ESP club Blog WordPress weblog for members & friends of East Scotland Paragliding club

10/09/2007

Glider check & ’20kg’ line length resetting.

Filed under: Glider Checks — Murray Hay @ 06:18 pm

While getting ready to fly from the camp at Mount hill after lunch on day two, Alan Coffin takes out the time to do a line check and length reset. Club members not sure about the (fairly simple) procedures just ask and I will go over this with them next time they are out, it takes about 20-30 mins.

Alan checking the cloth attachment tabs and comparing the lengths both before & after applying a load to see if the line had shrunk.

 After 80+ hours of flying there was a noticable shrinkage in line lengths on the glider due to ‘relaxing’ of the woven outer ‘tube’ that protects the inner from UV and physical abrasion, in addition there was on loading a failure of one single brake ‘fan’ line where the outer had been damaged some time in the past, this (one of the final thin lines) snapped at approximantly 10-15kg load….. but after removing the broken line and a quick test flight was not enough to cause any concern over flying while the spare line is on order.

The main common sign of lines needing re-set is: Does the glider seem to ‘hang back’ when ground handling at launch more that it used to? 

26/07/2007

“Ah Perfect”……

Filed under: YouTube — Murray Hay @ 05:16 pm

For those who have seen the film ‘Con Air’, this could be the PG version!

 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v549ZCWbQiM 

Garland Green: “Define irony….bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.”

Here’s hoping none of our members do “Ah Perfect” landings!

For more ‘expert trained pilots’ try this clip…. Includes tandem ‘launches’…. scary stuff!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5jvdpC_RMLs

01/06/2007

‘Black Sat’

Filed under: Fife Sites — Murray Hay @ 12:00 pm

With the conditions getting WAY too punchy inland by eary afternoon (a couple of PG accidents involving heli rescue etc! at other sites in Scotland) Duncan (thanks for the pics 😉 and myself headed to the sandy bay at Elie which is always a good option when Fife main sites ‘blow/thermal out’…. a great site to work on launch/landing and general ground control/safety stuff, with the potential for some exclent technical flying.

Using the wing to jog up the hill, plus the usual playing about on the poles & blocks (war time tank traps), with a lot of the lift (west component to the wind at times) along the ridge out to the point short (!) ‘out and return’ flights even over the water were on.

The bay is also a good site when the wind is right and the air is ‘lifty’ for extended tandem flights, even with heavier P2’s, in fact Alan Littlejohn started with his first flights here..

24/05/2007

YouTube

Filed under: YouTube — Murray Hay @ 05:05 pm

Hi all I’ve started encoding video clips for YouTube from the NINTY or so hours of paragliding footage shot since ’98….

There are over 200 clips up now…! You can search under Paragliding + Scotland to see all the videos put up by PG pilots flying in this part of the world.

To view the Precision Paragliding student training video clips as well as some of ESP members flying, follow this link http://www.ParaVideo.co.uk

17/05/2007

Sea Breeze

Filed under: Weather Stuff — Murray Hay @ 10:20 am

Hi all got a bit of luck a few days ago when it came to getting photographs showing the effect of the coast land/water boundary setting up a sea breeze… all afternoon the MET wind based on the synoptic charts was due to be NW – West in direction and a high chance of being blown out in the hills, however the TAF’s & METAR’s (generate the display on XCWeather, MET Actual Report) were starting to show a sea breeze developing on the East Coast of Scotland (EGPN, EGQL & EGPD) so it was up to the ridge & cliffs at Arbroath, (one of our restricted sites).

The wind vane on the tower is showing a nice SE which the balloon did not match until after 7:30, up till then the upper winds (NW) resulted in me looking at the tail end of the tethered balloon for most of the day!

The leaves folded over on the trees next the Dundee Arbroath road show a 12-15kt SE wind at ground level almost 180* in direction compared to the wind at balloon & cloud level! From the angle of the teather line it looks as if at the balloon height the wind is of a similar strength but NW.

13/04/2007

Inversion Wave

Filed under: Weather Stuff — Murray Hay @ 12:01 pm

Ending the day getting some solo, then tandem flying up at the ‘Cairn’ with Susan up visiting Ali from ‘doon south’, we were treated to the clearest example of late evening lee wave acting on pollution trapped lying along the boundary layers generated by inversions that I have ever seen, unfortunatly the pictures do not do it full justice as the sun was just too low by the time I had my work camera. Worth posting none the less 🙂

Looking lower the smoke which had been rising to just below the inversion half an hour before is now ‘up side down’ in appearance showing just how low the warm air from above had dropped on sun down, not good for the last bit of flying of the day but intresting to see!

05/04/2007

Yellow Alert

Filed under: Fife Sites — Murray Hay @ 12:23 pm

Ali and myself having a blast with some close quarter flying over the main quarry at Forret in a mix of ridge & mild thermals, by the end of the evening one gorse bush had been half garoted and a couple more squashed…. 😉

The AWACS did three take off and landing practice ‘circuits’, but instead of over flying the hill (normal) was braking left early so not making as good a photo op for us PG pilots!

04/04/2007

‘C’ ‘B’ flying…. Sea Bay that is!

Filed under: Club East Coast Days — Murray Hay @ 11:48 am

After the weekend up the mountains (Glen Coe) and Hill’s (E Lomond) of Scotland, it was time for some lazy flying (as far as walking goes)…. so late afternoon after work up the coast to pick up Ali….. cups of tea, walk 20 ft to pickup….. arrive at Vic Park, ‘climb’ up the steps for Ali (50ft) and walk 20ft for Murray to fly up…… with VERY ‘x’ conditions due to the east component it was a fun half hours airtime for me and Ali honing his GH & Take Off skill in the almost (gnd) trim speed = wind speed…. then another 20ft walk back to the pickup….. Gosh that’s getting close to 100ft walking so far!

 

A quick drive around to East Seaton, phoning to farm manager to open the site, and then….. you guessed it, walk about 20-30ft to take off on the bay slope (!) For almost 2 1/2 hours of GREAT flying with all the usual T & G’s, mild aeros and spot landings…

Jim from Dundee was out walking and taking pics along the coastal path and is going to forward pictures of the two gliders in the air, with luck capturing the ‘close quarters’ stuff we were doing for the camera, fingers crossed we (and the shuter release) got everything lined up to make some spectacular images… to be added to this post  soon 🙂

A slightly early end to the days flying as the lift was dropping by 7:30 (along with the temp!) and to get around to Pepo’s in time for the chips etc… so a L O N G walk of at least 150ft…. Shocking! to the pickup drive around and 10ft to the counter to pick up the phoned in order and back down the road to yet another 20ft walk to more tea and nibbles….

Summing up the afternoon/evening: We were out for under 4 hours, with a total walking time about 5 mins and my flying time, well around three and a half hours, Ali doing slightly less time when we were flying at the park but solidly flying till pack up time at the Bay 🙂

12/03/2007

Lees Hill, Gargunnock

Filed under: Gargunnock Hills — Murray Hay @ 03:50 pm

Alan Coffin getting some good ‘touch & goes’ top landing training in fresh conditions on his first visit to the Gargunnock Hills, in addition a nice tight 360* diving turn and a good amount of big ears practice before rain arriving indicated a cut & run to pack up for the day. All in all a long drive from Aberdeen but judged well worth it!

Ian from the Killin Mountain rescue crew was also out and flying his new Nova, Joe deciding to keep his wing dry chose to hike down as the showers were arriving. 

03/03/2007

Lochan na Lairige Dam

Filed under: Mountain days — Murray Hay @ 01:19 am

Some play time at the Dam near Ben Lawers before the occluded front arriving early stopped play for the day!

First flight was with a straight valley wind up the dam, take off and cut 135* right to jump the power lines and scratch up the dam face until a few beats later climbing into solid lift above the dam top 🙂 worked the lift for a while then cut back throught the dirty air to landing next the dam top & road. Back to the launch point and following a number of hops which got me round to the east and up to Sron Dha Mhurchaidh, working the whole hill (lift on all sides!) before flying to the center car park to meet Ian & Ali. Then a hike up from the bridge and work in stages the main low face of Ben Lawers and a final run to the Visitor center for a drive back to the dam, the wind now with a lot of east gave an ‘intresting’ jump to the far side of the dam to re-launch and work the west side & dam up high before puncing out front and carving in low to land at the bottom of the dam 🙂

 A BIG thanks to Ali for doing the driving and shooting pics… I will arrange better (warmer) weather next time! (honest!)

 MH

 Trians has a YouTube video from flying about 7 miles west of where we were, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NSjVT7cmk4

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