Zabdi's simulator

Weather was again was too shit, so we went to Zabdi's house in Kildonan and had a go on her simulator. Which is rigged up to an old coastguard tower, which is rapidly rusting away to nothing! Keith went through weight shifting with us on the simulator, it was very useful to work on technique. I found that it helped a lot for when we actually got some flying done. Keith also talked us through what we should do in the case of a collapse or a stall, including how to deploy the reserve.

20th August 2005 - Catacol Bay

This was another day of the gods in Catacol. The weather was fantastic, a light eastern wind. Unfortunately my camera ran out of juice and i only took one photo. Bummer. I got 2 flights in and managed to do a few turns using only weight shift. Both using a front take off.

14th August 2005 - Catacol Bay

We had a cracking day in Catacol. It's on the north west coast of Arran. We there's a light eastern sea breeze it's ideal for a bit of gentle soaring. It's got a huge take off area and the hill is covered in purple heather with few rocks or trees.

I had my second proper flight here, I took off doing a forward launch flew out over the coast and then did a straight forward top to bottom flight.

This is me taking off. I was using the blue Joker wing, and a pink harness - cheers for that Zabdi!

Master Zabdi performs a preflight check with another student (not sure who)

Keith was in radio contact the whole time.

7th August 2005 - Strathwillan, then the Ross Hill

This was a glorious day. The weather was stunning and there was an light northerly. We started off in the morning by going to a fairly steep but short field along at Strathwillan, just up the hill from Brodick peir. Again the 2 Kevs were over from work, and we spent a couple of hours practicing take-offs and landings. We got some decent height, but had to land before we ran out of field!

Here we can see the 2 kevs sorting out the lines, with a good view of Goatfell and Brodick Bay in the backgroud.

Kev B and Keith. That's Cumbrae island in the background (I think).

Keith was instructing us again. That's Goatfell in the background and you can just make out Brodick Castle, just to the left of Kev B's helmet.

After lunch Zabdi decided that we were ready for our first proper flight!! The wind direction had changed slightly to a north easterly, so she took us to the Ross Hill, just past the mustard factory in Lamlash.

This is not me! But it was another student of Zabdi's that was with us at the time. The island in the background is the Holy Island.

This was me taking off for my first proper flight! Ok, I didn't get as high as the guy in the picture above, but i still got high enough for it to hurt!

This is me looking rather pleased with myself. That's the Ross hill in the background and I'm standing in the landing field which i actually managed to land in!