After discovering how nice the take off and landing was last week, we decided to head back to the Vorderunnütz for Becky’s first hike&fly today.

After three attempts, I finally also had a day with clear skies and wonderful views from this mountain. It is amazing how different it was compared to last week, sunny, warm, thermals, lots of paragliders. The walk up was fairly similar to last week, but it was much warmer, especially on the top section.

There was a nice gentle breeze at the take off, which made the take off nice and easy, but did make laying Becky’s semi-lightweight paraglider out for a forward launch a bit more challenging. When we arrived there were loads of people taking off, so we chilled out in the sun while waiting to launch.

After setting up Becky made a perfect launch and set off on her first hike&fly flight. I quickly followed, although my first attempt at a reverse launch didn’t go particularly well today, however after sorting my glider back out I was soon in the air. I had a fairly short flight as I wanted to land before Becky, so spent a good proportion of the flight with big ears on, and even used a b-line stall to ensure I was far enough below her.

After a smooth flight we both enjoyed good landings, although the change in the wind through the inversion layer, and the wind gradient below it was a bit of a surprise.

Looking over the beautiful Achensee on the ascent
Just in case I didn’t have enough versions of this photo
Beautiful views into the distance
Achensee
Panorama over Achensee
Snow line and inversion to the north
Wonderful views on the ascent
Looking east on the ascent
Ascending in front of the Karwendel
Ascending in front of this high Austrian mountains
Ideal conditions for paragliding

Becky isn’t actually flying above Achensee in the next photo, all perspective!

Becky on a solo flight