Advance paragliders in the West Country

So finally, on June 3rd, a whole two months into the season, I flew my first 100km+ flight of the year. (By way of comparison, by the same time last year I’d flown three 100km+ flights, although interestingly, in 2015 I didn’t fly my first 100km+ flight until 4th June). Through a combination of poorish weather, being very busy at work, and what I put down to bad luck (or bad piloting), it just hasn’t happened until now, so it felt damn good to rack up 136kms on a lovely five hour flight from Rybury to Devil’s Dyke a couple of weeks ago now…

I flew most of the way in the company of my good friend Rich Osborne, and apart from a couple of times where one or the other of us was low, we were pretty much wingtip to wingtip the whole way, and even though we didn’t make our 161km goal to the north of Eastbourne it was a very satisfying flight as it wasn’t by any means plain sailing all the way. We both had low saves, difficult broken climbs, and airspace to contend with, so landing together at the foot of the Dyke was a real pleasure.

What’s more, Lisa, and Rich’s partner Annee, had followed us in our campervans, and by the time we’d packed up and walked across a field to the nearest road, Lisa had spotted where we’d landed (thanks to xcrt.aero) and had parked up and got the beers (cold!) ready for us. Superb 🙂

Annee arrived an hour or so later and after a short while we headed up to Firle Beacon (via Asda to stock up on goodies) where we had a lovely evening dining in our campervan. A really terrific way to end a cracking flying day 🙂

Here’s a link to the tracklog on XCLeague.