Devils Dyke 1/5/23 - A thermalling lesson - don't cut inside a busy thermal! 

Honestly... That's what I was thinking. I was flying the core, not the other pilots. I guess when it gets busy you need to stay in your lane for safety reasons.

Then you are probably someone that shouldn't be a pilot...

I'm struck by how little we (paragliders) know about hang glider blind spots. It would be interesting to hear more about that so that we know where to be in a thermal with a hang glider.

@@jacquecilliers yeah so if your just slightly obove and slightly behind on the inside of the HG. Then the wing of the HG will be in the way to see there. Honestly it probably happens to me every other flight that I have that happen. Basically there wasn't a collision because I just have to expect it. The few times that I've met the pg in the landing afterwards to explain why I barked at them. The general answer was but I can turn tighter so it was OK. Little do they know if I had gone where I wanted to go unknowingly then I would had come up on them faster than they could get out of the way and there would have been a collision. All without me being able to see them. This not cutting in on a thermal isn't law but etiquette. Was taught to me when training for the HG. But they never mentioned anything about thermal etiquette when doing my PG licence. Tbh though sadly the HG stock is getting older now and more and more I'm having blind HG pilots join a thermal turning the wrong direction or something like that. Though the bright sparks that join in below turning a different direction than the rest is still overwhelmingly guys on A PGs. Another thing that wasn't emphasised in PG school.

Thanks... I had a feeling I was making a mistake with this when I was making the video!

Late reply... Thanks. I try to upload instructional events while flying. We are all in the air alone and RU-vid videos are a nice way to share experiences and get advice. I will adjust my thermal flying with others from now on

Thanks Jerry.. Yeah the thermal was on my inside..I did cut across the whole thermal and that's what got me in trouble. I think I'll stay away from competitions!! For the moment anyway

Yeah but it's impolite and bad etiquette and with a HG dangerous. Flying both the HG has much more feedback on where the core is and often on a hg you turn out to get energy before baring out and turning in fast into the core to waft at stall speed(28kmh) in the core.

As long as you learn from the small mistakes. Small mistakes become big mistakes if you don't learn from them. :)

Yeah... first time in a thermal like this with loads of experienced pilots... The best we can do is not kill anyone and learn from our mistakes.

Ha! I feel like I need a shower now.