A flight of indecision!

A big part of paragliding for me is that I do enjoying planning a flight, and although on most occasions they never come to fruition, when they do it feels pretty special. As I keep saying towing seems to me that you need an element of luck to get on the line or should I say off the line at the right time (particularly when you're one of the winch operators). This year we've seen some good forecast days and some pretty good flights out of the Tow field, and I haven't been able to connect with anything, over a number of weeks, I must have had my most amount of flights this early on in a season with the least amount of time in the air. Nevertheless I still do my planning and usually bigger than I probably should. But where would the fun be if you succeeded every time Right?

The Indecision started with this planned flight I set a 51KM triangle the night before based on the forecast and lack of wind, however looking at the forecast in the morning it was showing stronger winds up high, so I tried planning a flight similar to what I did but didn't/couldn't get it set right in time, so left the triangle on my instrument. ( I did state my alternative plan to the other pilots in the morning brief)

We draw strays for the winching order, I picked the 3rd longest out of 4, which meant I was 3rd on the winch, 1st is usually the better one last the worst (weather dependant ofcourse, but chance of all winch operator getting away on the first 4 lines are slim)

I took the 3rd line of the day 11:44am, and had a weak link break quite early up the line, the good part I guess you've hit a thermal the bad part is your low and don't have much time to get up, I stuck with my climb to 900ft which seemed to take about 15-20 mins, my arms were aching already, then the dreaded time where I lose the climb, I head back to launch where I see the next pilot climbing high and fast but quite far up wind of me so I take a detour to get under him, knowing if I don't make it I'm going to have to land in the next field and miss another go before my turn on the winch. He was already a lot higher now. Luckily I manage to get the drags of the climb under him and eventually it consolidates and we get to the same height.

The Next 20KM or so was very slow going just going round in zeros or 0.3's looking for any sign of better lift but not wanting to lose what I got (I've learnt that one many times, glad to see the lessons learnt has stuck) the clouds where forming nicely but we couldn't get to them, it seemed to be a bit of an inversion at around 2800-2900Ft. Finally working together with Ben Bowler who is a fairly new pilot, and one to watch out for, we worked well and we flew the best part of 50-60km keeping each other in sight.

After the 30km mark when the sky was working well I kept looking back up wind thinking can I make it back for an out and return? Should I got for the Triangle? (but knowing because my early line break I didn't clip the 1st waypoint over our launch site! (Lesson no1 of the day)

I was dithering around enjoying being just below base. Ben pushed on, then Bill another club member showed up on flarm @4000Ft 8km behind, So do I carry on with Ben, it's his first big XC? Do I go back and try and round up Bill as I am sure he wouldn't be alone. Distance wasn't on my mind and all I wanted to do was stay in the air for as long as I could to get the practice, as it was so slow going up to this point. Ben disappeared on flarm whihc helped me make my mind up and I decided to press on with Ben, trying to catch him up now.

The rest was pretty straight forward, I kept high, now particularly low points, Ben and I parted ways around Wattisham ATZ, he went east to avoid it but I could see the drop in the cloudbase indicating the sea breeze coming in (another previous lesson learnt), so I stayed west inland as close to the ATZ as I dared, even considered flying over it, but decided against it just in case. After that I had some silky smooth climbs and glides in the convergence 1st proper time for me knowing that is what I was doing.

Apart from seeing Ben fly his PB and knowing mine was on the Cards, the highlight for me was flying past the Orwell bridge at Ipswich, and following the coast line.

South, Seeing Mersea island ahead. I believe I could have and should have gone further, but if I am honest, I think my bandwith had gone. 4 hours in the air, no food, I was worrying about everything, the airspace, although I knew I was well under the class A, The sea breeze, why was I finding it so easy? I thought the convergence is normal rough and snotty. Am I going to hit some horrible mixing air? Or will I get loads of lift and hit airspace? (in hindsight I knew the answers to all this) but my mind was running away with it's self, (Lesson No:2 of the day have snacks) so I left a few small climbs earlier and earlier, and finally landed, at the beer Garden of the WoodenFender nr. Colchester.

Not very often I need to catch a Bus, and Train to get home after a retrieve, that was enjoyable in it own right.

Sorry for the Essay, but blame Viv.