After an inauspicious start, conditions improved and upwards of 14 pilots enjoyed excellent soaring around Jenkin and Skiddaw until 7pm
Cloudbase was below Skiddaw but later lifted to above the tops. Great fun flying through wisps of cloud together with the likes of Andrew Maltby and Paul Smith. Views toward Keswick were great, flying along bumping your head on cloudbase
Soaring lower man and Skiddaw in smooth lift was awesome, without need for speed bar just for once this year
Plus big-ears out of cloud several times but never a concern
Finish with a nice pint in the Salutation brought an unexpectedly excellent day to a pleasant close
Davehorne wrote:
Plus big-ears out of cloud several times but never a concern
Midweek?!!!!!! That is until you meet the fast jet doing like wise who aint expecting you to be in there! I know as I was sat in the back of one past there last week! Lets say you all got lucky. Point made but no doubt ignored!
Stay safe
Mike
Yep great day on Jenkin. After a nice hours paramotor flight around Skiddaw in the sunny morning whilst things got going, I saw the little ants scurrying up Jenkin with gliders on their backs. I arrived back to walk up just as it started working around 14.00hrs, walked 2/3 of the way up a flew up the rest.
As Dave said beautiful soaring in the Oragraphic cloud allowing one to soar up above it and surf the big white, very nice and possibly the best flying on Jenkin this year.
Hi Mike,
Sounds like your still recovering from your flying experience last week (you got thoughs sick staina out of your shirt?). As for your comments, well the summit of Skiddaw/ Jenkin is well away from the MOD low flying flow lane S-N through Keswick area, so a safe place to fly (landing field and Latrigg are much more exposed). If a plane decided to fly through cloud shrouding the mountain tops then it would be extremely dangerous and also break the VMC rules governing all MOD low flying, so it will not happen.
It was lovely flying yesterday and every pilot stayed 'in sight of the surface' as VFR rules dictate. I did though fly up to a number of lower air time pilots and warn them about the low cloud (3000ft) and tell them to big ears if they got close, which they all did.
As for more flying, this morning looks o.k before the mid day and tomorrow may be a goer as well, lets hope...............
[quote="gordie"] If a plane decided to fly through cloud shrouding the mountain tops then it would be extremely dangerous and also break the VMC rules governing all MOD low flying, so it will not happen.
[quote]
Hi Gordie,
If they do a low level abort due to cloud obscuring their view then yes they will pull straight up through it up to their sector safe altitude and if you have decided to be out over valley on top of wispy stuff then....?!! We were flying through wispy stuff on top of ridges at 500mph though non of them were notamed. I presume Skiddaw was notamed yesterday. As for VMC rules for low flying then no the front line aircraft fly low level in ALL weathers including IMC due to their very clever terrain following radar. Apparantly it's quite scary first time you do it amongst the granite at 500mph when you cant see a thing and the hard stuff is just feet away!! Admittedly they do most of this bad weather training in the Highlands but occasionally in the Lakes.
It just concerns me though people flying in cloud as one can very rapidly become dissorientated. There were idiots doing it at Model the other day. What concerned me was the wispy stuff they were flying in was obscuring from their view the bloody big solid CB stuff that was above their wispy stuff!!
Glad you all had a good day though.
Cheers for now
Mike
gordie wrote:Yep great day on Jenkin. After a nice hours paramotor flight around Skiddaw in the sunny morning whilst things got going, I saw the little ants scurrying up Jenkin with gliders on their backs. I arrived back to walk up just as it started working around 14.00hrs, walked 2/3 of the way up a flew up the rest.
It's people like you that f***ing annoy me. And I thought you were a decent bloke.
