Flying in the Siberia of Scotland
Text & pictures: Steve Wright Published in February 2003
Reading Geoff Hall's last ParamotorsUK article (Jan 2003) got me in mind of a flight I'd made three days earlier (Jan 6th). The sky was bright blue and cloudless, and we'd had certainly the sharpest frost of the year (till Monday evening, when it went down to the minus teens!). My take-off field is a few hundred yards from my house, so having studied the wind, and noted an almost total lack of same, I grabbed my kit, put all aboard my quad for the short journey up to the take-off field, and got my woolies on!
Wrapped up & ready!
The thermometer read -6ºC at 10.30 am, and my wind indicator (an old 16' telescopic fishing pole with some fine ribbon dangling off the end) showed hardly a breath of wind coming from the West. Well, I'd been perusing the map the previous evening, more than anything to calculate how far I might be able to chance going out and back in more or less a straight line, and I'd decided to go for a look at the old derelict hunting lodges of Blackwater and Glenfiddich. One thing was sure - I needed to be wrapped up warm! Being out doors a lot when not flying anyway, I decided to put on my old ski pants on top of the obligatory Lifa thermals, and an extra fleece under the top, windproof one I normally fly in. I wear a thickish balaclava under my helmet also, which really keeps one warm, but you have to remember to put your ear-plugs in first, and the sun - or sky- glasses last of all to avoid being totally misted up before take-off! Thinsulate-lined boots & gloves completed my garb.
My Vortex is a great, reliable starter, and today was no exception. I'm generally in the habit of taking the battery out of the unit and keeping it in the relative warmth of the house when not flying, and giving it a short spell on charge, normally the evening before I go. There is an inbuilt charger in the unit in any event, but it's nice to be sure! I've found that it really does make all the difference to making forward launches if you study carefully the direction of any wind, and if necessary make last minute adjustments to the layout of the wing just before take-off. Anyway, having checked the wind carefully (almost nil) once more I got in prep for a forward launch (the training instructors in Slovakia where I learned assured me that I'd be mainly doing reverse launches back in Blighty, but to date I've done just one, out of 8 or 9 flights!). My canopy, a PowerPlay Sting 160 (by Swing) came up a treat, and after a quick check overhead to see all was well, power-up, and within 15 or so metres I was off and away! Quickly into my seat and set the trimmers, and my first mile was spent climbing over farmland in our glen, followed by a short hop over a narrow piece of forest en route for an anemometer mast on the top of the first hill. Once on top of the plateau (actually about 1500' above it) one can see for miles around with only hills and the occasional house or farm here and there. The Cabrach area, which I was flying over, has one of the lowest population densities in the UK, but that is more than made up for by the wealth of wildlife and spectacular scenery.
At cruising speed, the Cors- Air motor makes surprisingly little noise, and with 3" of snow covering the ground spotting the deer and wildlife was going to be easy today! Shortly after traversing the first hill range I came on over a parcel of about 20-25 red deer (left), with a one-antlered stag among them. They were very calm, so I dropped the motor revs down to almost idle and went in for a closer look. Only once I got to be right above them did they start to bunch up and wander off. Zig-zagging back over the hill I came upon another five or six families of roe deer, all out on the snow covered heather hills. A little farther on the way and I flew over a group of around 6-8 blackgame, cousins of the red grouse (as seen on the telly), which have a distinctively slower wing-beat than their more "Famous" cousin. Shortly after that I spotted a Hen harrier quartering the hillside in search of prey far below me. Being a fairly uncommon species (though they are seen on the Cabrach almost every day), I tried to get a pic of it in my camcorder, but as is too often the case, it shows up in my film as a small dark speck floating across the hillside. Still, nice to have seen it!
A
little farther on and I crossed over the lower part of the land below me, the
upper reaches of our local river, the Deveron. From above one
really gets an impression of how it meanders through the valley floor.
The upper reaches of the Deveron
I was soon climbing again to gain a safe height over
the next range of hills, which took me into view of Blackwater Lodge
(below, left). It's
pretty inaccessi
ble
from the ground, but by air was a different matter! Last used as a hunting lodge
in the late sixties, it is still in surprisingly good order and looked to be
wind and watertight from above at any rate, which is not any more the case with
Glenfiddich Lodge, the roof of which is showing signs of falling in.
I spotted a few packs of red grouse, one of which had a peregrine falcon and a buzzard in attendance close by, looking for any weak bird in the pack to harry and eventually pick off. Both the raptors were a little non-plussed at the arrival on the scene of this big red soaring bird though, and sloped off to hillsides new!
By now I was just beginning to feel a little cold at
the extremities, and I reminded myself to check my
fuel level which I do with a mirror on a plastic coil spring - time to be
heading back now, I thought, as I'd not been so far out before with what seemed
at the time to be none too much fuel for the return! It's great how the mind
concentrates on getting a straight line and economical output from the machine
when you think your fu
el is getting low! I also found out later that the
cold had gotten to my camcorder during the coldest part of my trip also, it
recorded the sound (a
fairly constant hum of the motor!) but no picture, but I expect it was around
-10º or below at that point - not for nothing is the Cabrach called "The
Siberia of Scotland"! After a while it came back to life, though.
A cold Glenfiddich scene
Returning home I was concentrating on my most direct route and altitude (to get over the last hill range) and back to my flying field; however, I have come to realise afterwards that putting down somewhere else would not have been such a big deal anyway. In the interim, I've been compiling a note of all the various petrol stations dotted around the countryside that may lie on any given direction out for a more extended XC journey. These have the wonderful habit of having useable landing fields nearby too!
It certainly was funny to look back a few paces in the field once I'd landed, to see three or four long boot strides just appearing in the snow from nowhere - I wonder what the "trackers" would make of that?!
Heading for the high pass and home!
Considering the changes in direction I'd made, and moving from sunshine to hill
shadow, the whole trip had been made in what seemed to me to be completely calm
conditions - either that or I was so engrossed with wildlife spotting that I
didn't notice any rough air! I think the PowerPlay wing is superbly stable too
though, which certainly helps.
ps. On arriving back and checking things over (about 1litre of fuel left, it transpired, the slightest air was from behind me on the return leg), I noticed a bit of a slight "tatter" to the tips of my prop, one noticeably larger than the other; I was mystified as to what could have happened, until I went to pack up my canopy, and found that the magnetic popper stud on my right hand control line was gone! On take-offs, I normally hang on to the brake handles just until I'm airborne and then let them go to free my hands for getting into my seat; the handle must have got sucked toward the prop at full-climb, and the popper stud took the hit. Note to self: Control the post-take-off ascent speed, don't just go for max. power after getting off the ground!
Ah well, it's been blowing a gale here the last few days (tiles-coming-off-the-roof-type-gales!), and my prop is now ready for varnishing (thanks to Keith Pickersgill at Xplorer Paramotors for the useful prop repair & balancing articles!!). I wonder what the weekend will bring for weather?
Happy flying!
Steve Wright
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