[Flyers] Flying in Spain - day one

[Ross Golder]

Flying in Spain – day one

I'm here in Algodonales, Spain, for a hang-gliding holiday with Tony and 
Rona Webb of Lejair. Here's how the first day went.

I arrived in Malaga airport on Monday evening, and got a hotel for the 
night. On Tuesday morning, I caught the first bus to Algonodales leaving 
at 8am, arriving at around 10:30am. Rona picked me up from a cafe where 
I had just had breakfast and took me to her house, where I would be 
staying in the spare bedroom. I dropped off my bags and we went to the 
workshop to do the paperwork. I arranged 'repatriation' insurance with 
the BHPA, and paid for my accommodation and five days hang-glider use 
and coaching.

We discussed my experience and the type of glider I am used to flying. 
Normally, I fly a Rumour II, but as I had not flown for two years or so, 
we decided that it would be best for me to start out with a nice, 
forgiving beginner's glider for the first day. Tony chose an Aeros 
Target for me, so we loaded that up onto the van, and headed out to a 
local hill called El Bosque about an hour's drive away.

We first drove to the landing field, so I could familiarise myself with 
the layout of the area, and see where it is flat and where it slopes. As 
we arrived, a few paragliders had just landed and we chatted about the 
conditions. The hill looked to be the highest I had ever flown from, 
with take-off around 1200ft above the landing field.

Once we reached the top of the hill, I saw a couple of paragliders 
taking off from a point just above where we parked the van. Tony and I 
carried the Target up to the paraglider launch point and rigged it. I 
was using my own pod harness and vario, and Tony arranged a helmet and 
radio. Tony pointed out all the main features of the site, including 
where the house thermals were, where the landing field and emergency 
landing fields were etc.

After we'd adjusted the hang straps and I was comfortable, I picked up 
the wing and edged over to launch. I was fairly nervous, as it had been 
a long time, and I've not done nearly as many hill launches as I have 
winch tows, but I went over all my training in my head, repeating it to 
Tony for assurance and we stood and waited for the right wind. As the 
two streamers came in line, Tony said now would be a good time, so I 
started running forward and felt the leg straps go tight. Within 
seconds, I had cleared the hill and was able to grab the crossbar and 
put my legs into my harness and turn left onto the hill. With Tony 
giving me guidance on the radio, I quickly found myself doing 360s in 
rising air and managing to stay well above launch for quite a while. The 
first mistake Tony corrected me on was that I was doing turns in one 
direction in a thermal, then switching directions when I lost the 
thermal to try to find it again. I then thought about it a bit more and 
stuck to one direction per thermal I found and found it easier to stay 
in them and find them again when I fell out of them.

I started heading out to land fairly early, but found a nice thermal 
above a brown field which I worked for a while, sometimes rising, 
sometimes sinking. However, I was having such a good time I nearly 
forgot to carry on heading towards the landing field and started getting 
quite low. Tony came onto the radio to remind me, and I set off again. 
It didn't look like I wasn't going to make it to the designated landing 
field, so I set up for a landing in a shorter grass field just before it 
and touched down quite nicely. I checked the altimeter, and it appeared 
that I had come down 1400ft from launch to landing, and was airbourne 
for around 25 mins.

I quickly de-rigged and carried everything to the road and awaited 
pick-up. Tony flew an Airwave K4 down and landed in the designated 
landing field, which was waist-high in wheat crop. I helped Tony get his 
glider to the side of the field and de-rig. Rona arrived in the van, we 
loaded up and we went for a quick beer at a local restaurant before 
heading back to Algodonales.

--
Ross