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Annecy 2015 - 4th day
Annecy 2015 - 3rd day
Annecy 2015 - 2nd day
Annecy 2015 - 1st day
Handy Hammock Launch
Outdoor Trophy - Press Release
More Niagara Flying
Niagara Flying
Jason and Roy resume training
Closing down sale
Ike
Slovenia Paragliding Trip - 1
Free paragliding magazine
Paragliding Accomodation in France
DVD Review - Flying the Falls
Himalayan paragliding
PPG Training (Sunday)
PPG Training (Saturday)
Annecy - Jason's 2nd dbag - final day
Annecy 2007 - Mont Blanc - day 7

Who Killed The Electric PPG
Who Killed The Electric PPG
Christmas Presents for Paraglider Pilots
Christmas Presents for Paraglider Pilots
Come fly with us
Hi Mark
Hi Mark
Hi Mark
Hi Mark
Where are you based
Where are you based
Finger Lakes this weekend
Finger Lakes this weekend
Don't unclip your leg-straps if you might re-launch
Don't unclip your leg-straps if you might re-launch
Italy valley flight
Italy valley flight
Italy valley flight
Italy valley flight
Free Paragliding T-shirts designs

Annecy (the sequel!) - 2005

This was a great trip. I got to fly with my twin brother Jason, parents Janet and Brian, girlfriend Emmalyn and friends Suzanne, Andy and Chris DAYS NUMBERED AS -4,-3 etc WERE BEFORE THE TRIP (this was confusing Jason a little bit)
(Day -4) (Day -3) (Day -2) (Day -1) (Day 1) (Day 2) (Day 3) (Day 4) (Day 5) (Day 6) (Day 7) (Day 8)

Day 5

Saturday 30th July 2005

Waking up early, I felt a whole lot better than the previous morning , although I still wasn`t 100%. The weather was looking nice although the clouds did seem to be shifting at a fair rate of knots.

We had spoken to the ever hilarious Andy Brazier the day before about the possibility of hooking up with Irwin (seasoned pilot and paragliding B & B owner). He has several years experience flying in the area and often offers fly-guiding services to visiting pilots.

The idea was that we would set off early and check out the conditions at Irwins gaff (Maison Moulin). We would then, weather permitting, head to take off for a kick ass XC returning to the Doussard landing field in the early evening. Well, it sounded like a good plan...

It was pretty obvious the wind was a little on the generous side without checking out the forecast, so we spent a good deal of time sat around. I took the opportunity to set up my bullet camera, only to discover that the loose connection at the back had finally given up. The camera was now defunct, despite my butchering attempts to coax it back to life.

I headed to the car and improvised something for my main camera, but it was very clumsy and I didn`t really expect to use it. In-flight filming was not going to be possible today, except for a few crummy hand held shots (these are usually a waste of mini DV tape).

After the camera-hacking interlude Irwin appeared and suggested we check out the North end of the lake. We all hopped into cars and, made our way to the North End.

All we saw were lots of high performance wings gale-hanging. Our snail-paced wings would not have stood a chance of penetrating and it was reluctance that we agreed to meet up again a few hours later to see how things were developing.

It was at this point that it would have been great to have a functioning mobile phone. That way we could have arranged to meet the others and done something useful with our day, but instead Jason and I just drove to the landing field and sat down get bored and frustrated that it was just over the limit that we could have flown in. The hang gliders were loving it though....gits!

5:30pm rolled around and we met up with Andy and Irwin who had discovered that Andy`s sailing skills suck and that Irwin`s boat floats even when capsized! It seemed we had missed an entertaining afternoon of fun. The weather was still just outside the safe envelope and it was looking doubtful that we would get any flying, but it always calms down in the evenings right?

Sure enough it did, but not before Andy had to set off for Geneva. It was his last day and he was weighing up the benefits of staying for the chance of another flight and hitching to Geneva through the night or just setting off now and getting their relaxed. Maturity shone through and Andy left for Geneva, missing a great evening of flying.

It was 7pm before either of us managed to launch. The sky was still bright and there were plenty of other pilots waiting around the launch area. I like to wait all ready to go and clipped in. It pays off because as soon as the conditions calmed down enough there was a big scrum to get on the launch mat. I know because I was watching from above!

I was airborne before Jason this time and I made an immediate right turn and instantly shot up in the house thermal that sits over take off. I was lucky to have taken off when I did because I ended up at higher than any other pilots. Timing was very lucky, but at this higher altitude I seemed to catch thermal after thermal even though the lower pilots seemed to be struggling...weird! Jason was amongst those that seemed unable to get past some invisible barrier. I headed back towards the launch area and tried to indicate where the lift was with some big wing overs and tight 360s. He got the message but was still struggling in weak lift in front of take off. I was tempted to go down to his altitude and fly with him, but decided against it as, knowing my luck, I would probably end up sinking out and having to land, so I continued to play around in my little patch of strong lift and waited for Jason to ascend.

Eventually he got something decent and made it over to where I was flying. We then both headed northwards down the ridge. It was really neat because by this time ALL other pilots had landed. It was just me and my bro. We took the opportunity to fly really close and have a chat. Jason reeled off a ton of photos on his new 2megapixel camera phone as well as some on his girlfriends camera (which he bought her...). This was possibly the best flight of the holiday. We didn`t go far or achieve anything spectacular, but it was just me and Jase flying together side by side, with the mountain to ourselves. It was a memorable flight.

Jason getting a bit panicked by the lack of other pilots and was looking at some rather big clouds in the distance. He was thinking about landing and was convinced we should play it safe.

Nice one you nob jocky! We could have stayed up much longer, but I followed his advice and we headed in to the landing field with oodles of height to burn off.

Over the landing field I was having difficulty coming down. I pulled a couple of spiral dives and wing overs (crap ones with wing tip collapses!) and looked at my altimeter. After another couple of minutes I was back up at my original altitude. Maybe this was the `magic lift` pilots talk about in the middle of the valley at the end of the day. It certainly seemded pretty magic.

We landed, packed up and then called Irwin on the radio. He had offered to pick us up and ferry us to the top of the mountain to pick up our rental car when we were done. Trouble was we were not getting any response. We soon decided to walk to Irwin`s B & B. It took us about half an hour and would have been a hassle usually, but we were still buzzing from the flight and we seemed to be carried there.

Irwin was having a min- crisis of his own when we arrived as one of his hang gliding guests had gone missing, suspected to have landed somewhere unusual, so he could not drive us to pick up the car. Fortunately another paraglider pilot very kindly let us the keys to his car and we drove ourselves up. It was now dark and I knew we should have sorted out those pesky mobile phones. Roaming costs are ridiculous and a two minute phone call FROM Andy earlier in the week had used up twenty quids worth of credit. We were unable to phone Emma and my parents to let them know what we were up to. I knew they would be worried, but there aren`t too many pay phones in the area.

Sure enough when we got back to Irwin`s B & B to return the car we found my parents and Emma waiting for us with a barrage of concerned questions. Where had we bee? Why didn`t we call?

I had to promise not to fly again until we got a new sim card a top up or some other way of getting the phone working. That would be tomorrow`s task.

The content of this site is ï¿½ Mark Andrews 2005-12, mandrews1973@gmail.com