Cliff soaring at Bennin

Went over to Arran on friday night, took my routine picture of Goatfell from the ferry.

I got up on the Saturday and went and met Zab at the MacAlpine Hotel. We traveled down to Bennin to try for some top landings again. When we got there the wind was fairly dead, just like the previous week so instead of getting out my wing and doing some ground handling (like I should have done) I decided to be lazy and sit amongst the cow shit and wait for the wind to pick up. There was an air show over in Campbeltown and every now and then an aircraft flew over head. I'm no expert but one plane looked like a Spitfire or a Hurricane, or some sort of WWII plane. It was very graceful in the air, I wish they still made them!

At about 2 o'clock the wind picked up as Maurice had predicted. I was a bit slow to react because I'd been stuffing my face with strawberries and jaffa cakes. I did a reverse launch and flew off the cliff. Unfortunately I couldn't get into the seated position in my harness, but I managed to do about half a dozen beats infront of the cliff. I managed to stay in the lift band for a bit but wasn't high enough to come back and do a top landing. The wind had died down a bit and my back was getting sore, so I decided to bomb out and land at a grassy area down by the beach. All in all a bit of a scrappy flight, but at least I managed do my first bit of cliff soaring. I think I could have done better if I had got into my harness. The main thing I need to fix for next time is not to be so lazy! Get my shit organised earlier, do some ground handling, and be ready to fly as soon as the conditions are right. Total flight time was about 10 minutes.