'The Children of the Wind' - A History of the New Aviation 1971-1996 - Ch V, Pt 2

[Larry Dighera, Moderator]

'The Children of the Wind' - A History of the New Aviation 1971-1996

Here is a serialized account taken from Brian Miltion's magnum
opus, 'The Children of the Wind' - A History of the New Aviation
1971-1996, soon to be published by Endeavour Press, a
London-based epublisher. These first few chapters
chronicling the beginnings of man's quest to fly and how the
forefathers of aviation have influenced contemporary ultralight
aviation have kindly been made available to newsgroup
readers. They will be posted here over the next few months.
This first post is the Table of Contents.

You can learn more about TV presenter, lecturer,
journalist, award winning around-the-world microlight pilot,
author of seven books, and born adventurer, Brian Milton on
his web site <http://www.brian-milton.com/>;. You can also
purchase autographed copies of Brian's literary works there too:
<http://www.brian-milton.com/book>. And don't miss the
extensive collection of aviation videos, including Brian's Around
the World by Microlight flight for which he was awarded the
Britannia Trophy, joining a very distinguished list of aviators
who have won that award including Sir John Alcock, Bert Hinkler
and Sir Alan Cobham. Brian was also awarded the Segrave Trophy,
an award presented to great sportsmen; past recipients include Sir
Malcolm Campbell, Amy Johnson and Jackie Stewart:
<http://www.brian-milton.com/video/>

Additional links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Milton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segrave_Trophy


© Copyright Brian Milton 2013, All Rights Reserved


============= Beginning of Chapter V, Part 2 ==============

Chapter Five - LEARNING TO CROSS-COUNTRY

Any form of rising air, for whatever reason, is lift. At the end of a hot day,
when the air cools, heat-traps like thick forests begin to release their warm
air. Flying over the heavily wooded areas of Tennessee on Lookout Mountain, for
example, this form of early evening lift is called "Magic Lift". The sun can
disappear, a moon appear, and all the time the magic lift - smooth, gentle,
stronger than a hang glider's sink rate - keeps you up for hours.

We knew about ridge lift in 1975, but all the other forms of lift were ahead of
us. Paul Maritos' account of wave in Wales was published at the same time as
Alvin Russell's account on the Long Mynd, when he "sat on" a glider. There was
a certain amount of teaching from pilots of more conventional gliders (they
were, at that time, not much interested in speaking to us), but most of our
knowledge came from what we ourselves learned, and talked about to each other.
One pilot would start climbing in a thermal on a ridge, others would see him
high and rush over to get into the same thermal. A column would be formed,
beginning circling in different directions, with hang gliders riding up the
rising air. There was a lot of strained shouting between pilots, worried about
colliding, until we decided that the first one in to the thermal decided the
direction a good-mannered pilot should circle. When the thermal, sometimes
called a blob, topped out ("blobbed out"), pilots looked over the back of the
ridge and wondered whether to go for it and find a thermal downwind, to leave
the security of the ridge lift and go into open country.

There was only one genuine hang gliding cross-country in England in 1976, that
is, leaving ridge lift and going into open country. That cross-country flight,
known as an XC, was made in July by the great Bob Calvert. But he wrote about
it on such a scrappy piece of paper in such an illegible fashion that the
editor of Wings! at the time - Tony Fuell, of Secret Site No 4 - didn't even
read it, and threw it away! It is one of Tony's lasting regrets, to miss
publishing the account of our first XC out of ridge lift. Calvert flew a Hiway
Cloudbase, a wing not very much better than the American kites at Kossen 15
months earlier. He thermalled up from Pendle Hill and out of ridge lift in
extremely turbulent conditions, flew cross-wind over Clitheroe, and turned left
at Waddington to land after 7 miles, having been in the air 25 minutes.

But that intrepid pair, Graham Hobson and Paul Maritos, were still in
pioneering mood, and soon appeared in print again, with a piece about flying a
mile high over Snowdon. This was still in the period, 1976, when we tended to
fly without instruments, without an altimeter to tell us how high we were, or a
vario which measured the rate of climb or sink. We also had no parachutes. The
discovery of the techniques of flight was done in an innocent way, relying on
intuition rather than formal training. Compare this account of Hobson and
Maritos’s flight with that written by Ken Messenger three long years earlier
off the same mountain….

…Ever since Bob Calvert let his curiosity get the better of him and
investigated a 'Cu-Nim', as he put it, and ended up flying seven miles upwind,
half the time hanging on for dear life, there has been a fever spreading
through the Pennine crowd to search out big lift conditions with a high XC
potential. It was whilst engaged in this search that Paul Maritos and I
discovered the superb lift generated from the south-east face of Snowdon, the
highest mountain in Wales.

The tale begins four days earlier when a few of us flew off Snowdon in still
air. The day was very hot and very blue and we were hoping for good thermals.
Having gained considerable thermalling experience on our local 150 foot hills,
we were wondering if we would be able to make use of this knowledge to soar on
the west face for a little while at least. Bob Calvert was second off and
turning left along the face he maintained height in the lift produced by heat
rising from the hot rock face alone. He then flew out looking for thermals and
started to descend. It was clear that soaring was not possible, but from what I
saw I was convinced that had there been any wind at all blowing on that face,
then we could have stayed up.

It was with this thought repeating itself time and again in my mind that we
returned, Paul Maritos, his girlfriend Sue, Phil Robinson and I to Snowdon,
armed with a forecast for a light easterly and clear blue skies. We were hoping
to get up on the railway but were refused as our gliders were interfering with
the large holiday crowds who were also using it. So we had to walk and this we
did in two hours steady plodding up the railway track. After about 90 minutes
we arrived at a point on the top of the Llanberis Pass and were able to enjoy
the breath-taking view down to the bottom a couple of thousand feet almost
vertically below.

I have always found it interesting comparing the types of flying that we do
with that done in other countries, and have heard many times that the greatest
difference is that Continental flying is only ever done in light winds, never
exceeding 15 mph due to extreme turbulence in the mountains, whereas we fly in
much higher winds. As none of us were experienced mountain flyers, knowing only
soaring on relatively small ridges, we had no alternative but to pay particular
attention to what we had heard about this. So you can imagine our consternation
when we looked down into this valley, at the 26 mph wind that rushed up over
the edge and tugged so annoyingly at our kites!

The weather man had assured us that the wind would die off to nothing in the
afternoon as a westerly sea breeze came in, so we continued our weary way and
made the summit in another 30 minutes.

On top we discovered only 2/3 mph coming up the south east coombe, and I must
admit I was disappointed, thinking that a steady 8 mph would have been ideal.
We decided to take off from a point about 30 feet below the top, on the apex of
the shoulder separating the west and south-east coombes. What a launch point!
To our right the SE coombe fell sharply away into a gigantic bowl, the forward
wall of which was the peak of Snowdon itself. To our left lay a vivid blue lake
nestled in the depth of the east coombe like a puddle at the bottom of some
monstrous dried-up well.

Paul was the first to rig and get off, helped on the wires by Phil, whilst I
cleared a way through the unbelieving spectators. I felt there was a strong
possibility of soaring but what happened surpassed my wildest imaginings. Paul
took a couple of steps into the 2/3 mph wind and was airborne. Turning right he
flew along the face and went up, and up, and up. Within a minute he was 360ing
in the blueness 500 feet above the top.

I was next to rig, hoping Paul wasn't just in a lucky thermal. I waited 10
minutes and Paul was now about 1,000 feet above the top and the wind had not
varied, convincing me that it was truly soarable. I couldn't wait any longer. I
clipped in and took the leap and immediately experienced the same abundant
lift.

(Paul Maritos takes up the story) Like Graham I had gone to Snowdon hoping for
something to happen, only to have my hopes fade when there turned out to be
virtually no wind on the summit. With only occasionally 4/5 mph of wind it
looked like a flight down. The only bright feature was that apparently there
were thermals coming through, from the way the wind felt and shifted.
Influenced by this I decided that whatever lift or lack of it there was, I
would at some point soon after takeoff fly back towards the mountain whilst I
still had some height just in case there was something there.

We picked out a suitable landing area and rendezvous and eventually managed to
persuade most of the spectators to move out of range. I remember especially
urging those on my right to move, as I wanted to turn soon after takeoff. With
a short run and a height-loss of perhaps 10 feet I was away and hugging the
hill. I lost no more height on the first pass and soon beat back.

There was clearly good lift and it was obvious I'd gone straight off into a
thermal. With virtually no wind and drift it was sensible to go straight into
flat circling and within a very few circuits I was above the summit.

There was turbulence but the lift was correspondingly powerful.

At first I was apprehensive about passing behind the summit and the two
shoulders which bounded my take-off area, but little by little I got the feel
of things and found that my kite speed seemed unnaturally high relative to the
ground. This was presumably because it was all lift and no wind.

Looking down on the summit I could no longer distinguish people but saw that
Graham had moved his kite to the take-off point I had used and was preparing to
launch.

(Graham Hobson) - Before long I was also looking down on the summit 500 feet
below. I had discovered that the easiest way to stay in the lift was to 360
continuously rather than beat to and fro across the face. This was only sense
as the 'face' was really only a point, the summit of Snowdon, and because there
was so little wind there was no drift back over the top. In fact one was free
to fly a couple of hundred yards back and have no problems in 'penetrating'
back to the face.

As with all thermic lift, the turbulence was severe at times and it wasn't long
before my arms were aching, but I knew that, as always, I would feel better in
a little while when I had 'sussed' out the situation and was able to relax. I
was more concerned about locating Paul's whereabouts as I was also pretty high
now and he couldn't be much higher. I peered up into the sky for some time in a
vain attempt to find him, and then he slowly appeared from behind my left wing
a good 300 feet higher. We were both working the same thermal and slowly
slipping downwind.

About 300 yards behind take-off and maybe 1,000 feet above the summit I decided
that I hadn't been in the air long enough to warrant flying off on a
cross-country attempt, and that I ought not to waste an opportunity to really
learn something about true thermalling. Not so with Paul! He was by now a good
500 feet above me and probably an incredible 1,500 feet above the summit and I
knew that he would be clearing off. Flying back to takeoff I had to take my
eyes from him and concentrate on my own flying, but on reaching the summit I
turned and again searched the heavens for Paul. I will never forget the
fantastic sight that met my gaze. Paul had not followed the thermal completely
downwind but had turned NW heading for Llanberis and flown over Llanberis Pass.
Imagine the peaks of Snowdonia all around and the top of the pass stretching
away from Snowdon, green and hazy, then start looking up...and up in the blue,
two or three thousand feet and suddenly spying, small and unreal, a blue shape
that you know to be a hang glider and a pilot!

Simple arithmetic will tell you that at this point, Paul was 4,500 feet above
the bottom of the Pass. Intrigued, I followed his progress as he flew towards
Llanberis, at the same time concentrating on my own flying. Each time I flew
the 'downwind' leg of a 360 I would search the sky for him and each time he was
more difficult to find. Now he would be circling over the slag heaps of the
Elidir Fach mountain, now just a blue flash on the horizon as he turned over a
distant town, and then he was gone. Unable to see him any longer I shouted down
that he had flown over Llanberis and would land about 7 miles away. This
estimate was based on the fact that at the last sighting Paul was below me and
above Llanberis and I assumed he would glide for at least another 3 miles.
However I was quite wrong as he decided to lose height over Llanberis and land.

(Paul Maritos) - Gradually becoming accustomed to the scale of things, and
being consistently 1,000 feet above the summit, I noticed how my style of
flying and thinking were adapting. The turbulence could have been very
disconcerting and tiring, but with so much height I could let the kite rise and
fall or drop a wing and then correct itself, knowing that there was enough
height to pull out of anything. Or so I hoped!

As time passed it was apparent that there was a succession of thermals and in
one I reached a height which I judged was the highest I could hope for. The
whole Snowdon massif looked like a one inch tourist map, the crowd on the top
giving the appearance of a colourful fungus which had taken root at the very
tip of the mountain, their faces upturned. Many must have stared in disbelief.
It was then I decided to fly off.

... [Continued next week]
============= End of Chapter V, Part 2 ==============