One of the more frustrating 'laws' of paragliding that I've discovered goes something like this:
When a pilot is near a launch site but has other commitments it will be flyable – the harder it is to escape the commitments the more epic the conditions will appear
We had family friends visiting today – wonderful to catch up, had a lovely time – and not only was the sky filling with fantastic looking cumulus clouds in every direction but there was no wind to speak of – just the sort of conditions I'd been thinking it might take to get away from the hill at home. Soon after hijacking the conversation onto flying topics we all piled in the back of the Landcruiser and headed up to launch...
By the time the sky was almost completely covered with clouds in varying stages of forming, drifting and decaying and there was only a few patches of sunlight left on the ground. One of them was approaching the hill as we were driving up, and I frantically set up and launched as the shadows grew. The air felt alive as I left the hill – I 's-bended' through light bubbles of lift over the hut bowl and the gulley below it but I could tell the wing wanted to go a bit further out... At 420m asl I was wandering around in some light lift, falling in and out of it but slowly going up... Every time I faced back towards the hill my climb rate dropped off, so I straightened out and flew towards the stronger lift. I circled a couple of times, but there was nothing that felt like a core so I kept going away from the hill. After 400m in slowly increasing lift I found a core and gained 800m in it before losing it. I searched back towards the hill, turned a few times in a light patch of lift, then arced around past my first climb and found an nice climb close to where I lost the first one – however as I got higher in it I noticed I was drifting in a different direction – different wind layers?
This thermal gradually petered out around 1,600m and by now there was no sunny patches on the ground – everything was shaded out. I went on a glide along the ridge line to the NW and then headed towards Saddleback hill.
The sink quickly pulled me down to 860m so when I found a narrow thermal out the front I followed it as it drifted towards the hill. I got back up to 1,200m, which I though would give me enough height to make it back to the ridgeline I'd flown along before (there was a single patch of sun playing on one side of if) but as soon as I flew towards it I was flying in 3-5m/s sink! I diverted to a small hill that looked like it would be a good trigger with some nice looking paddocks behind it. As I flew over the hill the wing didn't even twitch so I followed a tree-line that pointed towards home, trying to stretch out my glide to reduce the long walk ahead of me. As I was getting close to the ground suddenly the right wing tip lifted slightly, I had instantly weight-shifted right (the further you fly the less you walk) and felt the wing take the weight but then noticed, “Hey!, my sink rate hasn't just lessened, it's stopped!) It was one of those lightning fast but endless decisions: to continue flying along the road towards home or head off into the paddocks looking for lift that may not exist and walk that much further?
I turned right. Straight away I could feel the whole of the wing was in the lift, then it felt a touch lighter so I cranked into the turn, desperate to stay in this tiny bubble. I managed to do one turn in it, then a third of the next turn slipped out, then two thirds of the turn after that. I shifted my circle the other way and got back into the lift. I was weight-shifting on the outside to try and keep the wing a bit flatter, turning as tight and slow as I could to try and stay in the rising air, and was so totally focused on the movement of the wing I didn't even notice the vario. Going over the GPS track later I determined that I was only 65m above the ground when I turned towards the lift so I really didn't need the vario to track changes in altitude anyway!
I got up to 360m and then wasn't circling in lift so I extended my circle to try and locate it. I used up 30m before finding another tiny patch to circle in but although it was drifting me (away from the road) it was pretty neutral and although I was doing every little thing I could think of I just wasn't going up much (I even yelled at a mob of sheep in the paddock below, trying to get them to run around and possibly trigger a thermal, but most of them just looked around a baaa-ed)! Then I lost the lift.
I had been concentrating with everything I had on staying in the lift, 7 minutes had passed since I first turned away from the road and I was 120m above the dry, sparsely grassed paddock below. I'd noticed a lovely looking ploughed paddock in the direction that I was drifting, was I desperately scratching in 0.1's when there was good lift over there? But it was over the other side of the creek, which had trees all along it. Could I make it over there? I went on the committing 400m glide, made the crossing and as I flew over the corner of the paddock hit a small bubble of lift. I jumped on it (figuratively), and stuck with it as it drifted... back the way I'd come!! It was very light, but well formed, and since I'd only been 52m above the ground when I'd hit it I wasn't going looking for anything else... After 5minutes of following every twist and turn it made I was rewarded with the lofty height of 450m!!! A moment's lapse in concentration though, and I'd turned too wide and was struggling to stay up again. “Focus Bill, focus, you don't want to loose this one – it's close by somewhere...” A couple of wider turns and I felt it off to the right – quickly center in it and hey, this is a bit better! For the first time I noticed the vario as it made a different sound and took a quick glance at it. 1.2 m/s up!!! Now we're talking!!
Fifteen minutes after I'd first turned towards the lift I was now only 150m higher – but I was in a steady, well formed climb, on my way outa there and feeling like king of the world!! The climb improved until it was a steady 2m/s up (peaks of 4) and I rode it until I was back at 1,600m. From here it was an easy glide under lifty clouds back home...
...where I spiraled down to land behind the house as happy as a dog with two tails!
Woohoo! It is possible to get away from the hill in the right conditions!! What an awesome final thermal!! I dunno where it came from but it was the best feeling ever to finally climb away from that paddock!
I love low saves!
When a pilot is near a launch site but has other commitments it will be flyable – the harder it is to escape the commitments the more epic the conditions will appear
We had family friends visiting today – wonderful to catch up, had a lovely time – and not only was the sky filling with fantastic looking cumulus clouds in every direction but there was no wind to speak of – just the sort of conditions I'd been thinking it might take to get away from the hill at home. Soon after hijacking the conversation onto flying topics we all piled in the back of the Landcruiser and headed up to launch...
By the time the sky was almost completely covered with clouds in varying stages of forming, drifting and decaying and there was only a few patches of sunlight left on the ground. One of them was approaching the hill as we were driving up, and I frantically set up and launched as the shadows grew. The air felt alive as I left the hill – I 's-bended' through light bubbles of lift over the hut bowl and the gulley below it but I could tell the wing wanted to go a bit further out... At 420m asl I was wandering around in some light lift, falling in and out of it but slowly going up... Every time I faced back towards the hill my climb rate dropped off, so I straightened out and flew towards the stronger lift. I circled a couple of times, but there was nothing that felt like a core so I kept going away from the hill. After 400m in slowly increasing lift I found a core and gained 800m in it before losing it. I searched back towards the hill, turned a few times in a light patch of lift, then arced around past my first climb and found an nice climb close to where I lost the first one – however as I got higher in it I noticed I was drifting in a different direction – different wind layers?
This thermal gradually petered out around 1,600m and by now there was no sunny patches on the ground – everything was shaded out. I went on a glide along the ridge line to the NW and then headed towards Saddleback hill.
The sink quickly pulled me down to 860m so when I found a narrow thermal out the front I followed it as it drifted towards the hill. I got back up to 1,200m, which I though would give me enough height to make it back to the ridgeline I'd flown along before (there was a single patch of sun playing on one side of if) but as soon as I flew towards it I was flying in 3-5m/s sink! I diverted to a small hill that looked like it would be a good trigger with some nice looking paddocks behind it. As I flew over the hill the wing didn't even twitch so I followed a tree-line that pointed towards home, trying to stretch out my glide to reduce the long walk ahead of me. As I was getting close to the ground suddenly the right wing tip lifted slightly, I had instantly weight-shifted right (the further you fly the less you walk) and felt the wing take the weight but then noticed, “Hey!, my sink rate hasn't just lessened, it's stopped!) It was one of those lightning fast but endless decisions: to continue flying along the road towards home or head off into the paddocks looking for lift that may not exist and walk that much further?I turned right. Straight away I could feel the whole of the wing was in the lift, then it felt a touch lighter so I cranked into the turn, desperate to stay in this tiny bubble. I managed to do one turn in it, then a third of the next turn slipped out, then two thirds of the turn after that. I shifted my circle the other way and got back into the lift. I was weight-shifting on the outside to try and keep the wing a bit flatter, turning as tight and slow as I could to try and stay in the rising air, and was so totally focused on the movement of the wing I didn't even notice the vario. Going over the GPS track later I determined that I was only 65m above the ground when I turned towards the lift so I really didn't need the vario to track changes in altitude anyway!
I got up to 360m and then wasn't circling in lift so I extended my circle to try and locate it. I used up 30m before finding another tiny patch to circle in but although it was drifting me (away from the road) it was pretty neutral and although I was doing every little thing I could think of I just wasn't going up much (I even yelled at a mob of sheep in the paddock below, trying to get them to run around and possibly trigger a thermal, but most of them just looked around a baaa-ed)! Then I lost the lift.
I had been concentrating with everything I had on staying in the lift, 7 minutes had passed since I first turned away from the road and I was 120m above the dry, sparsely grassed paddock below. I'd noticed a lovely looking ploughed paddock in the direction that I was drifting, was I desperately scratching in 0.1's when there was good lift over there? But it was over the other side of the creek, which had trees all along it. Could I make it over there? I went on the committing 400m glide, made the crossing and as I flew over the corner of the paddock hit a small bubble of lift. I jumped on it (figuratively), and stuck with it as it drifted... back the way I'd come!! It was very light, but well formed, and since I'd only been 52m above the ground when I'd hit it I wasn't going looking for anything else... After 5minutes of following every twist and turn it made I was rewarded with the lofty height of 450m!!! A moment's lapse in concentration though, and I'd turned too wide and was struggling to stay up again. “Focus Bill, focus, you don't want to loose this one – it's close by somewhere...” A couple of wider turns and I felt it off to the right – quickly center in it and hey, this is a bit better! For the first time I noticed the vario as it made a different sound and took a quick glance at it. 1.2 m/s up!!! Now we're talking!!
Fifteen minutes after I'd first turned towards the lift I was now only 150m higher – but I was in a steady, well formed climb, on my way outa there and feeling like king of the world!! The climb improved until it was a steady 2m/s up (peaks of 4) and I rode it until I was back at 1,600m. From here it was an easy glide under lifty clouds back home...
...where I spiraled down to land behind the house as happy as a dog with two tails!Woohoo! It is possible to get away from the hill in the right conditions!! What an awesome final thermal!! I dunno where it came from but it was the best feeling ever to finally climb away from that paddock!
I love low saves!
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