News from the lakes: West fell and Sandbeds closed

[Pete Batey]

We've had NE for a long time now. Because Carrock is closed for the fancy pigeon that lives there (except saturdays when it's not bothered about pilots) we went to west fell. we had a chat with the farmer there who is a lovely chap. He's not bothered about hang gliders but he is very peeved with the paragliders. The complaint is, whereas hang gliders take off and either go up and away or down and out (game over), some paragliders sit around takeoff bringing their wings up to test the air, having a bit of a scratch around, maybe landing a bit lower down, and slowly but surely driving the sheep down the hill. They'll happily sit at launch all day doing this on the off-chance something will come through. All this farmer's sheep ended up milling about on the valley floor. Perhaps if paraglider pilots (including me) would fly like a one -chance-only hang glider pilot and only take off once into a thermal and bottom land and go home if that chance was blown, it wouldn't get to the stage where the farmer has to contact the club the damage being done. Particularly this time of the year.
Your local farmer might still be happy for hang glider pilots to fly - ask him.
In the mean time, take out your frustration here:
http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/wha ... lewrap.swf
Pete

[Dave Hume]

Hey, maybe the hang gliders should ask if we can fly Cumrew. Once they understand what fine upstanding chaps we are, unlike that other lot, I'm sure they'll say yes.

[gordie]

Just to confirm at present these sites are closed for All flying and have been since last week. All this information is available on our website and if you could please all use this before flying any of the CSC sites, saving further sites issues and wasted journeys. This situation will remain like this until I have appeased the upset farmer and National Park Authority.

[Peter]

Just on the topic of closed sites its very easy to quickly find usable sites when browsing Cumbria Soaring Clubs page for example. The traffic light system on the main page is very quick and leaves little excuse for anyone "accdiently" flying a site. Information on closed sites is not easy to find on the Northumbria page however and takes a lot of hunting, leaving messages etc to find which sites are available.

I would always post when intending to fly a site to give people the opportunity to say if there are any problems, however a lot of people would not. It would be quite easy for a past member with the site guide to end up flying a closed site without knowing. Or for that matter anyone who is clever enough to type "paragliding sites north east" into google and download the placemark file hosted on a few sites!

Obviously this is a lot of work for someone but I would have thought it only a matter of time before people end up flying closed sites and if the information isnt readily avaliable the fault is with the club AND the pilot.

[Pete Batey]

I'm assured the club site can be instantly updated so it's worth checking 5 mins before you set off to fly that the site's still open/closed. Hat's off to Gordie. I can't imagine what a headache this time of year is to him!
There was something flying around recently about group text messaging. Perhaps something like that would be useful if implemented.
Pete

[Bob Sutherland]

Information on closed sites is not easy to find on the Northumbria page however and takes a lot of hunting, leaving messages etc to find which sites are available.

Peter, at the top of the page there is a "sticky" announcement for lambing dates.
If any of the sites were to close for any other reason ie Cumrew. you would soon hear or read about it without hunting too far.
Our sites may not have the "epic" appeal of the Lakes attracting the hoards, but we don't have the problems Gordie has with people flying /landing when and where they shouldn't

[Peter]

Maybe i'm just being stupid here but I cant find the sticky! (whats a sticky?!?! reminds me of a joke - whats brown and sticky? .... answers on a postcard ).

I'm not trying to be awkward just this site certainly has the most active forums of all the north east paragliding sites yet info on the actual flying sites seems difficult to find.

[Bob Sutherland]

Maybe i'm just being stupid here but I cant find the sticky! (whats a sticky?:

When you click on the pub section there are two announcements at present at the top of the page. One for Johns charity canoe excursion around the islands and one for the 2008 lambing dates.

Also check this site that Mikey has been working on.

http://www.aerositeguide.com/

[ron freeman]

Everybody should have a club site guide... if not get one as soon as possible it is invaluable information ! - £10 while stocks last....

Use your site guide well ! have it on top of the dashboard of your car (NHPC lable on top) so when anybody sees your car in the middle of nowhere they will know who you are... (good idea)

Happy flips