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Look Before You Leap – A Cautionary Tale - by Steve Wright

Buoyed by my previous day’s successful 120 km XC flight from home to Kinloch Rannoch (see The Long, Good Friday article) I was keen to further explore the Loch Rannoch area. It had been calm early on, but as is all too often the case, by 10am, the wind was starting to rise.
Of course, NOW I was an “expert” and could manage to tackle a reasonable steady breeze, or so I thought! If only it had stayed as a reasonably steady breeze!

I should have got Mother Nature’s none too subtle hints that today was a day that would be better spent with my partner shopping and generally holidaying, as opposed to defying her elements! I had my wind-watch out, which showed a reading of 12-14kph – fairly strong but manageable, I thought, and no turning back now, I was up for the flight!

Well, MN tried her best to dissuade me, and it took quite a few efforts to try to get the canopy up in reverse, the breeze was quite powerful and sometimes gusting, and I was looking a bit stupid to the local sheep population, and a few curious passers-by also! This is where sin number one came in – PRIDE – that feeling that you’ve got to get up there to show them how you can do it! BIG MISTAKE – taking off is always optional, but landing is invariably MADATORY! Anyway, a little flustered by my lack of success in getting aloft, I re-composed myself, and laid out in methodical fashion. Now even my motor was conspiring to put me off flying that day – a couple of times I got the wing nicely aloft, only for my normally ever-so-reliable CorsAir engine to cut out on my just as I was pirouetting round for launch! This was later traced to a minor carburation adjustment being required. Finally, I managed to restart the engine whilst having the wing overhead, and two steps later I was away! Great, at last, I thought. Up I went, and gained height rapidly, though there was no way I was going to be penetrating the wind today. I had already made plans for Emma to meet me at the far end of the valley near Rannoch Station later in the day, and I had a plan to visit a gamekeeper friend en route at the Western end of the Loch.

In the meantime, all was well, and I criss-crossed the water, photographing the village, Rannoch Boys School, Dunalastair, and the Bridge of Ericht hydro scheme and the crannog in the Western end of the Loch.

Dunalastair Loch, East end of Rannoch

Ericht Power Station

Floating over toward the “big house” where my friend George works, I could see three folk looking up my way, one of them I recognised as being George. Well, time to land and say hello then, I thought, and set the trim tabs for landing. There were a couple of reasonably suitable looking fields just in front of the House between the loch’s shores and the road, and I thought well, easy, I’ll just drop in there. I was fully aware of the trees upwind of where I was coming in to land, but had not reckoned on the amount of sink/rotor coming over the top of them! I initially looked at the most down-wind of the fields, further away from the trees, but then rejected it owing to a small hedge with a small burn (stream) running alongside, which looked like it could catch the unwary!
In hindsight I should have chosen this over the wider but nearer to the trees filed, as on my final approach and point of landing, my canopy ran forward (presumably in rotor), and “the weakest link” (me) gave way to gravity, and I was run off my legs and landed face down, just narrowly avoiding a 2002 vintage cow-pat! Not quite the entry I had hoped for!

As things turned out, I had flown into a small dip in the field, and my face- down end of flight caper had not been visible to my audience, which was a small comfort. My (until then) perfect landing record had bitten the dust (or dirt)! No matter - I was down, safe, and most importantly, no damage had been done to the unit or wing.

I unclipped and left the kit in the field and went to have a bit of cheek from and give back to George and Co. He was mildly surprised to see the “paraffin peregrine” drop in on the lower fields, and even more so at who had been piloting! Well, jolly banter, keepering gossip and chat ensued, and in due course the party would come and have a look at the strange contraption, and see me take off on my way to my final destination for the day.

After answering a plethora of the usual FAQ’s, it was time to put my earplugs in, thus ending the chat, though I’d been giving George as good as I’d been getting, as ye do! This “distraction” was now going to catch me out, BIG TIME!

All was laid out and ready for launch, and though the wind was still over the loch nearby, I was in a fairly sheltered spot for taking off from (having moved away from the cowpat to a more suitable small hillock to try a forward launch from. Now it started to get interesting! Wing and speed-bar clipped in, alti on, engine purring, ready to go – a quick wave to the guys, and up came the wing, and off I went, and up, up, and - Oh S%*t! (Block Capital “S”) – In my distracted state, I’d only forgotten to do up my LEG-STRAPS!!!

Well, “Imagine my surprise” – here I was, just clear of the trees by the loch’s shore, hanging in there like a complete PRAT, unable to get into the seat despite wriggling and trying to find the speed-bar that is usually where it ought to be (IT still was where it ought to be, the problem was I wasn’t!!) to help climb into the seat, and all the while hanging on for dear life whilst contemplating the icy waters of Loch Rannoch below, and unable to make any use of the control lines either! A quick assessment of my situation pointed to my best bet being making a beeline over the loch to a nice, open field, unhampered by trees around – that’ll do, Thank You God! A few moments later (total flight time was the longest 4½minutes I’ll ever wish to add to my flight log!), I was hovering over the aforementioned field, unsure whether I would be able to avoid an all-too “convenient” barbed wire fence between it and the marshy foreshore of the loch, but all the while praying for a break! As I slowly eased down in the (by now fairly strong) breeze, I gained some forward motion, and touched down (thank the Lord!) in the field, only to be swept off my feet by the strength of the wind. Oo-er! Another new experience!

Recovering my composure, though still pretty traumatised, I checked over the machine, which I again had miraculously managed to avoid damaging. I then (yet again) all too quickly ignored the signs being sent to me, and put up the wing in reverse, and took off, this time suitably strapped-in and triple-checked well in advance. I returned over the loch to from whence I’d recently came, and took a few photos of my friend’s workplace, before setting off downwind again toward my final destination, just East of Rannoch Station.

By now I could see that there were white lines appearing in the lochs waves, and I got the impression that I perhaps had been a little hasty in my desire to get up and away once again, and felt a tinge of foolishness, at my stubborn-ness in determining to fly on a day which was turning windier with the passing minutes, foolish at bungling my first landing of the day, especially STUPID at forgetting to do up my leg-straps (Something I hope I’ll never do again, and I have the feeling I won’t!), and now contemplating yet another rough landing!

It truly is better to be “Down here” wishing you were “Up there” than vice versa! Anyway, “landing is invariably MANDATORY” as I have already mentioned, and so I started to have a good look for a suitable (preferably soft) landing spot, and found a flattish looking piece of boggy (though dry above) ground near the single-track road and a respectable distance from two separate power lines.

“Dropping” in to land, I found I was just hanging in the breeze, neither going forward, backward, nor really losing height for that matter. My mind flashed back to my training week in Slovakia, when one of the instructors showed us how he could “stand” more or less motionless like a crucified person, some five or so feet off the ground, adjusting the brakes while standing on the speed-bar. That had been paragliding, though, and now I was in the same predicament but with my motor strapped on behind me! Well, I stood on my speed-bar, and slowly I descended, it taking around five seconds to drop the last four feet, or so it seemed, and when I finally did touch down – Wahey! Guess who looked like a flying crisp-packet for a moment? Yep, yours truly – I remember being momentarily picked up, then flying, Superman-stylie, but only about two feet off the ground, for about twenty feet, before finally bumping into the soft and damp mossy bog! Bloody hell, I thought, that was a bit of a landing! No sooner had this thought passed through my (all the while thickening) skull, than I was being “offered” another whiz along Rannoch Moor by the wind in my canopy, trying its best to get going again. I managed to wrestle the D-lines in and hauled the thrashing canopy into a heap and quickly unclipped from the wing – ENOUGH for today, I thought!!

On inspection I was relieved to see that the propeller was totally intact and fine (which I felt should be okay, as I invariably switch off some feet above, prior to landing), and that there had only been a slight bend put into one side of the stainless steel prop cage, which was testament to the build quality of the Vortex unit. My tetra can had also absorbed some of the albeit soft impact of my post landing fall from grace, like a fairly stiff Airbag. My shoulder ached a bit though, and my upper arms were by now also sore, where the riser bars had pinched them earlier when I had forgotten to do my leg-straps up.

The result of forgetting to do up my leg straps.

In due course I was collected by Emma, who looked at me somewhat reproachfully “Yes yes, sweetie, it WAS dumb of me to fly in the conditions we now were in, but it wasn’t like that when I’d taken off” I tried to convince both her and myself, and “No, no, I won’t be flying again today (thoughts raced through my head to question whether I’d ever fly again – certainly not in the conditions I now found myself in – 22-26kph headwind!!)

I was truly thankful to be finished and packed up and ready for getting back to base; that evening I started to stiffen up a bit, and was quiet as the proverbial Church mouse at dinner – not much ‘motoring talk that evening!

Camusericht - First stop of the day | Kinloch Rannoch village

Next day (Easter Sunday) I went to the farm where the local shepherd lived, and he kindly allowed me the use of his workshop to straighten the slight bend on my cage (for the looks, as it would not have significantly affected the flight characteristics), and following a careful inspection of the entire unit, I went up in a lovely, smooth, decreasing-strength air that evening, just to regain my confidence as much as anything else. Half an hour of therapy!

I consider myself extremely lucky in a number of respects, not least my surviving of the leg-strap-less flight – Morals learned, in no particular order: