WCPC

The West Coast Paragliding Championship is a bit of a mouthful, everyone calls it the WeeCeePeeCee. This is my first comp of the year. I still haven't made up my mind about comps, but try to treat them as organized flying vacations with retrieves. I try not to do anything I wouldn't do in a normal flight. This takes a certain amount of discipline - when you're flying with a gaggle and it heads low over a bunch of trees you have to decide if you'd do that on a normal flight. And, of course, you have to make these decisions pretty quickly.

Anyway, I like the WCPC because there are generally fewer pilots than at the Rat Race, with a higher overall standard. This makes everything (retrieves, meetings, launching, gaggles) less stressful. Tasks also tend to be longer and more challenging than at the RR.

I drove down early the day before the comp. Conditions were pretty exceptional with mushroom clouds going off at 11.00 in the morning. I got to launch and was more or less the last one of the hill and had a nice flight, but was flying by myself. I got over 8,000 ft - easily the highest I've been at Woodrat - but some of the pilots got to almost 10,000ft. Later in the day the clouds went nuclear and the thunder started rumbling. It looks as though this could be the weather pattern for the early part of the comp.

There are 5 CPC pilots at the comp - Brett, Sam, Dave, Oleg and myself. Here's hoping for good flying for everyone!