From Mary;

Hi Dave. Just a quick note to thank you so much for the superb flight yesterday - I had a wonderful time! You professionalism and skill helped overcome my nerves and it really was fantastic to be up with the birds and to have what we (you) were doing explained so clearly. Very many thanks and best wishes, Mary Hart.

From parants of the blind children we flew with, sponsored by Flyability;

Just to let you know that last Sunday's paragliding with Skylarks was fantastic for Christopher. I've rarely seen him so exhilarated after an event, and he's talked about it all week. Even with help from SAVI, I doubt we could have afforded the day without the funding from Flyability, as it is expensive and we also had to pay our train fares to the venue. Flyability have to be praised for giving disabled children the opportunity to do something really adventurous, when throughout their lives they have often had to exclude themselves (or have been excluded) from regular sports, due to their conditions/disabilities. Not many children of Chris's age (13), no matter how fortunate, can say they have been up on a paraglider - there's been much showing off at home and school!! Good for his street-cred! Please pass on our grateful thanks to Flyability for this wonderful opportunity.

Regards, Jennifer Russell.

I just wanted to pass on my thanks to your charity for funding my son Joshua's tandem paraglider flight a couple of weekends ago. He went along with a group of other visually impaired young people to fly in Sussex and had a wonderful day. He is now counting the days until he is 17 (he's only 11 so has quite a wait!) so that he can go back and try the flight with acrobatics! We will certainly be going back for him to have another go at tandem flying in the meantime. We are really grateful to Flyability for giving him the opportunity to gain the sensation of "flying". Keep up the good work!

Kind regards, Clare Black (Joshua's mother)

From Dom and Wendy;

Hi Dave, Wow, wow and wow. we are still floating after our tandem paraglide with you yesterday and truly believe that paragliding is something everyone should experience at least once in their lives. Here are the links to the trailguru routes so you can see the flight path we took. it is a nifty little site; Wendy - http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:8E0G Dom - http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:8E0J We have not had a chance to get the video from the phone yet, but as soon as it is online we will let you know. Thanks again! Fantastic! Dom & Wendy

From Pat;

Dear Dave.

Thank you for a terrific time today, Thank you for being sensitive to my nervousness and making it a gentle flight. It has whetted my appetite so maybe I'll come again and be a bit more adventurous. Thank you again. Pat

This summer my aunt called my bluff and came paragliding. Read what she wrote for her staff magazine:

Up up and away …..

I had a chance to meet up with my nephew last Christmas after a gap of some years. He is now in business on his own – and to some extent pursuing his dream. Instead of being a wage slave he now runs a paragliding school flying off the Sussex downs.

His parting gift was a flight invitation for a trip on his 2-seater paraglider. Dream-on thought I.

But the summer came, and the ideas of really doing it grew with the (admittedly occasional) sunshine. ‘Why would I want to?’ increasingly became ‘why not?’. Then ‘why not’ became ‘when?’. We fixed a date in July, but then the wind and rain blew yet again and we had to call it off. But I was now fully committed to flying with the birds.

By the end of September we had another weekend – wind speed under 15 mph, said the Met office, with wind from the North East, which meant suitable downland to launch from. Saturday morning I strolled nonchalantly onto the hill to meet David only to be greeted by a 50 foot wing coming towards me over the hill, with him and his earlier customer hanging below. Then they swooped away, tried some aerobatics, before coming in for a fairly controlled landing along the ridge. Gulp!

Thirty minutes later I was adjusting the harness and going through my drill for take off and landing. Going tandem clearly required the key skill of obedience. Orders would be shouted in my ear from my pilot right behind me in this mesh of webbing and clips. Having recently tried my hand at abseiling (maximum adrenalin despite the safety ropes) this all seemed safer somehow - but what has logic got to do with it? Next moment, there was a full arc of ripstop wing behind me beginning to fill with the wind and tug through the myriad fine strings. Then a sudden gust, an almighty yank on the harness and we were 20 feet up and rising away from the hill out over open fields. The most challenging manoeuvre for me was wriggling back to adjust the harness into a seat – and remembering to breathe!

From there it was pure exhilarating joy. David had an altimeter that bleeped going up and hummed coming down; it became a companionable sound. He kept talking and I began to see how he could read this invisible environment of air uplifts and thermals. We watched the landscape for ripples building across a line of trees towards the hill, and as they broke away we swooped towards them to catch the edge of the thermal, swirling up 4 or 500 feet. We spotted a group of jackdaws cruising on the uplift, and traversed the ridge edge to join them. Looking down you could see detail in the landscape that told of its archaeology. Looking up we could fly towards a break in the clouds just big enough for a pair of sailor’s trousers.

David regaled me with tales of flying in Spain, and the Himalayas, of high altitude ascents, and long distance attempts. No engines, no pollution, no noise, just working in tune with the elements.

Eventually the wind began to drop and it was time for that landing. We had a last try for maximum altitude, showed off with some aerobatics and came to rest at a measured trot along the chalk down. David tamed the wing with an expert flick and twist, and it folded itself onto the grass with a sigh as the air was released. I still felt as high as a kite!

I am sure there is a world of difference between being taken up by an expert and learning to fly solo. No doubt that is hard work, and at times truly scary. But I now understand why people are prepared to buy the kit, repeatedly hike to the top of suitable hills with a huge backpack, wait around for just that wind speed, direction and thermal, and then, just maybe, get airborne and join the birds. Tempted? - actually yes.