For the CAA who skulk around blogs looking for descriptions of illegal activities – the following description is entirely fictional as an example for other pilots of what could happen [really]
The plan was to fly down the Lake District to meet my son who was cycling down (a challenging 160 mile each way cycle ride with his chum), I would take Mrs Forrester my folding brompton bike which fits in the passenger seat of the plane so we could meet somewhere in the area. That was the plan.
The plane was full of fuel, Mrs Forrester was in the back and Mike’s gear was in the back, along with Mrs Forresters heavy handcuffs, and Mike. We didn’t bother weighing as it was patently overweight (Mike was certainly). It was a cross wind take off, bar in and rolling down the runway – revs over 6K half way down pushed bar forward – no response (oh fuck). Abort point not reached yet – push bar ahead again and sweep into the air groaning past the abort point skew round with the cross wind and push into the air.
It was fairly turbulent and I could see over the Lammermuirs there was a lot of cloud and there was blue sky. The blue sky was tempting – that meant no turbulence and a gentle flight with a good tailwind. To get to the blue sky required a climb into cloud that was moving northwards, fast. To clear the cloud I banked left and continued climbing over the wave of cloud crashing down like a tidal wave. Once over I was in heaven – an antarctic landscape with occasional holes with only cirrus tens of thousands of feet above and a tail wind – I was hurtling southward at 85mph. Here was the cloud cuckoo land of Aristophanes Birds and it was a mirage.
Windows in the cloud allowed navigation, GPS confirmed and timing and compass provided more navigational data. Then the windows disappeared. They disappeared totally. There were no windows – apart from the last one which was now disappearing with a 25 knot tailwind meant that I had assumed there was no way I was going to reach it. On the ground doing the figures and realising that the clouds were not actually moving north but it was a relative movement to the aircraft I would have made the last window, but I didn’t.
What followed was a frantic chasing of windows which turned out to be mirages in the luminous clouds. I was according to the GPS north of Penrith (the airfield I wanted was getting closer – so close but so far away under an unknown amount of cloud. I was also running out of map as I didn’t need any map south of the lake district. This was a serious situation and I started to desperately look for windows. There was one – in a cauldron of cloud.
I descended into the cauldron – clouds on all sides like a snowy mountain – but again it was no window just a grey patch of cloud. I climbed out of the cauldron in a spiral climb back to the antarctic landscape, which now had also added in climbing cumulus – I was at 7,000 feet and may be pushed higher – this was getting desperate as I even if I turned back I might not escape the climbing cumulus and the 10K ceiling is there for a reason (oxygen starvation above 10K).
Then a window – definitely, there were green fields and a road – and it was near Penrith – spiral dive through the hole descending fast. Made it through, hooray, and then noticed the Television aerial I had missed by a few hundred yards. I was also headed North so turned, avoiding the aerial to see the hills which were touching the clouds base – so if the hole had been over there I would have done a controlled flight into terrain (which on reflection might have been under the first cauldron I tried to descend into). My promise to myself was never to do this again.
The way south to Bedlands Gate follows the M6 and a line of aviation unfriendly pylons to arrive at a grass strip which has a tree at the start of the runway which I managed to miss. I landed and then took off again when I hit the bump on the runway and landed again (fortuntaly they don’t charge per bounce) – just as well it is a 450 metre runway.
Hangering the plane I managed to jam my finger in a trailer, and then when the friendly chaps asked where I was off to, I revealed Mrs Forrester and my plan to cycle her to Kendal. There were puzzled looks and the question – have you heard of Shap Fell? Who the fuck put a 1400 foot summit on my cycle route from Shap to Kendal. When I reached Kendal I was completely knackered and leaning Mrs Forrester up against walls and hiding to allow anyone to steal her. But this plan had a flaw – there was no one in Kendal – the place had been hit by a neutron bomb – the streets were deserted. I booked into the Rainbow Tavern, where the barman apparently wants to run tourist flights around the Lake District, and went on what I thought would be a short pub crawl sampling some real ale of England.
First there weren’t that many pubs with real ale, although those that had excellent ales. Secondly at nine o’clock all the people in Kendal returned dressed to the nines and ready to party. Discos started in pubs and young ladies in rara skirts and older ladies in more tasteful cocktail dresses were knocking back the vodkas and red bull. Folks of all shape, size and degree of tattoing were now dancing everywhere in a erotic melee. They they all moved to the next pub – I managed to elucidate the intended map from a lady from a hens night – they were all local as well (this wasn’t incomers partying like a stag/hen night – this was a local melee and apparently was a weekly thing)
The end point once the pubs had emptied the purses and wallets of the good people of Kendal, was the 5 story night club Passions. This where they let their hair down. I left falling down the stairs at 3am to find my way in the dark around the back of the inn where the rear gate had been set up to only look locked. After faling over various dark objects cunningly hidden in the dark I managed to make it to my room, behind a dark door that was in a dark wall.
Kendal is a strange place, a christian science bookshop and a quilting exhibition and wainrights cast off possessions including his pipe in a museum and a totally hot generation of partying girls. What a strange combination – perhaps there is more to christian science than I first thought.
To celebrate my hangover I cycled to Windemere the next day, noticing that Kendal had returned to its Lovecraftian empty state. I followed the cycle track which promptly took me out of the way, so on my search to avoid yet another hill and looking for the 6 minute train – I ended up on a bus to Ambleside. Mrs Forrester tucked in the baggage shelf because although bikes aren’t allowed on a bus (she is a folding bike which the friendly drivers were amused at).
Grasmere was a short cycle from Ambleside (which is full of bookshops) and is a busy road so I took to the pavement. That was a mistake. The first accident was hurtling down a hill to be hit by an overhanging branch which walkers will easily duck under, the second was the bush of nettles and large thorns which met with my bare left leg enthusiasticlly. Grasemere was a lovely place filled with unlovely tourists. The Rowan Tree cafe had the attraction of a riverside terrace, spinach and mushroom pasties and a metal drainpipe I could handcuff Mrs Forrester too.
William Wordsworths grave is there jidden with the rest of the Wordsworths and another William to test the poetry lovers, and a daffodil free daffodil garden. It did have the attraction of a bus stop to Keswick.
Alasdair was lost in the lakes, Kim and Stuart and Cara were now climbing Haystacks and out of mobile coverage – the Forsyths had migrated to Cumbria and were all uncontactable. Keswick is full of hill walking shops, pizza and fish and chips and a cornish pasty shop, and a lot of street entertains – pushing the definition of the word entertainment. I stopped to eat my pasty and folded Mrs Forrester so she stands – which people seemed to misrepresent as the start of a street entertainment – standing around to see if I was going to do more (or perhaps they were amazed that I could drop so much pasty filling down my T shirt).
There is a wonderful and magic stone circle outside Keswick – normally these attractions are deserted, but folk who visit Keswick are obviously put off with the quality of street theatre and all flock up to the stone circle. To add to the magical experience of people clambering over the stones and whooping for no good reason, there is an ice cream van with a particularly noisy generator. And I had to cycle/walk up a very steep hill to enjoy this and the views of the hills in cloud.
Kim and Stuart (and an exhausted Cara) drove me to Penrith, which is definitely not a party town. The George Hotel bar had some attractive girls discussing their friends veneral disease and the dilemma of the Aids test – it was concluded that it was better not to know. I left then to try and find a pub with real ale – an hour later I had tracked one down. Alasdair was by now at the other end of the lake district so we had avoided meeting (waving whilst cycling past each other) the reason I had flown down.
I had again wrongly assumed that since Penrith was north that everything south was downhill. In this topsy turvy world it was all uphill to the airfield, and I even took wrong turns to add to the miles. I stopped for a breath of air after the Clifton hill to enjoy the stench of sewage – it was a lovely churchyard there but I didn’t stop long as I can only hold my breath for a couple of minutes.
The sight of low cloud meant there was no flying over the lakes – the lakeland hills were higher than the clouds and there was a brisk northern wind. So northbound in low cloud to see a cessna on my left heading north and fighting turbulence saw two military transport aircraft cross my path after carlisle. The low cloud meant traversing the southern uplands lower than I would have liked, with an eye to landing fields in the event of engine failure.
Surprisingly the transit through the valley of death as I had thought it – was smooth and I was delighted to see blue skies ahead and the eildons. That was when the turbulence started – thrown across the sky, up, down, wing drops it was continuous, past Hawick and I reached the Lammermuirs and then it got worse with oscillations and unexpected fast descents and ascents. I managed to get above the fast moving cumulus clouds and things calmed down, until I got nearer the airfield and it started again. Unbelievably the wind was down the main runway so managed to miss the black wrapped hay bales at the entrance to the runway and could relax at last.
