Flying in the Lake District - Aug / Sep 2010

View from Latrigg looking SW over Keswick and Derwent Water.

Towards the end of August I had this great idea to take my gliders up to the Lake District and fly them on the slopes of some seriously big mountains.

Great Gable (899m) is perhaps the most iconic of all mountains in this National Park; a flight from its summit would be the crowning moment of the week, weather permitting of course!

With such a vast mountainous area over which to fly, I needed to study Ordnance Survey maps for suitable flying sites to accommodate the various wind directions.  A Cumbrian paragliding website listed 39 good flying sites; hills, mountains, with wind directions;  it made sense to mark these sites on my maps with labels and draw up a chart of the sites so I'd have a pre-organised system for slope selection for when up there.

By good fortune, a week of sunshine was forecast for Cumbria, so I packed the camping gear and went.

Camp 1 was at Castlerigg near Keswick with a view over Derwent Water.  The idea was to stay at a different camp site each night.

Great Mell Fell as seen from Latrigg - 7 miles away.

Day 1 started off with a mild northerly wind.  There was an interesting hill nearby called  Great Mell Fell (537m) which looked like it might be fun to fly off, but a curious lack of wind at the top meant I barely stayed an hour up there before heading 7 miles west to Latrigg (368m), a popular hill overlooking Keswick.  The wind was by now blowing gently from the west and I flew the EasyGlider on what turned out to be one of the best flights of the holiday with views that were absolutely splendid!  I must have flown half a mile away towards the Skiddaw massif, at which distance the plane becomes a tiny white dot.  Definitely one of my best flights ever, and all recorded in glorious HD.

View from Latrigg looking west towards Bassenthwaite Lake - the tiny speck in the centre of the sky is my glider.

Camp 2 was at Braithwaite with a wonderful view looking across to Dodd Wood hill and Skiddaw in the background.
Camp 3 was at Buttermere.
Camp 4 was at Seathwaite Farm which would be base-camp for the trek up Great Gable the next day.

The summit of Great Gable poses interesting challenges for the model aviator.  For one thing, there is nowhere to land as the summit is covered in boulders; this means having to catch planes by hand, a tricky challenge at the best of times, only facilitated by light winds.
The basic plan was to take just the EasyGlider up to the summit, but the wind was very light and I didn't want to get all the way up there, launch and then find that there wasn't enough lift to get the plane back.  This meant I'd need to take a powered glider as a reserve plane.
So up I went with a glider in each hand, which turned out to be easier than I thought it would be, especially since the air was so still and there were no crosswinds.  After a 2½ hour climb, I reached the rounded summit.  The wind was so light that I couldn't risk launching the EasyGlider, so it had to remain grounded while I flew the Multiplex EasyStar over the south face for the best part of an hour, complete with on-board camera; most of the time slope soaring but I had the power option for the moments when I needed it.
This was a flight of truly epic proportions! The vastness of the surrounding valleys made it all quite surreal and probably the most memorable flight of all time.  Another 2½ hours later I arrived back down at base-camp as darkness fell, mission successfully accomplished.

View from Great Gable looking NW.

Ennerdale valley and forest in background.

Launching from summit of Great Gable, facing SW towards Wast Water.

Flying over the summit of Great Gable.

Landing approach.

Flying over Derwent Water - looking towards the northern mountains of the Lake District with their highest peak Skiddaw at 931m.

Flying over Derwent Water - Walla Crag (376m) rises to the right.

Camp 5 was at Chapel Stile, 2 miles SW of Grasmere.

Loughrigg Fell (335m) looks over Grasmere Lake, a real beauty spot that Wordsworth, I believe, described as one of the finest views in all of England.  This was a site that beckoned to be flown.  It would have been lovely to have had a NW wind to soar this slope overlooking the lake, but unfortunately the wind had other ideas, so I had to make do with a powered flight.

Grasmere Lake from Loughrigg Fell.

Big Cliff flying on the Isle of Wight

The white cliffs to the west of Freshwater Bay, taken from Compton Down.

This July I decided it would be nice to do a weekend camping trip on the Isle of Wight, and take a few planes to slope soar there at a few interesting sites like Compton Down and The Needles.  My friend Mark was interested in coming along which made it the more fun and he took a some of these shots.

We took the Friday evening car ferry and arrived at Compton Farm camp site, pitched camp and cooked a fine evening meal, with wine, by head-torch before turning in for the night.

The weather was splendid the next morning as we walked up to the top of the bowl on the Down.  A couple of para-gliders had already glided down to the coast from this spot and were soaring along the seafront.  I had a pleasing flight from up here with the Multiplex EasyGlider and the view was as good as it gets.

The Needles and Scratchell's Bay

The next day the weather continued to be wonderful and the wind was blowing smoothly from the SW.  It was a perfect day to launch a glider off the white cliffs further westwards at The Needles.  Although I could have flown the Multiplex glider off these cliffs, it would have meant limiting soaring to above cliff top level and within a secure range to avoid the risk of a sea landing.  For this reason I decided to fly the Parkzone Radian, which has power assistance, to bring it up from sea level if required.

As it turned out, I only used the power option once for about 5 seconds during a whole hour of soaring since the lift was so fantastic.  The lift was also phenomenally smooth, coming off the sea, which made this flight the best flight to date in my flying history.

The Parkzone Radian, prior to launch.

Fitting of on-board HD camera after initial test-flight.

Launch!

The Radian does a fly-past.

After a great time at The Needles, we then worked our way along the south coast to discover other flying sites and found some more cliffs at Blackgang Chine.  Here I let my Multiplex glider spread her wings, flying over dense woodland below.

The Multiplex EasyGlider at Blackgang Chine.

Soaring against a sea mist.

Team photo on Compton Down

Sunset Flight at Butser

I had a really enjoyable evening flight at Butser during the middle of this month.  There was a gentle west wind against a spectacular sunset and the conditions were perfect.

Flying during a spectacular evening sunset on Butser hill.

In April I flew over Gosport Park with the Radian.  This was a still image from the flight video.