Special Flights
Sunday June 28th 2003 Reighton. I had arrived at the lower take off point, but the wind was too far north to take off from, so I went to the campsite take off. The usual gaggle of Paraglider pilots were here and one had just taken off, so it was flyable. I rigged and Tony J helped me to launch, my first from this take off for a long time. The wind was about 12 mph so I had to turn tightly in the bowl to stay in the lift band. After 4 or 5 beats I had enough height, 90 to 100ft. to fly onto the back ridge and down towards the Speeton cliffs. The ridges were lifting so I had no problem gaining height and getting above the high cliffs. Harry Postil and Steve Major were already up here at 600-700ft above take off. I had noticed before I had taken off that there were clouds forming above Bempton cliffs (orographic?) that I would have to keep an eye on in case they started to build. Roy Butterfield involuntary got into cloud one day on Reighton cliffs and after following a compass bearing north, came out of the cloud above some woods near his home at Burton Fleming.
This reminded me of a flight I had at Cayton Bay, a long time ago, when the cloud over those cliffs started to build over the sea and then quickly became a thick cloudbank and I lost sight of the beach. After a worrying 10 minutes getting down onto the beach this developed into thick fog with a visibility of 10-15’.
Back to the present flight, I was now at about 750’ above take off near to the trig point on Bempton cliffs, with the cloud behind and below me. I flew back over the cloud to see if it had any lift above it, but as there was only very light lift I started to pull forward to the front of the cliff. As I looked down I saw my glider’s shadow with a rainbow halo. This is one of the most spectacular sights that I have seen since I started flying.