Monday 14 Oct 2013
Ian C dragged me away with him to Slieve Gallion on Monday. Arriving after lunch we found a brisk wind on the hill, slightly to the east of NE. We walked down the hill a bit and flew. I watched as Ian hooked a thermal and started climbing over the back. Meantime I was steadily climbing but making very slow progress into wind. When I looked for Ian I saw that he had not made it to cloudbase and was on a glide back to the hill. Due to the strong headwind he landed well back. Meantime Danny had arrived and was soon up to join me - even if a bit lower most of the time :-).
After some 25 mins I had had enough gale hanging and managed to get in for a good top landing in a bit of a lull. I went back to the car for some lunch where I was joined by Ian after his second flight. It seems that the wind was picking up as he said he had landed going backwards. When we returned to takeoff, the wind had increased to over 20mph and Danny was packing up. We did the same.
Tues 15 Oct 2013
Things to do at home so I didn't go out until after 3pm, more to go for a walk on Shane's Hill than anything as I did not expect it to be flyable. I parked in the bottom layby and saw that the wind was blowing fairly lightly straight up the road. I thought I might as well take the paraglider with me on my hill walk so, leaving instruments behind, I climbed to the headland between Shane's and Agnew's. When I got there the wind was Easterly and around 12-14mph. I soon persuaded myself that it was indeed flyable, although the top of Agnew's was in orographic cloud.
For the next 25 mins I soared around in smooth lift, using big ears to stay out of the intermittent orographic cloud as well as flying across to the dip between Shane's and Agnew's as it was lower and therefore cloudbase was higher. Cloudbase then gradually crept lower and forward progress was slow so I flew out to land by the layby. I flew through a fairly turbulent patch on the way down that I expect was wind shear as there was hardly any wind in the landing area. Not having instruments certainly expands awareness and reminded me of all those years hang gliding without them.
No massive airtime on the two days but pleasant and interesting flying nevertheless.
