Bunny Hops
The secret diary of a novice paragliding competition pilot by Nicole Moores

Friday 15 April - First round of the BPC 2005 - North Wales
It's raining. No it's not raining it's actually bucketing it down. And we are on our way to my first British Paragliding Competition. Well I've read the rules, I've studied the FAQs, paid my entry fees and remembered to pack my GPS and BHPA membership card. Oh and I even remembered my airmap for North Wales. I entered the BPC because I wanted to fly different sites and meet new people, not because I think I am particularly talented or want to win - but it made sense to fly new sites with a proper briefing and have 50 other pilots show the way XC... What do I expect tomorrow? To have an enjoyable day in the air with new friends...

Saturday 16th April

It stopped raining at last just as it was getting light. I registered and had my GPS uploaded with waypoints for the weekend - oh and picked up my warm woollie hat branded with BPC 2005. Briefing was short and sweet - although there was snow on take off and it was way too windy, it was forecast to get much better towards the afternoon - hence we were given co-ordinates for a layby half an hour's drive away - I think this is part of the competition, find the flying site! North Wales is not so accommodating in terms of driving up to take off and the walk up Arenig Fach was hard going. Especially since it was cold and windy and overcast. We huddled behind our bags against the wind when it started to snow. And it snowed, and stopped and snowed and stopped... for the next four hours we kept our spirits up by chatting and walking around the mountainside in the snow. We eventually binned it at 3pm - cold and wet we made our way back down the mountain with no sign of the weather changing. Welcome to competition flying!

Sunday's forecast was for gale force winds and driving rain. Looking out from the van I could count 5 beautifully formed wave bars - bad news :-( We got together at 9:30am for our briefing, but it was decided that flying would be out of the question and everyone scattered in their different directions, with promises of seeing each other again in a few weeks' time. As long as it doesn't snow I'll be happy.

What did I learn from my first comp weekend?

• Always have wet weather gear packed, remember the woollie hat even if the forecast is good.
• Get fit!
  

Dales and Lakes - 29th-2nd May
Another BPC round - another wet and windy weekend. Patience is certainly a virtue that one should carefully hone and polish and polish again before entering the BPC - especially if it's flyable at home when you're away parawaiting. I firmly believe that one should be able to earn points based on the amount of beer that you can drink to escape the foul weather outside, the amount of tourist attractions one can sniff out, and the commitment of making the final effort on the final morning to get out of bed and go to the final briefing on yet another stormy morning.

Friday 29th April - Registration was between 9-10am at the Crown pub in Hawes. With GPS uploaded and fleece collected, it was time for a briefing in what could only be described as a howling breeze. Rebriefing was at 12noon - Beautiful cloud streets streaked the sky all day, interspersed with warm sunshine and a 30mph wind on top of the hills in the Dales... still too breezy. When another rebrief was called for 4pm, we decided to take it underground and to explore the wonders of the 'longest show cave in Britain', the White Star cave. The day was binned and, well what's there left to do, but go to the pub for copious amounts of beer, followed by a fantastic meal at the Crown in Hawes.

Saturday 30th April - Raining. Bucketing in fact. And... no wind!!!!! nothing, not a whisper. So at the 10am briefing the day was binned and Dave Snowdon was called upon to tell his tale of flying in the Himalayas for entertainment after breakfast. The rain stopped and like lemmings, everyone escaped into the outdoors for an afternoon of parawaiting fun! We walked up a mountain called Semerwater, which, for a change was an easy walk up. The view was fantastic, and as there was hardly a breeze to talk about (2mph), the wings came out for an afternoon of spotlanding practice in the bottom landing field interspersed with fossil hunting in the old quarry next to take-off.

Sunday 1st May - Raining AND windy - 10am briefing - another binned day - there were reports that it might be flyable on either the east or the west coasts, so again, like lemmings, the convoy headed off to the east coast, making it as far as the food and drink festival. The wind had gone off to the south-west. No good. The wind felt as if it was dying down and the convoy turned around to take a look at Hawkswick - an 8km ridge of mountain - another walk up. When we got there, there was hardly any wind, and two wings took to the air. The scramble up to the top didn't take any of the desparate paragliding pilots long to achieve, but when we crested the ridge, a large, dark thunderstorm was brewing right in front of us. We decided to wait it out, but unfortunately the wind after the gust front was 50 degrees off the hill and quite strong initially. Disappointed we walked half way back down for some fun on the training slope, before another wing was seen to take off. Again, we scrambled up the hill and I was determined to fly - even if it was just back to the car at the bottom! With the wind off the hill, it was particularly rough and I didn't enjoy it enough to stay in the air for more than 5 minutes. We made it back just in time for another fantastic meal, good company and copious amounts of beer at the Crown.

Monday 2nd May - Thunderstorms and wind - 9am briefing - by this time I had already packed up my tent, ready to leave for home as reports were saying that at least it was flyable down in Dorset. The day, and the weekend was a depressing disappointment in terms of flying, but it makes it fun when there are sixty eager people who are in the same boat.

Score: Everyone x 60 - first place
Weather 2, tasks 0

SE Wales 25-26 June

Finally. A good forecast - even if it was just for one day. I learnt a lot this weekend, mainly because I had my blonde head screwed on, I didn't believe that was at last going to be flyable, and I was therefore VERY unprepared.

People say that you learn a lot from competition flying, but I now believe that it all starts on the ground. By trying not to get too worked up and nervous about the day, I made some fundamental, beginner errors, such as not properly checking the batteries in my GPS, not checking whether my radio actually had charged (even though it had been plugged in and charging for 24 hours, and not having my map folded correctly. Not to even mention the fact that half way up the Blorenge, I was wondering what I had done with my flying suit the last time I had flown...

Because the forecast was for it to be terrible on Saturday, I also decided that it wasn't worth driving up there early, and hence organised to be late at registration. However, we took it way too lazily, and by the time we arrived, they had dismantled the computers and I had to add the turnpoints in manually. But. Apart from that I was ready to fly!!!

Sunday morning started a bit too breezy and we had rebriefings almost every hour until 1pm, when we heard reports that there were people flying at the Blorenge. It was sunny and warm, but quite high pressure. The clouds were therefore not looking epic, and to say the least, I was quite sceptic - even though we would at least get to float around for an hour.

So. Once I got to the hill, found my flying suit, folded my map and uploaded my GPS, the task was set. Pilots were provided with information such as this to help them complete the task:

Window open (when we can take off): 15:30
Window close (you have to take off before this time in order to score points): 17:00
Land by: 18:15
We were also given the co-ordinates of the start gate and where goal was. It was a virtual goal post and we had to get within 2km of that specific co-ordinate to score.

Our task was to fly out about half a km in front to a turnpoint, which would be the start gate - at which time the countdown to goal would start. It was a race to goal task, which meant that the person who finished the course the fastest would win.

I decided to sit out the whole scramble for the air when the window opened. It was quite spectacular, given the interesting groundhandling that was going on all along the ridge... The liftband at the time was also not great and there were about 30 gliders milling about quite low down on the hill. In fact quite like a busy day at Bell, except the fundamental difference was that ALL of these guys were competitive. Thermals started to come through, and soon there was enough separation about for me to take off. I tried going for the start gate quite early, but didn't have enough height, so went back to the hill to try and find a nice thermal.

And there it was! A fantastically smooth and consistent 4-up. I was soon joined by most of the field below me - a Gradient Aspen and I at the top flying wing tip to wing tip. I giggled all the way to cloud base when I realised I shouldn't be behind the hill and climbing away - I was meant to be on a glide to the start gate! My heart sank as I left the thermal and pushed back to the Blorenge. No matter, I was sure another one would save me yet again. Unfortunately my first thermal was the one that took quite a few people very close to goal :-(

I reached the start gate with quite a lot of height to spare, but by this time there weren't any significant thermals about. There were still quite a few people left on the hill, I would say about a quarter of the lot (the rest having either left in the two previous thermals, or bombed out somewhere over the back). It was really quite boyant and there was lift about everywhere, although not consistent or well-formed. Just when I was starting to think how embarrassing it would have been to still be at the Blorenge when we had to land, a thermal took me, and Craig Byrne over the back at around 5:45. Got to cloudbase again for the second time that day, and this time stuck with it. Three other gliders came with us, and we all flew to the next ridge when the cloud dissapated - another flying site called Blaenavon where we could see paragliders soaring. I was feeling very airsick at this point, and didn't think to try and go over the back of this ridge for some more distance (which, again I should have done). We all landed just before 18:15 - me a very happy person to have survived my first task of the BPC. Given that quite a few people bottom-landed at the Blorenge, I was happy to have been able to get away. I really did deserve to come last with my sloppy preparation.

Back at base camp, I was told that we had done 9.68km - I was ecstatic!
Points scored:
461, which puts me in 20th place (top woman)

Final Round

The Borders event at the end of July was, as predicted a wash-out and this bunny was certainly not going to drive all the way up there just to drive back down again.

The Long Mynd, the final frontier - our last chance to get some tasks in before the end of the BPC for 2005. Friday dawns with rain and wind. I got up at 4am to drive the five hours up to Bishop's Castle where Mark Leavesy and Leavesy Aviation, our hosts for the weekend, are based. I slept most of that day, resting up for what we all hoped would be a fantastic weekend in the air.

I poked my nose out of the tent on Saturday, 6th August. It was windy and overcast - the clouds covered the tops of the hills all around us. There were wings in the air at 8am, but the general feeling was that it would be blown out by the time we got ourselves sorted and got up there. Bum. Maybe we could do a ridge run on the Mynd...? We charged up the hill at 11am to find it still flyable albeit a tad on the stronger side. Still cloudy. We were told to go flying for an hour and that briefing would be at 1pm. And so we all took to the sky. We were treated to some impressive acro by Mark Leavesy et al. It was benign conditions due to the cloud cover and we all thought it would probably just be a ridge run task. However, to make it a bit more interesting, the task was a ridge run via two turnpoints, with goal being 15k behind the hill.
So. Take off. Turn right for the start cylinder (an area within 2km of the turnpoint - make sure gps records that one has been in the cylinder, otherwise you won't score any points). Turn around and head for the second turnpoint at the far left end of the Mynd. As I was heading towards this turnpoint, the clouds broke up and powerful thermals started coming up the hill. This, together with a constantly increasing windstrength was getting more and more uncomfortable. Many of the fast-flying competition wings had by now disappeared over the back. I ended up using my speed bar more often than not, just trying to stay in front of the hill, with gusts constantly forcing me back into the lift band and towards the trees. After about two hours in the air I decided that I had had enough. My wing had by then collapsed more than I've eve known it to do before with a couple of big assimetrics and 50% collapses thrown in for good measure. It was time to land. I bottom-landed knowing that I wouldn't have flown in such conditions had it not been for the comp. I was glad to be on the ground. However, I did manage to score 12km of points that day.

Sunday, 7th August. Glorious Sunny and windy Sunday. The wind had swung round to the northwest and The Lawley was apparently the place to be. Arriving in the carpark behind the hill, the wind seemed to be coming around the hill, so we all soon realised it was going to be interesting flying conditions. The Lawley is not a place to get blown back at. It is a spine back ridge with a narrow-ish valley behind - somewhere I certainly did not want to get dumped in. The briefing was that it was a 200km day. It was a race to goal task which meant first one at goal won. Because of the 'good' (windy) conditions, people were encouraged to reach goal and go on to try and break the UK declared goal distance record at 170km away. It was painful watching everyone with the fast gliders take off and disappear downwind, although I was not in the mood to be thrown about again as I was the day before. The wind was top end and off the hill which made it especially rough. I know because I did in the end get suckered into the air. No surprise there. It was as windy as the day before, but with stronger thermals kicking me back into the lift band constantly. I didn't stay in the air for more than 10 minutes - it was horrible. Again, I probably would not have flown had it not been a competition. Three other pilots bottom-landed with me and many didn't fly. By this time I was very frustrated with my low airtime, and rusty flying skill. I was very nervous in the air. Especially since so many went on to do 100km that day, it was difficult being left behind. But, it was my decision to land, and for that I am glad. Live to fly another day.

Monday 8th August. Sweet, calm and stable Monday. To my absolute panic, they made us go to the Lawley again. After my flight there yesterday, this was not a place I wanted to see again so soon. However, Dave M was with me to motivate and calm, although initially I was a mental wreck! However, the day was made for me. At last, there was almost no wind on take off with fantastic thermals coming through every so often. The briefing was a race to goal again, with Worcester as goal - same as yesterday. I had two false attempts at staying in the air and realised my head was not into it. Too many people, not enough ridge lift, too crowded... it was all wrong! Then Dave came down to where I was and gave me a stern talking to. I then took off, headed out towards the bottom landing field out of which a thermal had already attracted a number of wings and off we went! It was a brilliant 5-up all the way to cloud base without a worry. Once there, it became an adventure of how many different people you could thermal with at any given moment. It was very blue with only the tiniest wispies pointing out the tops of thermals. And they disappeared quickly and without warning. I finally got to a place called Clee Hill where I saw some other paragliders struggling to find a thermal back to base. At this point I had been in the air for almost two hours, and I was hoping one of the lower wings would point the way for a thermal. I followed the high ground as they did and unfortunately couldn't find anything. It was quite late, after 4pm and the climbs were in the valleys by then, but I hadn't noticed. Unfortunately I landed after a delightful flight and 23.1km. Those who scrambled down to the valleys found their climbs and made goal... maybe next year...

What flying in the BPC meant to me, a novice at comps and at that a low airtime pilot, is too much to try and write down all in one go. However, a few of the good ones are noted down just in case I forget during the winter why I did it in the first place:
1. I learnt how to use my GPS properly
2. I learnt how to navigate with my airmap
3. I know what a start cylinder is and I am not scared to try and fly via turnpoints and doglegs now.
4. I've learnt how to track cross wind to reach my goal (I still need a lot of practice on this one)
5. I am much better at thermalling and can really core a thermal now
6. It's fun to fly with other people who are mostly better than you at it
7. I've pushed my envelope of comfort in the air a little
8. I flew sites that I had never flown before.
9. The people are friendly
10. I came 33rd overall (about half way up)

9 Dec 05

After my final instalment of Bunny Hops was published, an event made me rethink everything that I have learnt this year. Well that and the fact that everyone told me that I should really try to encourage people to participate, not discourage them with my sombre words!

This year I have spent my year learning to fly all over again - and found it a steep learning curve - granted that I'd never competed in paragliding competitions before, and thank goodness I don't have to do that again!

I mean I'm just a 100-hour pilot trying to learn something from people with thousands more hours than I have! I knew I would learn a lot - but what I didn't realise was how much I was going to be humbled in the presence of all those others who could obviously fly a lot better than I could. But enough of learning to fly - what about memories?

Strangely my favourite memories from this year's BPC each included thermalling out over take-off with what seemed like 1000 other people crammed into the space that should really only allow two, closely watching each of those wings spinning all the way to base with mine in there with them - each of us giggling, smiling and laughing whilst happily saying good bye to Mr Earth and knowing that we were on our way. At that point it didn't matter whether you were going to fly 100km or 10km, what mattered was that we were all in the same boat, each just trying to get to cloud-base. And some of us flew 10km and some flew hundreds, that didn't matter, what mattered was that I was out there doing it at almost a brand new flying site every day, taking off when I was told to and landing safely. And for that I seem to have won the top female award this year... Completely knocked my socks off - never expected that! Especially coming 33rd overall it doesn't really crosses one's mind to check...

Heh, pretty cool huh! So who's doing it with me next year? ;-)

Nicole