Soon
after Autumn set in the wet and windy stuff arrived. I hadn’t flown
since but realise how lucky I was to have such a wonderful flight on my
first real outing.
Blease Fell
Sunday the 23rd March was my first time at Blease Fell and my first real
flying in the Lakes. I awoke at 05:50 on Sunday in anticipation of a good
day flying. The previous weekend when Bill Scott and I had gone to Kendal
for the Jocky Sanderson training weekend “Getting away from the hill”
it had been a total washout as far as the flying was concerned with the
only height gain being achieved by carrying our gear up impossibly steep
and unforgiving hills.
I left home at around 08:50 to pick up Bill Scott and Jim Watson. Arriving
at Melmerby at about 10:20 we waited for Paul Myerscough and Ron Donaldson
to turn up. Paul arrived about 10 minutes after us shortly followed by
Ron. After quite a conference it was agreed that it had to be Blease Fell
so we headed of in convoy.
The approach to Keswick alongside Blease Fell was stunning. Jim gave Bill
and I the run down on the previous days flying showing where he and Mad
Dog Miller had landed out either side of the A66. The drive to the parking
area was not as bad as I had expected and luckily we found a parking spot
in an already crowded area. The walk up looked like serious hard labour.
Ron gave me a briefing as a new boy at the site and I started my long
climb to takeoff. Just before the first bend in the track I realised that
I had left my camera in the car. So I said a few words of self admonishment,
“!#+*&$”, dumped my gear on the path and ran back down to
get it.
By the time I got to the second bend in the path I was doing a good impression
of Ivor the engine. Jim and Bill were sunning themselves at this stop
while they took a breather. Having thought that this was the takeoff you
can imagine my disgust when Bill told me that, just like the Grand Old
Duke, we were only halfway up.
The last part of the climb was a little easier but not much. When we arrived
at the takeoff at the flatter section after the first ridge there were
already quite a few people there. The conditions were absolutely perfect.
Bill was somewhat dismayed and was muttering something about it being
like “Northumberland Street on a Saturday afternoon” and how
was a bloke supposed to have an “Earther Kit” with all these
people about. I guess he must have managed because after disappearing
for 15 minutes or so he returned with something of a relieved air about
him.
By now it was about 11:30 so I decided that it would be better to eat
my lunch and rest before getting into the air since I had resolved that
once I took off I wasn’t going to land again until I had put in a
good distance. Take-off was easy with just the right amount of wind for a good inflation.
There was plenty of buoyancy once airborne so I a spent 10 minutes or
so just getting into the groove. By now a number of pilots had either
made it to the top or were working their way up. Try as I might I couldn’t
seem to get enough height to jump the flatter area behind takeoff onto
the steeper slope that rose to the top. Finally I found that the far left
of the takeoff afforded better lift and I started scratching my way to
the top. The higher I got the better the lift until I found myself just
below the summit. At this point a couple of pilots were making their way
along Knowe Crags to Middle Tongue. Looking at this particular set of
rocks filled me with apprehension but I thought “what the heck”
if they can do it then so can I. I was a bit low when I started working
my way along the crags. Looking down into Gategill Fell I told myself
that their was no way I was going down there. As it happened I quickly
rose above the top of the ridge in the moderate lift generated at the
almost vertical head of the Fell. Crossing Middle Tongue there was a punchy
little thermal but I was now rising steadily so I decided to continue
on flying above and upwind of the summit ridge. This second gully was
even more awe inspiring than the first and when I crossed Hall Fell Ridge
my vario started screaming. I hung stationary in the strong headwind gaining
height in this thermal as long as I could and then pushed out on the speed
bar, tucked my arms behind my risers and leaned back into my harness to
penetrate upwind.
At this point I didn’t have a plan. Looking back at the way I had
come I chickened out of flying back that way. I had plenty of height and
decided to continue following the summit ridge. A number of walkers were
making their way along the path that tracked the ridge. The view down
over Scales Tarn was fantastic. Then I spotted a familiar glider low down
at the south eastern limit of the ridge. It was Ron Donaldson scratching
close to the hill to gain height. I guess that Ron must have been on his
way back from a flight to the end of Scales Fell. Using the logic that
Ron was bound to know what he was doing I made a dash over to where he
was gradually gaining height just as he made the jump across to Hall Fell.
I decided to follow and lost a good 100m of height crossing the gap. Ron
was working the face of the Fell at the bottom of the ridge. So I fell
into the pattern and we commenced an aerial ballet beating up and down
the face gaining height all the while. Ron made the jump to Middle Tongue
first and I soon followed, working my way to about halfway up the Tongue
before flying directly to Knowe Crag, once again finding plenty of lift
to take me well above the Blease Fell summit.
Looking up I saw Bill Scott some 30m higher. I remember thinking to myself
Bill always gets higher then me. After several attempts to contact bill
on the radio I could only get a response from someone who seemed to be
speaking French. I gave up on the radio and resorted to shouting and gesturing
madly for Bill to follow me along the summit again. Bill either got the
message or decided independently to go this way himself. In either case
we flew off in formation NE along the ridge again. This time I flew down
the top of Hall ridge before making my way along the SE limits of the
Fells back to Blease and up to the summit again.
I now started to get interested in jumping to Lonscale Fell. Hearing shouts
I looked around to see John Watson excitedly pointing across the gully
in the same direction. Knowing that John wasn’t on air I nodded exaggeratedly
and pointed my glider toward Lonscale. John seemed to be flying slower than me and maintaining better height
so that I arrived over Lonscale first and quite low hoping I wasn’t
going to have to land. However once over the Fell the lift was strong
and smooth. Turning WNW I found a nice little thermal and managed to get
up level with the summit of Skiddaw. John didn’t seem to be following
but I decided that it was time to throw caution to the wind and see how
far I could go. Adjusting my track NW I flew to Little Man and on over
Thornthwaithe Forest. It was flat from here on and I started following
the A591 North preferring to land near to a road. I had a good tail wind
and my GPS was showing a ground speed of 55Kph. I was still at about 600m
amsl and going nicely. I think I just relaxed at this point and didn’t
really try to find any further thermals to exploit, just drinking in the
pleasure of the whole experience. I spied a large white building in the
distance and decided it must be a pub. Arriving over this building with
a good 150m agl. I studied the surrounding fields for a suitable place
to land. I wanted something with no sheep or pylons and finally settled
for the field directly across the road from what I was now convinced was
a pub. The final approach was tricky coming in low over some trees to
land in the middle of the field. Looking across the road I confirmed that
it was indeed a hotel at the junction of the B5291 and the A591. I packed
up my glider well satisfied with my afternoons flying, put in a call to
Jim to come and get me and ordered a pot of coffee to celebrate.
This had to be one of my most memorable flights to date if not the longest.
The difference was doing it in the company of friends.
The final flight statistics are not outstanding by any means:
Duration 2hrs 2mins
Max height gained 498m
Max height 909m amsl
Distance with turn point 17.3K
Andrew Billington
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Thank you's 
