Up again at 6am to get to the airfield whilst the wind speed was reasonably low, which was an ordeal in itself today, but one that I'll elaborate on shortly. The temperature felt a fair bit higher than on previous mornings, but there was quite a heavy dew that had the effect of adding weight to the wing as it seemed to absorb the moisture like a sponge, making it heavy to launch and control in what had become a very low wind. When I mentioned to my wife I had problems "getting it up" she was more than a little surprised to hear me say that, what with me being in France with eleven other men. I put her right on what I meant....
Anyway I worked hard on my reverse launches and they have shown a huge improvement since I rolled up at the airfield on Sunday morning. Alan left me alone to work on the launches and handling that, with the exception of one absolute disaster, worked out quite well. I also tried on a motor for the first time and fired it up which was a new experience for me.
I could have quite happily have stayed out there all day and just worked on my ground handling, the weather was just perfect, but as always happens there was a sudden change with a bit of rain falling, so we packed up and returned to the house to sit an exam that, happily, all of us passed. I had a short de-brief with Alan and I have to say that he is one of the most patient people I have worked with in years. Even with me constantly messing up, particularly in the early part of the week, he stayed calm and ran me through th various drills as many times as it took for me to understand them. There's no doubt that Alan is going to become a very good instructor and a lot of people are going to benefit from his guidance in the future - I couldn't have asked for a better person to look after me this past week.
Tonight we are all off for an end of training meal and many of us will depart early tomorrow morning for the long haul home. It has been a hard week, with early starts, but definitely of immense value. I came over here knowing nothing about paramotoring and leave with a much better understanding and, importantly, belief that I can now go out and buy myself a training wing that I can safely operate. I'm hoping to finish off my training with Simon Westmore down at Lambourn over the coming months, which will then mean that I'll be safe to fly.
As for the struggle in getting myself out of bed this morning, last night I had a lengthy conversation after dinner with a guy called Paul Haxby, who travelled here on Wednesday to see out the final few days and aprove the instructors. Paul has been flying for many years and has a passion for paramotoring that is infectious; it's that infectious that we sat with what seemed a never ending bottle of red wine until 2am! If after chatting to Paul about the sport you don't feel an urge to instantly get yourself out onto an airfield, then you really don't want to fly. Paul is just one example of the people I have been surrounded by and Piers, Alan, Simon, Paul, Pete and Witters are a pleasure to be around, as are Ken, Eddie, Dave and Tim, my fellow trainees. I want to thank them all for their never ending support, plus Norman who put together the superb training materials and syllabus we have worked with all week.
My final word has to go to Dave, who this morning went through a take off run with a motor on his back. It created enough lift to take him up an inch or two, which we have agreed is a flight (the same criteria worked for the Wright brothers!). I say "we have agreed", well except Eddie, who thinks it should be something more significant. But then we can see through him as if he was a glass pane - he wants to be the only person in the car tomorrow who got up into the air and we think he just can't stand the competition....
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