Rosemary and I were going down to Salisbury for the weekend, so we had decided to take the Friday off from work. Friday the wind was blowing from the North West, so this was an ideal time to try some flying at Coombe.

We arrived at around 1.30. There were some 30-40 paragliders and hang gliders around. I set up and launched very quickly, but had to do a slope landing as I was going down. I had missed the thermal cycle and everyone else was coming down.

I set up to launch again, and had a couple of bad attempts at launching. The wind from the termals was quite stong. I did learn a few tips on how to control the glider when it was upside down on the ground.

I waited around for a quieter phase, launched and had a 20 minute flight in front of the hill. It was quite rough, going from 8 ups to 4 downs. Rosemary said she saw many gliders with their wind tips folding.

I set up for a third flight, but soon went down. That was it for the day as we had to be in Salisbury for a meeting at 8.30