Thursday 10 January 2019
Got various messages on the internet that people were heading for White Mountain and Mayobridge to fly. I decided that Dungiven W might be worth a look but on arrival there the wind was light but off to NW. Having had an earlier message from Kirsty Mowat seeking some help in replacing the flying wires on her hang glider, I decided to head up to Downhill anyway to see if Kirsty was about.
When I got within sight of the hill at Magilligan I was happy to see two paragliders in the air with good height. Hastily abandoning a Kirsty visit (it turned out later that she was working anyway) I stopped off and went to join the action. My recently-qualified student, John Quinn was already airborne and Phil Barron was on site tutoring two of his students. My CPN student Paul Cunningham had also turned up.
After a chat to Paul and quizzing him on site assessment and his flight plans I saw him off in the 14-16mph wind at Hell's Hole where he joined the three others in the air. I then took off and joined the others, checking out Paul's collision avoidance actions in the process - no problems. Lift was mostly very smooth. I watched as Paul completed two unplanned 360 degree turns which went well. However, his approach to toplanding took him a bit too far back and he ended up landing in the ditch on the upper side of the road - but no harm done. Very pleased that he had completed his final flying tasks for CPN rating.
As we were preparing for a further flight we could see that the lowering cloud and rain that had developed over the Donegal hills upwind was steadily approaching. Sensibly everyone landed and packed up and were back at the cars just as the drizzle arrived.
