gaggling

From: Brendan
Activity_Date: 04/22/01
Remote Name: 207.178.212.114

Comments

Kristi and I hitched a ride to launch with Tom Meyr and Gilbert. Arrived around noon and launched into the best of the weak cycles that were coming up. Gained a couple hundred over launch and went to AF where there was a gaggle of about 6 paragliders and 4 or 5 HGs.

Lift was consistent enough to stay up, but not sky out, and I wasn't able to connect to any XC points.

One HG in a red, white, and blue wing (blue leading edge) wearing an orange jacket, was on a collision course with me and obviously looking in the opposite direction, so I yelled "heads up" when he was about 20 feet away. He then looked at me and though I am not familiar with HG dynamics, he appeared to let his wing come very close to me (about 10 feet or less) before fading off. Maybe it was my imagination but I felt like he was staring me down as he almost brushed my lines with his leading edge.

I mumbled some things to myself, but not a big deal all things considered. I continued to play in the thermal and eventually slid down to another thermal above the roundhouse. Several other pilots slid even further and were thermaling the bump on the ridge in front of the RH or over the Monestary, when the same guy came at me from 50 feet away and passed so close under me that I lifted my legs for fear of hitting his tube. He was within 3 feet of me if not less.

Okay, I'm sure it is hard to see when you are lying prone, but that just seemed too intentional, especially after the earlier near miss. There were lots of people in the sky that day, nobody else was bumping into me.

Anyway, I don't know who it was, but since I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything in particular to set the guy off, you might want to watch out for him. Maybe he hates paragliders, or maybe he's just reckless. Probably both.

Rather than let him take another shot at knocking me out of the sky, I joined the gaggle over the Monestary and eventually landed at Parma with Casey, Phillip, Kristi, Tom P, John, and Marcus. Everyone had smiles and stories of fun flights, including me. Basically just another beautiful day in Santa Barbara.

Brendan