Lucky Flying Pants

Yesterday was the most perfect day at the Dune – I flew all day long! I woke up and put on my lucky flying pants (that’s why you see me in flying pictures always wearing the same damn thing!) and sure enough, I flew plenty. British translation: pants = trousers…no lucky flying knickers - yet.

The wind was quite strong, but I’m starting to feel more and more comfortable with this, and rarely are things ever out of hand. I was even complemented on my glider control by an instructor from another group – yay!

In fact, I’m beginning to really like strong wind. It’s fun kiting my glider sideways up the Dune, skiing my way up when I can. I’ve already improved on pushing forward in strong winds during launch and I really enjoy breaking from the pack and just flying all over the place. I’ll go to one end of the Dune, soar a bit, come back and topland, kite my glider sideways up another part of the Dune, fly out, do some wingovers or pitch oscillations (feels like a roller coaster ride!), scratch my way along the bottom, soaring near the beach, and do it all again. I’ve quickly realized that sticking to making endless passes along a ridge is not my thing at all – I think my attention span is much too short for that.

Signs of a paragliding junky

It was a bit of a circus last night when one particularly disgruntled pilot who didn’t bother to fly and instead chose to drink all day, decided to be especially rude and verbally abusive to some of the other pilots – especially me. I will admit that I did feel a bit threatened by him, but I think the other pilots felt it moreso and therefore took a lot of precautions so that I wouldn’t get hurt. It’s really good to know that you have people around you who care and look after you. My strategy today is to avoid the guy the best I can today and keep my mouth shut as much as I can. In a battle of wits, well, this guy wouldn’t have a chance in hell against me so why waste my breath? The misery in his life is something he’s mostly created for himself and nights like last are just adding to his problems...

On a brighter note, this morning the winds are very strong, but the sky is blue with some nice puffy cumulous whizzing by. If the winds die a bit, we’ll be flying all day again – can’t wait!