a paragliding blog

I saw Roger Federer on the TV the other day, explaining what it felt like to win his first Grand Slam. “Overwhelming relief. It doesn’t matter what else you do in your life, you’ve won a Slam”. Those words echoed my sentiments after I achieved my first 100 Km flight on a paraglider in the UK. Granted that 100K on a paraglider is a piddling feat compared to a tennis Grand Slam, but it’s all relative. Just as many tennis players never win a Slam, so many pilots never fly 100K.

After nearly 20 years of trying, I finally got to the right hill on the right day at the right time and in the right frame of mind. On Friday 4th July 2008, I took off from Eyam Edge in Derbyshire shortly after 1pm and flew a distance of 108.5 Km via a turnpoint to land 4 1/2 hours later near Ripon, North Yorkshire, 98.8 Km away from take-off (OK, 1.2K short of an “old-fashioned” ton, but I’m no pedant).

Crossing the M1

Highlights:

The climb-out

Got a kicking on the ridge for the first 5 minutes of the flight. The thermal cores were strong, narrow and rough around the edges, with plenty of sink in between. My inner voice stepped in: “Do you want to land and wait until the wind goes too far off to the South and the high cloud comes in and damps the thermals? —NO. Do you want to stay at this height, and get trashed? —NO WAY! —Then CLIMB, 3 good turns and you’re away you idiot.” I soon hooked a narrow core and cranked the glider around until I was high enough to quieten the nagging inner voice.

Good company

Met up with John Ellison and Andy Wallis at around the 25K mark. John seemed in alpine racing mode, and I could barely hang on to the coattails of his Axis Mercury comp wing. Andy and I collaborated more closely and shouted across to each other as we rounded the corner of Leeds-Bradford CTA airspace.

Come fly XC from the Peaks with Andy Wallis!

Ferrybridge Power station

A little relief

Started to get tired and uncomfortable around the 50K mark. John and Andy got away from me while I loitered around looking at the familiar Yorkshire scenery from this new unfamiliar viewpoint. That nagging voice again: “Do you really want to land? —Yes, I didn’t bust, Nigel…I’m satisfied…landing by the M62 could be an easy retrieve—NO, NO, NO! This is the chance of the season, if you give up now you’ll regret it later”.

Decided that relieving myself might revitalize me. So, I simply leaned forward in my harness, unzipped, took aim and let go. The golden stream traced a neat parabola underneath my seat. Liberation. And not half as complicated as it had been described by some of the posters on paraglidingforum.com.

The last 50K

Refreshed and up for more action, I sighted along the corridor of free airspace between Leeds-Bradford CTA to the southeast and the numerous military ATZ’s over the A1 road to the northwest. The wind had swung favourably, and there was a procession of fluffy clouds and towns en route to provide the lift. Conditions had weakened considerably as high cirrus damped the sun on the ground, so that meant just bumbling slowly along in mellow, buoyant air at 3000-4500ft. I had little to do but kick back and enjoy the view, playing “name-that-town” whilst watching the kilometers tick away. At times I felt like I was installed in a grand cosmic armchair in Nature’s chill-out room. Clouds floated flirtatiously towards me and an invisible hand slowly turned a scroll of toy-town canvas underneath me.

Back to earth

Ran out of clouds and towns after Ripon, so I took a final glide over the town to check out the lovely cathedral and to wave idiotically at unwitting commuters stuck inside their little metal boxes.

Final glide over Ripon

Low now, but tantalizingly close to the Magic Ton, I glided to the furthest possible field. I chose a safe landing field free of livestock next to the main road, but coming in on final approach, I realized to my horror that it was full of a gangly crop of nitrogen-fixing legumes. Marooned waist high after a graceless landing, I contemplated a sweaty hour trying to disentangle my thin paraglider lines from the sprawl of stems and shoots. Just then, a convoy of vehicles rolled up and 4 burly blokes began wading through the field towards me. I rehearsed my “placate-an-angry-farmer” speech. What now?

The lead guy smiled, “Got a retrieve, mate?” I was speechless. Another paraglider pilot! It turns out that he worked at Lightwater Valley theme park and the lads had seen me land as they were locking up for the night. In a flash, they scooped my gear up into one of the cars. Moments later, I was in the car park next to Ripon bus station. The Leeds bus had just arrived, and I ran for it, my still-unpacked gear flailing clumsily about. As I reached the bus stop, three XC gods appeared in front of my eyes like the Three Wise Men: Pat Dower, Jean-Luc Boudin and Cris Miles. And on the way to pick them up was Andy, Rick and Helen! And they had one more space back to Eyam for me (thanks a million, guys)!

Off we went to the pub in the market square. We downed a swift couple of pints while trying to explain to some bemused locals that our oversize rucksacks were not tents, but in fact paragliders, on which we’d just flow in, from a little hill in Derbyshire. No one believed us.

We arrived at Eyam as the sun was setting. By this time we were starving, and it seemed fitting to end the day with a curry in Hathersage.

Home sweet home

23 hours after leaving home to go to work, I returned home at 1:15 AM to a big grin from my 4 year old son and a hug from my wife. YooA had kindly gone out and bought my favourite beer and put it in the fridge. Fantastic. But I was almost too exhausted to drink it and fell asleep in the bath several times before eventually summoning the energy to haul myself out, finish my beer and go to bed.

One of the most unreal days of my life.

Links

Photos from the flight on Google Maps [and link for Google Earth]

Original size photos on Flickr

My tracklog on Leonardo

Discussion on the Derbyshire Soaring Club forum

Other flights nationally on the XC League