Right, I'm Off To Italy !

[Fergus]

Later all, see you in a week cause I'm off to Italy paragliding in a place called Norma.
Schedule...
Wake up before the sun comes up, launch when you see the sun, stay up there until about 11:30/12:00pm and then land to get some lunch.
Off to the beach for some soaring until about 16:00pm, have more food.
Back to the town and launch again, stay up there until the sun nearly goes down. Land and have dinner, a few beers and chill etc. Hit the bed and then roll on the next day for more of the same
If you want to see what I'll be doing and where I'm going then check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2vrAPlc-ag

[Sean]

Goodbye........you maniac!

[mx5ash]

Cool, enjoy yourself.
Ash
(Roof looks great btw)

[MX5Steve]

have a good one!

[Fergus]

Cool, enjoy yourself.
Ash
(Roof looks great btw)

Yeah I like it. I've posted up some pics in the 'Exterior Mods' section.

[Mise]

You lucky lucky BASTARD.!!!
Been chatting with Sean and can I say ..YOU DA MAN

[Sean]

Newsflash! ..........Fergus was coming in to land and got caught in a downdraught/clear air turbulence (the guy ahead of him had terrible flatulence......bloody italians! ) which slammed him into the ground pretty hard and he has 3 broken ribs! He is ok though,they gave him lots of morphine so he was feeling verrrryyyyyy mellowwwwww

[leamyj]

Newsflash! ..........Fergus was coming in to land and got caught in a downdraught/clear air turbulence (the guy ahead of him had terrible flatulence......bloody italians! ) which slammed him into the ground pretty hard and he has 3 broken ribs! He is ok though,they gave him lots of morphine so he was feeling verrrryyyyyy mellowwwwww

You serious?

[mx5ash]

What he said.
If so bloody hell, hope your ok fergus.

[mrges]

Sorry to hear about the rib-cage, Fergus......it will certainly make you more aware of how you enter and exit the MX5!!

I've had a couple of broken ribs over the years ( three, I think - though thankfully not all at the same time) and there's little to do but take painkillers and be careful how you shift yer body weight.

All the best,

mrges

[Fergus]

Guess who's back in town
Yeah, I had launched from about 1,600 feet and went straight UP to over 2,000 feet, flew out over the land for about 20-30 minutes and then decided to touch down.
I had originally decided to land at another site but saw my friends were in this landing zone so started making a beeline for it.
I was coming in to land above the landing site and was about 3 or 4 storys up (so's you get an idea of the height, not that high). I over shot and did a final 'banking turn' which brought up my speed a lot but should have brought me back to the zone facing the wind. Then a downdraft or some bad air hit my wing and I lost height WAY to fast over an olive grove. I pulled out of the turn but was to low to recover so went down fast at about 70km per hour. Smacked into one of the olive trees (which are 10-15 feet high and have only 2 or 3 feet between each tree, entire field was full of em) and a chunky branch caught me across the ribs on the left side (the lads had to stand on that branch to get my wing down so it was one mother of a 'branch').
Cut all down the back of my left leg, tore some muscles in my back on the left side of my spine above my hip and cracked 3 ribs on the left side (docs numbers them 8, 9 & 10).
The lads gave me a nickname after that which they used daily.....'Oliver'.
I was hobbling around for 3 days before I decided to go to the hospital as the pain was getting worse instead of better, got some really nIcE mElLoW-yElLow morphine stuff to take which made the pain vanish like coke up a blondes nose.
Some of the other guys got caught out over that olive field and then they all decided to keep away from it.
Told not to do anything for 20 days BUMMER
I'll have some vids up in YouTube in a while so you'll get to see what I was doing etc.

[Fergus]

BTW
I used my 'European Health Insurance Card' in the hospital and not my paragliding insurance policy, I just handed it over and got all the attention I needed - x-rays, ultra-sound etc etc all FREE.

[mx5ash]

Shit dude sounds painful. Welcome back. Guess you won't be doing much to the five for another while then.

[Sean]

Guess who's back in town
Yeah, I had launched from about 1,600 feet and went straight UP to over 2,000 feet, flew out over the land for about 20-30 minutes and then decided to touch down.
I had originally decided to land at another site but saw my friends were in this landing zone so started making a beeline for it.
I was coming in to land above the landing site and was about 3 or 4 storys up (so's you get an idea of the height, not that high). I over shot and did a final 'banking turn' which brought up my speed a lot but should have brought me back to the zone facing the wind. Then a downdraft or some bad air hit my wing and I lost height WAY to fast over an olive grove. I pulled out of the turn but was to low to recover so went down fast at about 70km per hour. Smacked into one of the olive trees (which are 10-15 feet high and have only 2 or 3 feet between each tree, entire field was full of em) and a chunky branch caught me across the ribs on the left side (the lads had to stand on that branch to get my wing down so it was one mother of a 'branch').
Cut all down the back of my left leg, tore some muscles in my back on the left side of my spine above my hip and cracked 3 ribs on the left side (docs numbers them 8, 9 & 10).
The lads gave me a nickname after that which they used daily.....'Oliver'.
I was hobbling around for 3 days before I decided to go to the hospital as the pain was getting worse instead of better, got some really nIcE mElLoW-yElLow morphine stuff to take which made the pain vanish like coke up a blondes nose.
Some of the other guys got caught out over that olive field and then they all decided to keep away from it.
Told not to do anything for 20 days BUMMER
I'll have some vids up in YouTube in a while so you'll get to see what I was doing etc.

Has this put you off using Olive Oil in cooking etc?

[Fergus]

I took a bit of that tree back with me...I cut a tiny bit off it REAL slow like every day