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Wednesday, 5/8/13 [Weather] and [Flight Articles] by [Sundowner] & [________]
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Wednesday, 5/8/13
about 40 minutes airtime
Bantoo

Tess's mandatory paragraph write up:
My paragliding flight with dad was so much fun.  We saw two red tail hawks!  The loop-de-doos are so much fun.  We were the only ones that didn't land and start again.  It was awesome.  I can not wait to do it again.  We were going to go again today (Thursday), but my dad kept saying it's not going to happen and my mom says we can't go every day.

Sundowner's Flight Report, see also [Weather Archive] and [Tess's Flight Index]

Tess was a little gun shy after her first mountain flight from the Skyport on a bumpy high pressure day in March, but she wanted to give it another try, so we did some harness evaluation and practiced hanging from the living room rafters on Monday.  Opted to go with the large one size fits all harness.

The conditions at Bates were good on Wednesday for a low anxiety mellow flight.  Just enough wind to stay up easy, but not so much that penetration was an issue.  It was only blowing into the low teens out in the middle of the channel and there weren't any white caps that we could see from shore.  Probably about 5 to 8 on the lip from a better direction than typical.

Tess got home from school (on her scooter) about a quarter past 3.  We loaded up and got to Bates before 4ish.  Utilized an assistant for the front pull up horsepower and had a clean unassisted drive and launch.  There were several other pilots flying.  Most were doing repeated side hill and top landings and then relaunching.  Altitude varied from cliff top to a hundred over.  I quizzed Tess several time to see if she wanted to land, but she assured me she wanted to stay up.  Flew with a couple of red tail hawks.  Did some gyrations for fun, but mostly just went back and forth.  We tried to fly back for a top landing a couple of times but could only reach the upper terrace.

One of the other pilots landed on the beach.  He hiked up to his waiting car so we dropped in on the grass figuring to catch a ride back up, but he was in too much of a hurry and said he didn't have time to drop me off.  Fortunately, a swim instructor (Stephen from http://www.feredayswimschool.com) was drying off a couple of parking spots over and offered to give me a ride up.  Left Tess with the gear and got back in a few minutes.  Packed up on the grass.  Pilots were still flying and top landing in light conditions when we stopped by the upper launch a little after 5 on our way back to town.

The following photos are small versions.  I have the larger full size version for printing.