Dungiven - hoping!

On the strength of a favourable forecast I headed to Dungiven west. Ian Cross, Maurice McBride, Colin Dowey, Dave Tweedie, Ian Fraser, John Wallace, Tom Carson and Phil Barron were already there but nobody flying as rain showers were approaching and the wind was too light for soaring. Good to see pilots I hadn't seen for a while. We were kept entertained for a while by Phil flying his radio controlled drone.

Macedonian pilot Alex Velichkovski, now based in Letterkenny and his wife and child turned up. Alex is relatively inexperienced and was looking to get checked out with a view to getting BHPA CP Novice rating under the alternative entry system. Dave and I watched as he laid out his wing properly, then put on his harness and prepared to attach the risers without checking the harness and wing. I explained briefly about daily inspection and showed him how this was done. When looking over his harness I noticed, and remarked, that he did not have a reserve parachute. He said he would not be high enough for one to be any use. I explained that I had successfully deployed a reserve at 300ft and even on a straight top to bottom flight here he would be much higher than that, although the need to deploy would be most unlikely. He said he planned to get a reserve 'chute!

Alex's flight plan as agreed with Dave Tweedie was to fly to the bottom landing area doing necessary turns on the way. There was no windsock or other indicator in the landing field and he asked us if the wind would be in the same direction at the bottom. However he did not appear to know that wind direction could be found from drift over the ground. He did a good reverse inflation, turned and took off with about half brake applied all during his takeoff run. He flew into lift but followed the plan to fly down, overshooting the landing area and landing on his backside close to the fence by the lane further down the hill. No harm done.

As there seemed no sign of conditions changing, everybody else left - some going to White Mountain to see if conditions might be better there. After I got a 'phone call from Maurice to say that it looked flyable at White Mountain I was about to follow when Dermot Lagan and his wife arrived and the wind then picked up to around 10mph. We prepared to fly but the wind then died again. A couple of hours later conditions had not changed so we packed up and went home.

It seems that those who went to White Mtn did get some airtime in light thermals for a while.