a paragliding blog

XC flying conditions in northern England this spring have been unusually good; what’s more—the best days have fallen on the weekends, which—after a poor 2007 and 2008—proves the adage: “Be it fair or be it wet, the weather always pays its debt”.

My season started auspiciously. Sunday 29th March—the first day of British Summer Time—dawned with a crystal-clear blue sky. The day also marked the first opening of the negotiated corridor of airspace around Robin Hood airport, and I was delighted to fly through it on the way to Eggborough for 63km.

The highlight of that flight was the thermal I hooked near Grimethorpe. Often on XC, I end up groping my way to the next scraggy slab of lift without ever discovering its provenance, but this time it was textbook. I had spotted a cloud shadow passing over a big slag heap next to a town and with a slope facing the sun and wind. I bumbled around a wide area of glassy zero sink, eagerly waiting for the thermal to rise up to me, and within a minute my faith was rewarded by the best climb of the day. I discovered that, like loaves of bread, thermals are best enjoyed fresh!

Looking more closely, it appears that the heat source was the industrial area and the town, and the trigger was the cloud shadow and the slope downwind of the town.

The following Sunday there were some magnificent flights. Andy Wallis, John Stevenson and Jean-Luc Boudin flew from Eyam to Whitby, around 150km straight line and a new site record. Steve Etherington also made a superb site record from Parlick of 110km.

Amazingly, the weather again came good the next weekend in the North and West. No doubt fuming at missing the previous Sunday’s big prize by going to the wrong site, John Ellison went to the right site—Staggs Fell in the Dales—and flew a gobsmacking 150km on a day that many pilots managed only top-to-bottoms. The next day, people were boating around the Lake District skies at 7000ft, a day that Steve E. dubbed “the best day in the Lakes in 10 years”.

On a personal note, I’ve been tied up with family and work since that first day of the season, so here’s hoping that the recent epic weather is an omen of good things to come. The weather has not yet repaid its debt in full!