I tried to sneak in an after work fly at Stubbington (Dune de Meon). It had been very windy all day but forecast to drop in the evening. I arrived just after Alasdair and the wind felt good but by the time we had set up it had started to drop. At stubbington, there is no where on the top of the cliff to take off so you have to kite the wing to the base of the cliff and then run like hell along the cliff until you get lifted off of you feet. This takes very good ground handling skills and this site is definitely not for beginners!
Well I ran and ran and ran, most of the length of the cliff like a madman but there just wasn’t quite enough wind. After walking back a bit with a mushroomed wing I spotted a route up to the top of the cliff. I left my gear at the bottom and climbed up to take a look. The wind felt much stronger up here (even though it is only 30ft higher!) but there just wasn’t enough room to lay out a wing.
Ignoring this inconvenience, I carried my wing up to the top and laid it out as best I could. There wasn’t enough room in between the fence and the cliff edge to launch normally so I stretched the lines out along the cliff and did a cobra launch. Luckily the launch went off perfectly, they was zero room for error. All those hours of ground handling paid off again 😀
Unfortunately I was only rewarded with a 10 second flight to the bottom lol. Oh well, better luck next time. Winter will be here soon though 😦
The Duke of Ted's Paragliding Adventures 