Come fly with me

Following on from my previous post I thought I would put up a picture or two of me doing something reckless; here I am paragliding over a rather beautiful lake in the southern French Alps; I took off from a place called St. Vincent les Forts which is at an altitude of 1270 meters you get a good kick from thermals over the village and some ridge lift to the North, I broke my altitude PB here nearly 3,000 meters, fab. Landing is a little hairy though as there are electricity cables running along the back of the landing field. If you miss the landing field you can land on a small beach down by the lake, and then scrounge a lift back up to where you parked your car!

Next here I am trying out paragliding with a motor strapped to my back, a little moped sized engine and a propeller, it looks highly unlikely and weighs a ton (25Kg), you need to be quite fit to do it as you have to run with the motor on, but its really good fun; if you can rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time then you can do this (lots of things to control all at once). Of course, you don't need hills to fly with a motor, just open the throttle and away you go, very cool; in this picture I am flying by the shore of a glacial lake in France, the control is so fine that you can even be flash and trail your foot in the water as you go.

Paragliding is a great sport if you have the nerve, there is nothing like pitching up on a hill somewhere and unpacking your canopy whilst onlookers scratch their heads, then a quick flip to get the wing over your head, a little jog and off you fly (well in theory), occasionally you end up on your arse with the canopy wrapped around a gorse bush of course (not so cool). To the casual observer it looks very relaxed and calm, it often isn't though and constant concentration is required as well as navigation skills, awareness of the environment and a keen eye for a landing spot. Often the air gets turbulent, particularly around rising thermals, dealing with collapsing canopies, spins and strong air currents are part of it although nothing too dramatic ever happened to me. I found it liberating to put my life in my own hands, the sense of achievement is very addictive. I hung up my harness a few years ago now, but who knows, maybe when the kids are older and I have more time I'll go back to it,