Yet another day at Big Collin

Sunday 24 July 2016

Five students were raring to go this morning but conditions did not look too promising. I went out to Big Collin to take a look anyway around lunchtime. The SE wind was a light 10-12mph occasionally 14mph on top but a succession of slow moving showers could be seen upwind. As a result three of the students elected to give it a miss but Paul Cunningham and Keith McGeown turned up in hope of getting a flight during a gap in the showers.

Keith managed two semi-soaring flights from the top - taking off in 15mph wind - slope landing on the first and a target landing by the windsock on the second. Paul had a flight from half way up, landing by the lane.Then the rains came.

After Paul did a bit of flying suit modelling and with no sign of the rain stopping, we left.

Another day at Big Collin

Met up with my CP student Keith McGeown at Big Collin. Wind was well round to the South and light down at the cars. Part way up the hill the wind was stronger but starting to get gusty. I called ATC and got clearance into Class D airspace to 3,000ft! Keith had a short top to bottom flight with good stand up landing but on climbing the hill again further up the wind was getting gustier and stronger - around 11-12mph gusting to 19 and 20mph at times.

When it eased a little bit I took off to explore conditions but it was a bit of a roller coaster and no place for a student. Students George Darragh and Paul Cunningham had arrived but since it was too gusty to fly we went over Daily Inspection, Site Assessment, Pre-flight checks and practice reverse launch procedures with the ground handling Firebird Trainer. This was a useful exercise as all managed to control the small wing well in the gusty wind without risking getting airborne or dragged. This is Keith having a go, with Paul and George watching:

I had another check flight on the small Firebird F1rst wing. Conditions were soarable but still moderately turbulent with a height gain of about 50ft enabling me to get in for a top landing.

Later we had to dive for shelter from a succession of light showers that swept through - then floating the wing in the air to dry it!

An attempt to ground handle the F1rst wing in the bottom landing area proved to be a wast of time due to the unpredictable gusts so we eventually called it a day after calling ATC again to report that we had finished activities on the hill. They were most appreciative of both calls.

Martin Bates also had a soaring flight on his Skywalk Chili wing in a rare less gusty spell.

More parawaiting Tues 19 July 2016

Approaching Big Collin around lunchtime I could see a paraglider airborne. It turned out to be Ian Cross on his Sky wing but conditions looked a bit 'lumpy'.  David Tomás Carpeño was just climbing the hill and stopped for a quick chat. Expecting two CP students, I decided to have a flight myself to check out conditions. As expected from the wind that was gusting 9-19mph half way up the hill, it was a bit of a roller coaster with pockets of lift everywhere including out to the farm in front. Having decided I'd had enough bouncing around I landed at the bottom just after David. Ian had already landed.

Gusty conditions continued for the rest of the day but Ian manfully provided the entertainment on his new Ozone Swift wing - on one occasion ascending rapidly vertically with no forward groundspeed at all. But he never reached the 5,000ft that he had been cleared to by Aldergrove ATC!

Dermot Lagan had turned up by then but wisely decided to stay on the ground - as did my two students, Gerry Johnston and Keith McGeown. When Ian had to leave, after getting an extension to sunset from ATC, conditions still did not improve so we passed the time with some paragliding theory discussion on various aspects such as site assessment and meteorology, trying to work out what was going on with the weather. 

The wind was still gusting and switching rapidly from ESE to SSE and back to SE at times. Overhead and approaching scattered Cumulus clouds appeared to be shredded and never got fully formed. Meanwhile in the distance upwind was a large wave cloud with some Cumulus and Stratocumulus mixed in. The hot sun was certainly cooking up lots of thermals  and the whole mix seemed to be contributing to the strong and gusty conditions. Eventually we decided that the gustiness was there to stay and we called it a day around 6:30pm after 'phoning ATC to let them know. Yet another day for the parawaiting logbook!!