Finally - FINALLY - after a 2 month wait, I got airborne today. 11 flights, doing progressively more and more scary things such as speed bar, big ears, and - on the last two flights of the day - asymmetric tucks! Now from my reading of the paragliding forum over at Xtreme.com, I have come away with the fixed idea that an asymmetric tuck = death. So imagine how I felt when my instructor (Andy) told me to deliberately induce one.....

But in the event it went surpisingly well. These modern DHV 1 wings are so bomb-proof, it just dropped gently groundwards and swung towards the collapsed side a little, but as soon as I let go of the risers it went "phloop!" and reinflated itself immediately. How could that kill anyone?

Andy told me afterwards he was a little surprised how enthusiastically I went for the tuck and that approx 30% of my wing had been collapsed! Woops - went a bit mental there. But paragliding is like that - you are either totally frozen with fear or ridiculously over-confident. Often experiencing both states of mind in the same half hour.....