a paragliding blog

Autumn leaves are falling and I’ve got the blues. Flying-wise, 2008 was my best summer of the past 17. I achieved my long-term goal of 50 miles with a 100K flight. The success was due to my work shift finishing at lunchtime on a significant proportion of the few good XC days.

For next season, I wish I could set myself a bunch of ever-more-ambitious goals, but I can’t. My working hours are set to change and my wife and son need my commitment. I have no idea how often I’ll be able to fly. But I can’t bear the thought that 2008 was the best it’s ever going to get, so I will set a simple-but-optimistic goal for 2009: beat this season’s 98.8K straight line distance. Surely once I will strike it lucky!

As I write this, I feel bitter—though I have no right to be so. I am lucky to be able to fly at all. Free flight was impossible in the past, even for such great men as Leonardo da Vinci. Even today, flying is an unattainable luxury for many talented people all over the world. And flying is no longer possible for those of my friends who lost their lives by doing what they loved. I could have been in any of these three groups—born in another time, or in another place, or I could have been just plain unlucky. I simply have to accept that I don’t deserve the amazing experiences that paragliding gives me. In the words of French photographer Jerome Maupoint, such experiences are “stolen moments”.

So now, with the festive season approaching, it’s time to pull my thoughts away from paragliding; and time, too, to pull the plug on the internet. “Real life” beckons. For starters, we’re off to see Toumani Diabate tomorrow at Musicport in Brid.

Seasons Greetings! See you in 2009. Someday I’ll be back, with vengeance.

2008 in brief

Total number of days flown = 20

With my changed working pattern, I thought I would have flown more this season. But I ended up just cherry-picking the days which were good enough to get the adrenaline pumping.

Total hours flown = 36

An improvement on last season. Still, I can’t have flown more than 75 hours in the last 5 years. According to the pundits, I should be flying a 1-2 glider!

Number of XC flights = 4, total distance = 232 km

1 ton, 2 half-centuries and 1 bomb-out.

Longest XC = 108.5 km

From Eyam to Ripon. An exceptional day in the Peaks with a 6000 ft cloudbase, although an approaching front weakened the end of the day.

Flights outside the UK = 1

One short flight on our holiday in the Czech Republic.

Number of new sites flown = 5

Whernside in the Dales, the Blorenge in S.E. Wales, Ullock Pike in the Lakes, Parlick in Lancashire and Kozakov in the Czech Republic. All of these were good sites flown on poor days.

Competitions?

I flew at the British Paragliding Cup in S.E. Wales, did one task of the British Club Challenge (won it!) and wind dummied at the Lakes Charity Classic. The BCC is a good format for the UK (comps are organized depending on the weather forecast) but it’s a comp for beginners. The LCC is worthwhile because there’s a good party there, even if the weather is crap. The BPC is not “family friendly” (why does nobody bring their kids?), and inevitably involves spending too much time/money doing too little, while waiting for reasonable weather.

Lesssons learned

It’s an old cliche, but “never say die”! A poor sky can suddenly improve, or it’s possible to fly a long way in “poor” conditions. On both my 50K flights I wrote off the day prematurely. I have more regrets about these than I do about the 10K bomb-out, because at least that flight ended with a positive decision, albeit a wrong one. Optimism is key.