SAT Arm

For me, the season has been pretty decent for paragliding but one thing that has been lacking until now has been anything even remotely close to acro.

We went up a spot near Pemberton this weekend to join a group of guys that were doing some boat towing. Exciting for me especially because I had never previously towed behind a boat – only a vehicle.

My first tow, was…pretty embarrassing!!! I find that paragliding has a funny way of reminding you that you’ve always got lots to learn and kind of bitch-slaps you once in a while and says “you suck!” only to then reward you later with feelings of utter bliss. On my first tow, to keep this short and sweet, let’s just say that it was a combination of pilot error, a bit of a misunderstanding, and a possible tangle that had my glider end up in a small tree and me landing in the sand. I will stress the pilot error part though – I take responsibility as my arms were too far back initially, etc. etc. The good news was that the boat operator stopped immediately, my glider essentially stopped me, I didn’t get hurt, I didn’t get dragged, and my glider was fine!

Anyway, after that humbling experience, I went for it again, launched fine, and soon found myself at 3000’ nervously laughing at the prospect of doing some sort of manoeuvre. I did a couple full stalls, and tried some big wingovers – nothing overly eventful happened, which was good!

Essentially after my first flight, I primarily tried SAT’ing, did a B-line (kind of a useless manoeuvre but I had the strength to pull one, so yeah!), tried some spins, and did more wingovers. I definitely need WAY more practice with my SATs and wingovers – my SAT’s are spins or weird spirals most of the time and the second I feel like I’m going over my glider with wingovers, I kind of freak out, and basically spiral out of it. I don’t apply enough outside brake on my wingovers, which is also my problem and a worry too, that when my wingovers get bigger, the “whack!” will be bigger, which is something I have experienced many times!

In any case, it’s all DAMN fun! Practicing acro is fun, when you actually “get it”, that’s fun, when you realize there’s way more to learn, that’s fun, and when you know that there’s always water beneath you in case you get it wrong, that becomes a fun part too!

It was a great weekend overall, even though my very sore arm muscles currently feel like they have been horribly, horribly, abused. I’d also like to thank my special coach who helped me out on the radio when he saw how my lame solo attempts had me doing everything but what I wanted to do, and then showed me the way.

Unfortunately my camera’s whereabouts are unknown at the moment which was a big bummer for me this weekend, but hopefully it will turn up soon so that I have some pictures to post here for next time. The season’s not over yet!

Milestone

When I first got my tandem rating last year, I looked forward to the day I could take my parents tandem – last Saturday, that day came.

The weather didn’t look great as we travelled to the Fraser valley; moisture from the previous days was hanging around in the form of low clouds and the forecast didn’t call for much sun either. As rain wasn’t in the forecast, I still remained positive it would be flyable somewhere.

Mt. Woodside was pretty much the only mountain in the valley that had clouds below peak height, whereas Bridal Falls and Elk Mountain seemed out of the question. We managed to snag a ride with one of the pilots and soon we were up at launch.

My dad has always shown a bit of an interest in paragliding, but strapping him into the passenger harness was definitely a bit strange. Sometimes you wait for a day to come for a long time and when it arrives, you’re not sure how to feel. I probably gave him a 15 minute briefing, triple and quadruple checking he was strapped in properly. The second you’re responsible for your own family members, it’s like you feel you need to overcompensate for what you’re about to do.

We had a great launch – as good as it could ever be and as we flew away from the mountain, my dad fiddled with his camera, looking down, almost blissfully unaware of how high we were. Needless to say, he wasn’t scared and felt totally comfortable. We flew straight into the valley as my vario barely made a beep, and when he gave me permission to do a spiral dive, that’s exactly what we did!

He admitted that it was a bit scary but as we didn’t have loads of height, we didn’t stay in it for more than a few rotations and it was soon time to land. A happy landing, and a happy flight.

Upon getting to launch the second time to take my mom tandem, some tandem pilots were talking about how when they took their moms tandem, things happened, and it didn’t end up being the best of a flight. Naturally, my anxiety level went up a bit, but confidence in what I was doing kept me balanced.

Our launch was good – a bit lacking in form but otherwise fine – and we were soon airborne. I could have scratched a bit looking for lift but it looked like an awful lot of work, so I flew straight again to the landing zone.

Barely one rotation into the spiral dive, my mom asked me to stop, so I did and we flew around a bit until we had a nice landing in the tandem field where my dad was waiting.

One word to sum up the flights: Phew!

After five years of flying, I am happy that this year I took my sister and both my parents tandem – something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Although I don’t think any of them will ever do a solo flight, I’m glad that they got to experience something I tend to talk about a lot.

Knowing what it feels like to run off a mountain with only a paraglider above your head is pretty cool and I’m happy I got to share it with my folks this weekend.

A memorable milestone.

Lakeside Event 2009!

A combination of busyness and waiting for pictures made me late in writing about the Lakeside Event, as it happened over a week ago, but here’s my post!

We arrived in Invermere Friday night and it was surprisingly windy. All night the tent shook as the wind howled and it was only until morning that it died down. The next day was beautiful; hot and sunny and forecast to be flyable all day.

I had never flown off Mt. Swansea before so this year’s Lakeside Event was special for me! I can’t say I was crazy about the steep 20 minute hike up from the parking lot but I am obviously out of shape, so perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

The launch is nice – there is both a south and west launch and conditions looked great when we arrived at the top. After launching, I did a couple small turns in a weak thermal (it was pretty early) and headed towards the beach.

The purpose of the Lakeside Event is that it’s a spot landing competition for both paragliders and hang gliders. Paragliders try to land in an inner-tube in an inflatable pool while hang gliders try to land on an inner-tube in the lake. First prize is $500 for each discipline, $300 for second place, and $100 for third, so the incentive to win is pretty big!

As I set up my approach, I eyed the inflatable pool and told myself aloud that I would land in it! Yes, I talk to myself sometimes in the air! Sure enough, I timed my approach well and, whoo hoo! One foot in the inner tube!

I climbed out of the pool with my harness wet and watched as my boyfriend came into land.

Now, he has won the event in the past before, so I watched him very carefully. As he came in on final, he was, well, high! He arrived 10 feet or so above the pool, but he slowed his glider all the way down and basically plopped right in! Dammit!!!

Ok, so I was happy for him, but being competitive means I always want to win. The announcer mentioned we were tied for third and after drying our reserves and repacking them, we headed back up to launch.

There was a bit of development to the west and as the wind picked up, we kept an eye on it. I wasn’t sure how things would shape up with the weather and as I could see some wind on a small lake, so I decided to launch and fly straight out to do another spot landing. Others thermalled and soared for a while, but as I wasn’t entirely happy with the development in the distance and figured that if the wind picked up any more, I wouldn’t be able to make it to the beach, so I didn’t bother trying to stay up, and instead prepped myself once more for landing in the pool!

My second attempt wasn’t nearly as successful: I landed on my ass about 4 feet short of the pool – boo! Remembering my boyfriend’s technique of overshooting then practically stalling your glider, I was anxious to see his second attempt.

Sure enough, history repeated itself, and his technique had him land in the pool once more! Both of his feet went into the inner tube, but as the wind was light, his feet dragged the inner tube to the edge of the pool and his glider overshot him. Still a bulls-eye, but the judges deducted him on style points.

After everyone had landed, we all enjoyed a dinner buffet after which prizes were awarded. The organizer of the meet made my boyfriend decide if he wanted to award the third place prize to me, and as he would not allow us to share the prize, my boyfriend ditched me and instead accepted the prize himself!

I was glad that some of the fellow pilots told my boyfriend that he was dumb for not awarding the prize to me. I mean, it’s not about who had a more precise landing – it’s about making your girlfriend happy by letting her win! Jeez, some men need to be reminded of these things!

Anyway, I politely clapped for him, totally not meaning it, and was interested to learn that a very new pilot had won first prize for the paragliding class! A definite shocker for those who seem to do well year after year, but a nice little shake-up at the event.

The party afterwards involved a live almost-all-girl rock band, and the usual boat races. If you don’t know what the boat races entail, you’ll just have to go to the Lakeside Event or the Panorama Easter Meet and find out for yourself.

The Lakeside Event, by far, provided the most value out of any sort of meet I have ever been to. The $50 entry fee included rides up to launch, a dinner, a cool t-shirt, a chance to win prize money, and an almost guaranteed prize at the prize giveaway after the awards. My number was picked almost last at the prize giveaway and yet I still got a paragliding DVD!

Lakeside was great – it’s definitely high on the priority list for next summer.

Last Flights in Golden

Well, the Willi is over and my flying in Golden has come to an end this year. I didn't have any more epic flights after my 66k out and return as conditions were, well, weird.

The typical Golden "holy shit lift" wasn't really there and if anything, conditions were tricky as they involved lots of scratching at times and being quite technical in terms of where to go to find lift, glide lines, etc. As I don't enjoy flying in rough air below peak height in Golden, I wussed out more than once and only flew 10k's or so before coming back to the main landing zone. I'll write more about this topic later. I still somehow managed to get 3rd place in my category though which was a nice surprise.

There were three big gust fronts during the Willi and in all three cases, pilots were in the air. The first gust front had about 8 pilots or so still flying (hang and para) and that one you could see from the air. I'm not sure if the other two were especially obvious as this year Golden had a lot of strange haze which sometimes obscured dark clouds...in other words, it was difficult to tell sometimes if the haze was from forest fires, was a thunderstorm, rain, or what it was. Bizarre.

It was great seeing everyone again and I had fun catching up with folks. It was especially hot this year (30 degrees Celsius almost every day) and there was a fire ban which kind of broke the party-mode pilots are usually in, but then again there are lots of fires burning out of control in BC so I think it's a good idea. Here was one I drove by on my way home that was between Merritt and Hope:

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what my flying plans are at the moment...I may go to Invermere for the Lakeside Event, or Pemberton once the fires nearby are controlled, or who knows. In a perfect world I'd be flying in Annecy, France right now, but maybe next year I can make that happen. Until then, I'll have to have some local flying adventures only!