Advance paragliders in the West Country

After weeks of forecasts featuring good thermals but with towering Cu and Cb, the forecast for Friday 7^th May was looking much better with normal sized Cu for once! Whilst the BPRA skygods headed to the Elan Valley to chase big distances, most of us mere mortals headed to Worcester Beacon at the northern end of the Malvern Hills where big distances are still possible, just not as big as from further west. Thinking reasonably big, I’d set a goal 180kms away at Ely, perfect for an easy retrieve by train back home to Bath… 

I took off at 1116 but with the combination of busy skies and large amounts of cloud shadow it wasn’t until midday that I was in a good enough climb to leave the hill with a couple of others.

And I’m off… but there’s a lot of shaded ground to get through in the first 10kms

I headed towards the brown fields on the far side of the River Severn and was rewarded with a gentle climb up to 4800’. The other pilots who left the hill a bit lower than me didn’t connect with it and ended up landing a little further on, so I tried (and failed) to catch up with Greg Poole who was a few kms ahead of me at this point.

Approaching Pershore under a messy sky with large areas of spreadout – in this situation it’s best to stick to the sunny bits unless you’re high under lifty clouds.

I was down below 3000’ over Evesham before I found a nice climb which took me up to 5300’.

At 30kms in there was still lots of cloud shadow but the sky was starting to look better ahead.

I was down to about 2100’ as I passed Kineton ammo storage facility to my south and the National Motor Museum at Gaydon on my right, but this climb saved the day! (NB. This photo is looking west)

 However at 60kms in, the climbs were taking me very close to the 4500′ Daventry CTA airspace – I came out of this climb with 300’ to spare but carried on flying into more lift so avoiding action was required! Thereafter I left a 500’ margin, but it’s tough coming out of climbs at 4000’ when you know base is at 5500’! 

The 35kms spent under the 4500’ airspace was definitely the trickiest part of the flight, so it was a massive relief to get under the FL75 airspace as I approached Northampton! Only trouble was I was down to 2500’ again!

But I wasn’t low for long – a great climb over Northampton soon got me up to 6500′ as I passed the 100km mark.

From Northampton I had 30 very easy kilometres not dropping below 5000′. But I was losing height passing Grafham water… Thinking positively, at least my fingers were defrosting!

I flew over Huntingdon with barely a sniff of a thermal, and I was getting pretty desperate as I approached St Ives. Landing in one of the parks in St Ives for 155kms would have been pretty respectable, but disappointing all the same given that the sky ahead was still good. I’d spotted two sailplanes circling above the town so that gave me some hope, but I was still down to 700’ agl before my XC Tracer started making positive noises!

After an initial struggle it developed into a really sweet climb and 15 minutes later I was enjoying the view looking back at St Ives from 6600′!

I reached my maximum height of 7100’ just before Ely (in the sunshine on right hand side of the photo) but with me being so high and with the magical 200kms in my sights I decided to press on rather than land.

The trouble was that there was quite a lot of shade on the ground ahead of me and I didn’t find any thermals along the sunny strip that I followed. Ideally I would have flown towards the better looking clouds on the right but they were right over Mildenhall and Lakenheath US Air Stations. Of course they were!

By now I’m down to 1000′ with 2kms to go to make the 200! Luckily the ground is only a few feet above sea level so 1000’=300m=at least 3kms glide. I landed in the village in the upper centre of the pic, Hockwold, at 1644 for 202kms straight line! It had taken me six years to fly my second 200km flight – let’s hope it’s not another six years before the next one!

I landed in a field next to a house on the edge of the village and was welcomed with much incredulity and a nice cup of tea and the very kind offer of a lift back to Ely Station – thanks very much to Logan and his mum!

The sign of a good long XC is having to cross London on the Tube!

I think the 2102 from Paddington must have been one of the last Hitachi trains out of Paddington before they were all grounded to inspect for cracks in the chassis!! Phew. Home by 2230… Once again it takes the same amount of time to get home as it does to do the flight! What a great day!!

Tracklog – https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:timpent/7.5.2021/10:16