Photos by Zeno Kerr

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Photos by Jitka Polechova

Download fullsize images from flickr.

Well it all started out with a cracking weather forecast for the weekend. A High Pressure system hovering just north of Scotland.

I guess it's time for me to share my weekend experiences with the rest of you.

It has to have been the most interesting weekend of flying that I have ever had. Not because it was my first UK thermalling XC over 10km, but because I have learnt alot about myself.

Saturday:
As was the case with most of the rest of you. I stood around on the hill for the majority of the day. I had a fly down and then dithered when everyone was circling in the big thermal of the day. I ended up getting some thermalling practice pushing out into the big open and finding a thermal up 100m. downwind to the next one gaining another 50m and then speedbar to chase a cloud down the west highland way. At this point I decided not to bother and turned back for the car park scraping in just over the trees for a good landing. The day ended bery badly for me after I got bashed in the face and thought I was going to loose a front tooth (it is still in at the time of writing... I think it'll be ok. luckily!). I had 3 flights and I am very confident with my ground handling skills but some how managed to fluff every launch. I felt ill for the whole evening mainly because of my tooth, but also because of the big XCs that I managed to miss.

Sunday:
This is the day I learnt the biggest lesson. In an effort not to miss any flying, I vowed to bin off the top as many times as possible until the air started working again. Well I did. Flight 1: Fluffed launch and "spiral" down to car park. Flight 2: I was scratiching very VERY close to the rocks in front of launch. I was maintaining height and had about 10 beats. It was upwind flying towards the chairlift and downwind back. There was a nice consistent area of lift between launch and the chairlift and I was gaining the majority of my height there. So this is what I did...

INCIDENT REPORT...

On what turned out to be the final beat of my flight I got to the area of lift and slammed on the brakes to do a slow tight turn so I could maximise height gain and stay close to the rocks for my next beat. I turned TOO MUCH and found myself at min speed facing downwind and penduluming in towards the rocks. My thoughts at this moment were.

1. FUCK
2. I am about to pile in at high speed down wind.
3. TURN RIGHT.

To make the turn I had to put a lot of right brake on. I was already flying at min speed and spun my glider. I am not sure how high I was, but it must have been about 5 to 10meters above the rocks.. I felt the glider start to spin and knew immediately what was happening... My thoughts at the time:

1. FUCK
2. WHERE AM I GOING TO HIT
3. FUCK THIS IS FAST
4. THIS IS GOING TO HURT
5. FEET DOWN.

I piled in about 20meters below launch onto what I can only say is a very conveniently placed patch of grass just above a 3meter vertical rock face. When I got my feet down the impact was hard and so my back protection took the rest of the force. My thoughts:

1. I'M ALIVE
2. GRAB SOMETHING
3. WHERE'S MY GLIDER... there it is. OK I'm SAFE
4. RADIO OTHER'S to let them know I am OK.

I then became acutely aware of the predicament I was in. I had to detach from my glider before it pulled me off. Thankfully above me the slope was not too steep for others to come to my assistance. I passed my equipment up and then climbed out.

Thank you to those who came to help me. There were about 4 or 5 people, but for some reason I can only remember tommy. I guess because he was there first.

I gave everyone who saw me spin a real big scare, but for me the whole thing was over in an instant. I AM VERY LUCKY TO ESCAPE COMPLETELY UNHURT. I didn't even break my glider!

So, WHY DID IT HAPPEN?

I've given this a lot of thought and it has to do with a number of small things... Firstly it was completely pilot error, so was entirely my fault. There were 2 others flying the same slope at the time, I was no where near them.

1. I was pissed off with Saturday and wanted to make the most of Sunday.
2. I had started to fly with a half wrap and I my brake lines have not been lengthened to compensate, so I was braking a significant amount more than I normally do.
3. I was showing off flying scratching sometimes within a metre from the  rock face.
4. I lost concentration for a moment.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

Well I went back up to launch and sat there for a while. I was aware that i might be in shock, because I didn't feel rattled by the incident at all. So I sat there and talked through it with others. I didn't feel embarrassed, merely happy that I was OK. Checking my hands, I was surprised that they were not shaking.

After about a half hour. I had a fly down to the car park... Again fluffed the launch and had a good landing. There was lift on my way down that I tried to take, but then abandoned thinking that I should instead stick to my flight plan.

Later on back on launch, I managed to get the big thermal of the day and had an excellent XC. I'll keep this brief, but I thermalled up over the valley to 300m above launch. Then flew to the buchaille??? . Dave Thompson went very close to the rocks but there was no way I was going to do that after the day's experience. I managed to find some roaring thermals away from the rocks. Back up to 250 above launch hit the inversion again and set off down glen etive. It was spectacular. Cut a long story short, I got 10.2km as the crow flies from launch and landed in a field full of hazards!. A few minutes later I was joined by Tim Jackson and Lucy. What a HIGH.

After a few drinks back at the Kingy We decided to stay another day.

Monday:
Camped in -2 temperatures and had a much more thermic day than the rest of the weekend. However, the inversion was lower than before, so there was just a lot of playing at Glen Coe rather than going XC. My last flight of the day... Bob and Helen flew off at 3:30 to get the car park thermal. I instead pushed out into wind to find the big valley thermal that everyone had got at about that time on the previous two days. IT WAS THERE. Thermalled up high and then pushed again trying to make it across the valley. Managed to get a thermal above the Kings House which was ripping. My vario recorded 5.6 up. It was rough and broken because I was quite clearly flying towards rotor. So when I lost it, Beer beaconed and I spiralled down to the Kings house and got my beverage.

Shortly later I was joined by Jitka then Robin and then Jamie who took ages to get there because he kept finding stuff that took him up and back!

We got back to edinburgh for 8:30.

STILL ALIVE AND A LOT WISER FOR IT.

Zeno