Devil's Dyke - 17 September - a new record height which got very turbulent and scary 

Jacques Height is not something to be scared of, but something to enjoy and be in awe of. The higher you are, the further you are from the dangerous ground and the more you can relax and enjoy the view. Blue sky with little fluffy cumulus clouds shows that there is plenty of thermic activity about. As a beginner this may be a day to avoid because you need to have good active piloting skills to deal with the ups and downs of rapidly rising or sinking air patches. Perhaps this is why other beginner pilots weren't flying. But, as you get used to dealing with thermals, you learn to seek out the rising air and stay turning in it to get up high like that more often. You also become aware that at the edges of the thermals air will be quite turbulent and it can take a while to get used to this feeling and learn to keep calm, relaxed and able to actively pilot through these regions.. The turbulence at 1200m you describe was probably a result of slightly falling out the edge of the thermal. But at that height you have plenty of time to work out where the thermal was and get back into it. "Cloud suck" is an odd term really. Clouds form at the top of rising air so really whenever you are in a thermal going up, you are sort of being sucked up by a cloud, but really better to just think of yourself as getting into the column of rising air that is heading up towards the cloud. When the clouds are all little cumulus clouds like that day, you don't need to worry too much - just keep on following the elevator up to near the base of the cloud (providing no airspace limits). As you get nearer, keep towards the edge so that you don't actually end up enveloped in cloud. If you're worried about going into the cloud, usually speedbar will get you to the edge, or use big ears if going up very quickly (and you can steer big ears using weightshift) The clouds to be worried about are CuNims which go incredibly high and have very high rates of rising air. You should not be flying on days with these about because then you really can get quickly lifted up and will keep on going up to ridiculous heights in the cloud unless you use other techniques like spiralling, B line stalls, etc to get down. But cumulus days like that one are lovely and you'll soon learn to just hop from one cloud to the next to go cross country. Enjoy. You've got up high in a thermal - well done. Having done it once, you can make a habit of it and get better at it until it becomes second nature and you decide to get your pilot rating and start going cross country.

From an old time pilot here. A few points you learn from other pilots. I acknowledge those conditions are probably not frequent in that site, and you might not be familiar with them, but you will certainly find them common in other countries. 1. When it looks “great” to you but “old” pilots are sitting around - go ask them why and what they are waiting for. This is obvious in a new site, but it also applies to your usual site. They have seen and experienced much more than you , and they are seeing or feeling something you haven’t registered. Consider this your X hours wake up call to realize you still have quite a bit that you don’t understand and you need to learn to be and feel safe. 2. Look up at the cloud shapes and feel the thermal cycles for the day before deciding to go. You can read from the wispy and chaotic borders of the clouds combined with their quick formation and dissipation that there is strong winds and likely turbulence at altitude, in particularly combined with punchy thermals that trigger through the strong wind. To punch through in higher wind conditions they have to consolidate into +5, +6, +7 with accelerating focused cores as you move up in the column. 3. Yes, if you are in one, look up. The higher lift will usually point to the densest (gray) part of the cloud on the windward side of the cloud, you can even notice the distinctive concave shape of the bottom of the cloud of its most active area. If you have a hard time seeing any of this try flying with a set of yellow or orange tinted glasses. 4. If you get into uncomfortable lift/suck you have two options, fly downwind - a common reaction - it’s usually Ok, but also likely that you’ll get suck into the cloud before spit out the backside of the thermal, and possibly then catch another petard up to the next cloud feeling like a rag doll inside a dryer. Best option is to head 90 degrees off from the prevailing wind to find the stable sink coming from the line of thermals, which will be more stable and get you down quickly when conditions develop beyond your competence zone - just what you did. 5. Congrats you have successfully accomplished a key right of passage without getting hurt - the confirmation that you are flying into an environment that you lack understanding about and that you must learn quite a bit to feel competent and stay in control. Hope it helps and stay safe.

Great video, you were never really in any trouble, mentioned before just go to the edge of the cloud. To enjoy this sport you have to convince yourself the higher you are the safer you are, biggest danger in this sport is ridge soaring low down. Psychologically we all feel safer on the ridge but it is the most danger. Always fly to get away and high as soon as you can. Enjoy your flying.

Salutes to you Jacque! Fear is something most pilots don’t talk about enough or even care to admit. It’s times like this when the old aviation quote …”It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground” is never a truer word. I don’t think you were in cloud suck. It’s that time of year when the weather is transitioning which make the thermals very punchy and turbulent, spring is the same. I think Jeremy Fisk has given a good explanation. I’m sure since landing you have analysed this flight over and over and learnt lots about both piloting and yourself. “ even my shit was shitting itself “ killed me haha. Subscribed.

Looks like great XC weather 😎 If you wanna get down quicker, do big ears (or even big big ears) + speedbar. Find some blue sky where there's no lift. There's also sink close to lift, you can even circle in sink to get down quicker. There's also a lot of crowd think in paragliding. When someone says they sit the day out, everyone else starts thinking if they should. When you see someone stay up, everyone suddenly wants to take off. You also need to learn to judge the conditions yourself, and be able to decide if it's ok for you or not.

Totally feel your concern. Shitting myself is my default when going up. 🤣

Nice video mate. Looked a bit lively. Ears and bar is the best idea if you are worried about cloud suck, so you fly away from the strong lift, and stay close to the edge of the cloud, though the cloud looked OK and looking around at the other clouds they all looked OK too. (Something my instructor taught me 20 years ago 😉) Pull ears, then apply bar. And when you want to release ears, release bar first then ears. You can steer (with weight shift) while in ears too 😉. My best UK height is only 5K or so, and 8k or so in Oz and French alps etc. You'll get used to it. I love height. Height is your friend when flying!

I feel you, man! As a beginner, I still have trouble feeling bumpy air, especially close to the ground. Still getting used to it. But as more experienced pilots say, we have to embrace turbulence if we're gonna fly midday. You're gonna sleep on it, think to yourself that you did manage the situation, and you're gonna be ready for the next challenge. I recently had a similar event, much lower to the ground, and it taught me that I can handle some things, even though i didn't think I could.

Nice flight and video mate! A beginner here, regarding the cloud suck when you went on big ears it's not clear if you pushed the speedbard - you have better stability and sink rate if you do, also the 45° rule is nice to apply. Cheers mate and nice weather 🖖

i just watched your video and you did everything correctly. you were not comfortable so you got yourself out of the situation. looking at the sky and the cloud above you it was cloud suck you were in. it can get turbulent but the closer to the cloud you get the more gentle it will get. Looking at the sky i wouldnt let this bother you as there were alot of blue between the clouds. the closer you get to the clouds try and position yourself out to the side of the cloud so you can escape out the side if its going to suck you in. the dark part is where the strongest lift will be. once you head out to the side into blue sky you will be in sink. If the sky was over developed with large clouds you would have been in a very different situation, potentially quite dangerous if you havent got the experience to rapidly descend. i don't understand why the other pilots were not flying as this would be a dream day for me. i personally like the stronger conditions with strong lift. this is what you will experience in big flying areas. your glider collapsing is a possibility but a very small one there. the thing to remember in that situation is to actively pilot the glider and it should be fine. i found myself in a similar situation not log ago but the sky was completely developed with no blue left. i was on big ears and full speed bar and still going up 4mts a second. i decided on a full nose down spiral which was descending me at 18mt a second. i wouldn't recommend this move unless you had done it before but it is my favourite technique for these situations. your flight was a very good learning day for you. but dont let it scare you. you flew brilliantly and kept your cool and got back down safe and thats a win.

Welcome to the thermal world. Start building confidence take some time, we end up getiting used in the end. Take it slowly and you will be flying farther and higher very soon.

I miss this :( Learning to fly was the greatest adventure ever. Enjoy while it lasts!

Wow good one! I think all the other pilots are waiting to see exactly what you were doing right there! In Canada that situation is called idiot lift and yep for us less experienced pilots it's scary, but the clouds are flat so cloud suck is not a worry. Speedbar out from under it and there's the sink. Big big ears (2 outer A's) would have helped more, have you done those? Mild spirals would have gotten you out of that as well. Glider twitch was from the inversion flattening the tops of the clouds, that's always a rough transition. You should aim for an SIV, it will totally remove doubts and makes one realize the wing is way more stable than one thinks, what to do if Sh** hits the fan. Anyway, Devil's Dyke, I wanted to fly there so bad when I got to the UK (Storrington) October 1st. Nothing but rain and strong wind for the days I was there, oh well. Thanks for posting this honest account!! We are all in this room at one time or other, cheers!

Gracias por compartirlo. Saludos desde Colombia.

Great video

Well balanced. Eloquent. Very good.

It was really just a nice strong thermal and you had plenty of space above you so you chose to try to get down at the right time! (With plenty of wiggle room). Rule number one if you get suck is to be patient. Stay on the same line and keep your big ears. If you wander about and let big ears out you're just going to go up again and waste that good effort. Like you said there's always sink around the suck, patience gets you there. Keep your line, keep your big ears. If you're still going up then choose a method that gets you down faster like a spiral. Don't turn back and don't waste time between methods of getting down. Generally you go with a line that gets you out from under the cloud the quickest. If you unfortunately get into the cloud the above advice is not just important, it's crucial! Keep your line and your ears and focus on your instruments to make sure you're staying on track. Hope this helps :)

Jaques nice video dude. It was very rough that day. I would suggest big ears and 30 to 50% speed bar as well to get away from the cloud suck. You can steer quite well using weight shift. You can do 360s using this technique and you will reduce altitude quickly and safely.

I would suggest Understanding the sky. Its a great book for soaring pilots.

Whole flight looked fine to me. Thermally active days mixed in with some stronger winds will result in a bit bumpy ride like yours on edges of the thermal. How long have you been flying in active air? You still seem nervous. Trust in you wing more for the turbulence and on days like this where all clouds are so flat, you have absolutely no need to worry about getting sucked into a cloud. I see you are coming to Spain. You'r gonna get used to active air fast :D You can also look into your harness ... maybe you have it set up too loose and its tossing you around more then it should.

Very nice do some more please

Congratulations, looked like quite a good day to me. However if you are finding it a bit too rough then it is a good idea to avoid peak thermal conditions to start with and work up gradually. > How did the good pilots know not to take off? Did they get that information from weather predictions or from watching other pilots? I'm guessing other pilots reported it rough. Also it is windy and thermic and presumably gusting a lot at launch. > Why did my glider get so twitchy at 1200m? Was this because of the wind, that dark cloud or was it because I was flying behind a thermal and picking up turbulance from its wake? Hard to say. Strong winds and thermals tend to cause turbulence. Sometimes it gets particularly rough at particular levels, maybe when your thermal meets an inversion or a stable layer or when it passes through some windshear. Maybe you flew out of the thermal core and it was a bit rougher round the edges. > Would this kind of turbulance be able to collapse my glider? Yes, collapses are possible in these conditions. Sometimes the air can feel really unpleasant, but you don't get collapses. > what would you do in a situation where you were finding it rough at height? Fly straight out of the area where I am finding it unpleasant. If I then want to get down, fly out of the lift into some blue sky and then circle in the sink. You were under a cloud street here so you would expect to find it lifty underneath the line of clouds. Pulling big ears and still flying beneath the clouds as you do here isn't going to help you get down. You say you were getting 5 m/s at one point, big ears would maybe reduce that by 1 to 1.5 m/s. However it is still a useful technique to use if you have left it a bit too late to fly to the edge of the cloud. > Was it cloud suck. No. Just thermals. You weren't particularly close to the clouds and they were quite shallow. Expect cloudsuck if the clouds are tall. Signs of cloudsuck are the lift strengthening and becoming much wider everywhere underneath the cloud. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_suck

Anyone who bothered to read the manual of the Phantom would know this glider comes to its own in turbulence: Just press bar / Release the brake-toggles and peel a banana, or Press Full bar / grab the C's and aim for the next cloud with one eye shut.

Nice Vid...but i dont see any reason for getting scared... There is nice 3/8 Cloud coverage, no signs of sudden weather change or anything...and most important, this is NO big height (my personal record is about 12100 ft in Lech Valley, North Tyrol, Austria).... Always remember: Height generally means safety. Only when there are big dense and mighty clouds, you should be aware not to get sucked Info them...but this can normally prevented with speedbar and/ or big ears...or spiral, or wing overs... And when it comes to the " beginner topic" : you will have to face more rough conditions as you proceed... because, when you only fly in calm and absolutely safe conditions, you will never advance and will never really enjoy flying...face your fears, thats what paragliding is also about

Morning Jacque! I was there on Saturday 11-2pm, and managed a 15 min flight with a bit of height before I too lost height and ended up in the bottom landing site. However, nothing like the height you gained - I was getting nervous watching that video, thank God I didn't end up getting sucked-up to that height on my second flight out of CP! (JD-B Land Rover, telegram me when you're going next I'll pick you up from Horsham!)

I flew and I thought that the air was very rough at the Dyke on that day. I was intrigued so looked at some of the weather charts. I was interested to see that the Jet stream was right over us and I remember a similar day when this occurred. I don’t know if you have flown this site before but it is usually pretty busy and there are always pilots on the ground on busy days, not just because of the conditions.

I'm not familiar with the conditions on the day but I have found a lot of turbulence hitting an inversion in a climb. If you stay in the climb actively piloting I have found you often punch through and the climb will smooth out. It just seemed like a nice strong day. Enjoy it!

If your confidence levels on the day are lower than normal take off after 3 pm : more gentle : that’s what the old timers were waiting for …..

Well done. I think it was turbulent because you entered the thermal from the downwind side which is very turbulent when it blows like this. The meteo wind gets turbulent by coliding with all the thermal columns. If you have had continued climbig straight you would find much better air. Those flat flufy clouds wouldnt suck you in like CB cloud would. Next time relax and enjoy the lift. If you want to sink better learn propper big ears (two outer A risers and speed). also circle when in sink. Lots of happy flights!

Jacque, in your reply to the book suggestion (Understanding the Sky) you mentioned the price tag. While understandable, I believe you might be looking at this the wrong way. Whatever your flying budget is I found it helpful to prioritize the three basic areas of spending: training, equipment, and travel. Starting out (once you have your basic gear and rating) on-going training should comprise almost 100% of that expenditure. The training progression consists of both ground school type stuff (reading) as well as in-person instruction/mentoring. If money is no object, this is easy; find the best instructors and pay them. When money is an issue, there are other ways of getting that mentoring. Find out who the local XC hounds are, get to know them, and then offer to drive retrieve for them. They are going to go big on the days that are, for now, scary for you. But you'll build the relationship, learn a ton as they talk about their plans prior to launch and describe their flights on the drive back. They show you how they analyze the day (both on-line and then what they see on the hill). They will also reciprocate, lob you off the hill and provide feedback. They will probably even get you to stop grabbing the risers to get yourself situated in the harness right after launch (please don't do that, particularly on very active days).

Sounded rough when you explained it to me. Makes it so much more intense watching your reaction. Hope someone can help answer your questions

Pod harness at least you could hide in it …. Pretend it’s not happening

B stall guaranteed to sink fast . although I can only imagine that's just a terrifying as getting trapped in strong lift.

Did you got to understand why many of the pilots were not flying? How could they see the that the air was turbulent and cloud sucking, just from being on the ground? Thank you so much for the video, I'm begginer and I like learning through videos like this!

Seemed ok to me. I would be trying to get to the cloud. Max out your lift. Height is good. If you want to go down just head in one direction, especially the clear blue bits of sky. You could have got away from the hill on a good XC.

HI Thanks for sharing this video, But i dont understand why not just push bar to get away from the cloud and enjoy the gained height ? was there an air space ceiling ?

I had a similar experience recently. It was my first real thermal climb. I wasn’t expecting it at all so it threw me off. For the first time flying I was bricking it!!! Instead of continuing the climb I purposely flew out of it but it took a while as it was wide thermal. The air was rough but I think everything was amplified by my anxiety. I was close to a panic attack. When I reached the sink, eventually landed and calmed myself I concluded it was probably normal and I wish I had stayed up in it and reached the small fluffy cloud base above. Just like you I was like wtf when I landed! I think for my it was simply beginners nerves and mentally I wasn’t prepared. I was only expecting to scratch on the ridge and probably top to bottom. The air was “rough” but I really question myself now, was it really? I think having clouds right above me also had a psychological effect as well. As for the pilots not flying, I see this a lot and my assumption if there is plenty of ridge lift is they’re socializing and just taking their sweet time 😁

Laughing at your reaction and how you went to cloud base - well done !! I had the exact same experience last season, ironic how we strive to find that elusive lift and then when we get to cloud base we brick it, I also got the f@ck out of dodge, I used speed bar and flew away, no one tells what to do at cloud base :-) Definitely cloud suck Could be an inversion making it rough ?

you steer with Big Ears by weight shifting. Yes it was cloud suck. Practice B-Line stall if you wing can do it. just relax and fly the wing.

You would have come down quicker on ears if you had also used full speed bar

Just head for the blue stuff. Also a SIV course and learn to spiral safely.

Big Ears then add 50% or more Speed Bar. This helps your AoA and speeds up your groundspeed and sink rate. Big Ears + Speed bar and you are still going up you are most definitely in some cloud suck. Likely under the center of a big concave darkening cloud. You should be heading for the nearest edge of the cloud before you get sucked into the white room. Do you think it is scary riding a bucking bronco thermal? It gets far worse when you can't see past your risers! Where's my wing? Where's the ground? What the hell do I do now? Panic only makes it worse. You should be still heading for that edge of the cloud, as best you can, staying in any sinking air you stumble into. Some pilots who sometimes enter clouds on purpose, pin a small globe compass to their shoulder strap where they can still see it even if they can't see their instruments on their flight deck. A big tall cloud can also block the GPS signal sometimes even if you aren't in the white room.

Hi this was a cloud street you were flying under and finding sink would of be very easy simply fly cross wind either way and you would of found good sink read up on met every day 1hour or so until you get the knowledge needed for high flights like this very important. the turbulance was probably due to very little cloud -low moisture the thermals tend to be more damped with more moisture in the air but then you have over developement too much cloud which cuts the sun off the ground.. talk to the more experienced current pilots before you fly - very important ! they will give you good advice and never fall into the trap if pilots are flying its all ok these could be very experienced pilots your watching and are happy with the current conditions 👍🪂

Totally feel your concern. Shitting myself is my default when going up. 🤣