Happy Paragliding 21st Iona!

Well done to Iona and her brother Gregor who climbed up Glen shant to fly tandem with Zabdi and Maurice to celebrate Iona's 21st Birthday. Visiting pilot Sean Marshall enjoyed a good few days flying on Arran.

At last the weather is flyable! Congratulations to Alex, Richie and Paddy (Maurices son) who were learning to fly the last week of June on the Isle of Arran.

Morocco 19th-26th Feb 2011

We have just got back from our spring trip to Morocco. It was fantastic! Flyable everyday with great food and company. It was a mixed group with Elementary pilots working through their club pilot tasks and qualified pilots refreshing their techniques and building up their airtime to be ready for the UK spring thermals.



We joined up with Vincent Brisard an instructor from French School Les Gens D'aire he has been going to Morocco for years Abdou a Moroccan pilot helped with all the logistics. So we could just concentrate on flying and eating as it was an all inclusive holiday - dishes of olives , dates and sugared almonds would appear between meals! There were other french pilots in the group so we practised speaking together and did a language course as well as flying.

We flew to Marrakesh direct from Edinburgh and were met with Vincents minibus. We ate traditional outside on a warm evening a contrast to Scotland. Some later enjoyed a Sat night drive through the Marakesh market on a horse drawn carraige to our hotel whose swimming pool was surrounded in trees full of oranges.

We drove the next day to Agregour and based ourselves in a Gite at the landing field. The site is a long ridge that allows some soaring and thermalling. The wind could sometimes pickup later in the day but you could just relax and enjoy a meal at takeoff before flying down in the evening when the wind had died down.

Kieran our 4 year old son took the task of bar man upon himself and cried anyone for a beer and went round dishing them out - we had to persuade him to wait until the flying had stopped for the evening. Maurice and I took it in turns to fly whilst keeping him company in the landing field.

We explored other flying sites in the region as well as visiting a tagine factory where they make the pots they use to cook with. Two of us decided to risk the extra baggage of Ryan air and purchase one each!

We plan to go back Spring next year and stay for longer. We will meet up with Vincent again and do a tour to explore more of Morocco.

Fantastic flying days in October.

It's getting to the end of the season but there has been some fantastic flying days in October.

Yesterday I climbed up high in some gentle thermals and soared along the ridges before coming into to help Maurice with the group of beginners.

Lochranza Distillery Tandem flights!




We have had a good flying season this year on Arran. The spring and early summer gave us some of our best weather - we had a water shortage on the Island after six weeks without rain. Then came the summer holidays and the weather took a down turn in July. (Next year we plan a trip abroad for some of the summer holidays.) Late summer and Autumn gave us some more good flying.



We also had some nice Tandem flights during the season at Catacol often our fun days training gives you a chance at a tandem and some solo training.

A Flying Bear! Nicky Cairney Flies Tandem Paragliding dressed as a bear in aid of the moon bears.



A Flying Bear - Nicky Cairney flew a tandem paragliding flight dressed as a bear to raise awareness and money for the Animal Asia Foundation and the plight of the Moon Bears. Moon bears are kept in crush cages and milked for their bile which is used in Chinese Medicine. Nicky appeared on STV Television. Watch it here.

More about Moon Bears www.animalsasia.org

We have had a good spring on Arran with lots of students doing Elementary pilot courses and groups out for a funday.





Here are some photos from last years students.

http://picasaweb.google.com/79drew/ParaglidingOnArran#