is probably a tad rusty.
Chris flew down. I was planning on following but had some interesting wind directions while I was trying to launch. east. then West. then North West. At that point I stopped trying. Each launch attempt seemed to get a different piece of bracken tangled in the lines. So packed up (20 min of southerly breeze while I packed up and walked down.)
chips in the pub at ettrick bridge then home.
Some good practicing today. Just wish I'd managed to get a bit higher...
Jamie
