Early season flying - Jan to Mar 2010

There has been some very enjoyable flying already this year and some duff days as well... here's a selection

New Years Day - snow up to our thighs on Tinto north, me doing an impression of a starfish 3 times as i failed to get my big plastic boots to fit into my pod harness which resulted in some rather tender hanging on the harness straps... Finally got comfortable but then stupidly decided to land to help some others take off in a spot with knee deep snow that was below the wind (complete calm). Only just got off myself!

Jan 30th - messing about at Stronend

pic ba Alastair T

Sun 8th March - A trip to the Lake District to run away from the gloomy skies in scotland with khaled, jamie and david t. The cloud sheet cleared after 1 hour 55 of our 2 hour drive and we knew we were in for a good day. More than 50 gliders on blease and great conditions to test out my new skinny wing in +3m/s thermals and interesting air (NNE met, E mid level, S anabatic on blencathra/jenkin/skiddaw and WNW sea breeze pushing in gently towards the end of the day) Here is some video footage of the day by local lakes pilots.

Sat 20th March - fantastic xc flight down from Ben Leanachan / Burger Van Hill to Callander with trias and bob g and paul m. only 20k but sporty thermals and plenty of wind (20 to 35kph). straight to base at 1300m in a hail shower before a sinky glide across lochearnhead to ben our. trias took an impressive line into the NE side of ben vorlich before getting a great climb out and then pushing SW right over ben vorlich to join bob and I ridge running down glen ample and the bushwhack ridge. So close but so far to getting a last climb to get all three of us out over the flatlands of the carse and on our way to gargunnock... so we all landed within a km of the village centre for ice cream (me) and fish & chips (trias). A great feeling to go xc in the spring air with friends...one to remember.

Keltic Karakorum - movie from May 2009

Inspired by Latin Highlands, Paolo's brilliant film of flying in Scotland from last spring I finally put together a short film from one particular day of last year's trip to the northern areas of Pakistan.

Hope you enjoy the movie : Keltic Karakorum

I hope this shows that not all Karakorum flying is mega extreme. This was actually quite a mellow day with powerful but hugely enjoyable thermals. So I was able to get the video camera out quite a bit if only on the glides.

Actually it needed to be a bit on the mellow side as I had just recovered from a 36 hour bout of stomach problems and thought i had enough strength to fly for an hour or so. Once in the air you forget about all that and fortunately my stomach held up!

I hope that this movie also hints that the view of Pakistan as a country that is disintegrating into chaos that we hear or absorb from western media is far from the whole truth. It is the case that there are some places in Pakistan that were NOT safe to visit for westerners in 2009 but there are plenty of places to go flying without going to the tribal areas west and southwest of Peshawar. The mountains of northern areas are very peaceful and all those who made the trip encountered only kindness and respect everywhere on our travels in Pakistan in 2009.

If you want to see full on Pakistan flying close to terrain and flying to over 7000m then don't forget to check out the trip along rakaposhi's north face filmed by Brad Sander and Matt Senior plus Christian Rankl's amazing compilation of bivvy flying clips and Brad and Christian's high bivvy - for sure the highest ever on a pg. There is a FAQ and movie list  on the Paraglide-Pakistan googlegroup. PAFF are on facebook. For interesting articles about Pakistan that go deeper than sound-bite newscasts have a look at Watandost

Tupodam near Gulmit on the KKH.    We flew over the mountain to the left on a later flight.

Balquidder to Strathbraan - movie from July 2009

Bob g, tim j, trias and i had a great day out in July last year in the central highlands.

So, I finally got around to making a movie with the video clips i took that day - about a fifth was usable! Climbing in thermals with only one hand holding both the brakes is quite tricky when you are getting used to it but as long as the thermals are a reasonable size you can make it work. Making it was fun and certainly brought back lots of memories. Can't wait for the spring rock'n'roll to arrive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbMqakqh2HA&feature=player_embedded

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EDIT: I redid this movie using the anti-shake feature in the editing software i use.
This trades a reduced width of view for less shake.
Which do you like better?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ki8tQPdvdw

Balquidder - Sat 17th Oct 2009

Bob g bivvied in Glen Lochay on the friday night to check out the stars and I met him in Balquidder in the morning. As we walked up we could see stuart d and roger above us.

The flying was thermic and active but none of the thermals were going very high and we all tried jumping spurs to make our way east with varying success. I tried slope landing on the 2nd spur to out-fox a sink cycle but was in such deep heather it was hard to launch again.

My 2nd go got me another 2 spurs along to Braes of Balquidder where i packed up and walked up for 45 minutes for the best flying of the day exploring the huge west facing bowl for a while before i felt guilty about chasing the huge herds of red deer (several groups of over a hundred) around the hill and left them in peace and glided down to land beside my car which the others had driven down to the Rob Roy bar.

Others had fun (and took some nice photos too) in Aberfoyle about 30k to the SW of where we were

Playing about - 4th October 2009

A fun day out at Bishop on Sunday with gusty wave in the morning giving a good excuse for some sunbathing in the lee of a gorse bush but calmer conditions and nice soaring in the afternoon. Highlight of the day was a shot on terry's 17sqm Icaro Nikita 2 which is capable of infinity tumbles in the right hands. I contented myself with some ground skim soaring and some wingovers but the tiny wing plus super tippy acro harness meant i was very wary of them going too big...