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© Greg Hamerton 2006.
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I thought it would serve as a good topic to begin the series of articles about flying safely in the Cape.
Here's the story .... (thanks to Lorenz Datz for the info)
As we arrived in Kapstadt from our south-coast trip, we had wet paragliders (yes, there was some rain on the last day) and dried them on signal hill. We didn't find a flight scool or anybody who could give us informations about the weather forecast. But anyway, we didn't want to fly because it was too windy. Some hours later, the wind was less (i think because we changed location) and we saw a paraglider flying from Lions Head. A local, we thought. So we just wanted to look at the launch site to see if anybody was there. And if you walk to the take off, you don't walk without your paraglider.
When we were on the take off site, there was nobody there, but conditions were good (as we estimated) and first I launched (I had the most practice) and was flying above the take off. Good conditions there. My collegue launched too and we were flying together, made photos and some minutes later he wanted to fly to the coast for landing (the site about 70 degrees right to the launch-direction). As he was near to the coast, he suddenly flew backwards at speed, you usually see the paraglider flying forwards - about 30km/h backwards. With this speed he crashed into the big rocks on the coast and broke his shoulter. The ambulance took him to the hospital.
As I recognized what had happened (also from the radio-contact that we had), I landed immediately on the take off (above, on the road), went with my other collegues to the car and drove down to the coast. The wind there was heavy. White horses on the water, about 60km/h Wind. Unbelievable for us...
You can see the wind coming at you, this is lee-side flying when you really shouldn't be in the leeside.
The only reason he is able to fly is because the wind is splitting on the cable car ridge and the flow hasn't rejoined by Lion's Head yet.
Rule of thumb for Lion's Head - don't fly if the SE cloud is coming down through the Apostles, or down front face Table Mountain. Experts may be able to fly while cloud is spilling down the furthest Apostles, but if more than half of the Apostles have SE cloud, forget it.
Check the water in Camps Bay for signs of wind. Wind line inside of Whale Rock (far end of Camps Bay beach), forget it. If you're caught out, do what Lorenz did - slopeland on Lion's Head, it's the last place to get the wind.
It may be possible to fly in the lee side in the Alps, but that's only because the basewind is very light (less than 20km/h).
Folks, don't try this at home.
Kind regards,
Greg Hamerton
ETERNITY PRESS
www.eternitypress.co.za
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