Interesting day at the Bwlch today. Had great fun proving just how strong the Voltij is! I can't believe I left it in dry dock for months, it has to be one of the best planes in the world.
Delivered a couple of Bananas that Jiri Baudis did for me. The quality is getting really good. It has always been the top performing moulded 60"er but now the joy of ownership is right up there as well.
There was a paraglider competition going on and we negotiated airspace, which was working ok. Some guy was flying above the models and had problems. His wing collapsed and he deployed his emergency chute. We heard him shouting and cleared the skies in time for him to crumple down just behind us. He hit hard, kind of like a rag doll, and his emergency chute started to drag him back towards some nasty rocks. I ran back towards him and following the screamed advice of the further away paraglider pilots tried to get behind the emergency chute and collapse it. Shane had let his foamy disappear, chucked his Tx and made a beeline for the pilot.
The weird thing is when you try to deflate a 10ft chute it is like running into concrete! The guys were right though, you may struggle but getting in the way means you deflate it, or it flattens you and deflates in the process. Either way, it worked, the other chaps arrived released the chutes and the victim got away with significant soiling...
We spent a while searching for Shane's foamy, eventually found it and then spent another 10 minutes looking for his Tx!
Thanks to BarkWeb for the webspace.
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