With little or no wind all day I got caught up on some chores at home. Then Tom Carson rang - he was at a course in Belfast and just happened to have his paraglider with him and was thinking of a flight after 5pm. Needing a breath of fresh air, I headed to Big Collin with no great expectation, having texted Dermot Lagan who had been enquiring earlier.
Arriving at the hill I found the wind straight on but very light. A climb to the top did not reveal any increase in the wind which varied between 3 and 8mph. I amused myself ground handling and practicing the Cobra launch technique. I was soon joined by Dermot and then by Tom. The wind did occasionally gust briefly to 10-12mph. I managed two semi soaring flights, trying to work small blobs of lift drifting up the hill but as there was nothing big enough to get a complete turn in, I ended up landing by the car at the bottom.
Being in need of some exercise I popped the wing and harness into a stuffsack and climbed to the top again where Tom was doing a bit of ground handling. I showed him how I did the Cobra launch and of course he put my earlier failures to shame by completing a Cobra inflation spot on the first time he tried it!
We all flew down with no more success at staying up but able to prolong the descent a fair bit by chasing light blobs of lift. All landed safely near the cars and we packed up and left around 7pm.
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