Summer 2011

Ben, under power, flying towards Hayling Island

The Summer started off well with some glorious Easter sunshine. The field in front of our cottage was empty until they planted maize in it which sadly meant we could no longer use it as a take off field. We flew from other stubble fields and used a field near the coast near the village of Hambrook. The maize has recently been harvested which makes it possible for us to use for flying again! Here are some flying shots taken recently... Michel Carnet - Reigning World Champion

Michel Carnet - aboard his Nucleon Wing

Mark Morgan - local boy

Ben Clowes - flying low near Selsey / Witterings

Ben Clowes on Cloud 9

Ben Clowes flying over the groynes

Ben Clowes over Chichester Habour

Sunset flying in October flying over Wittering Beach - packed with people!

Somebody's private airstrip! Nice!

Spinaker Tower - Portsmouth (Sunset)

Our usual take-off field in front of the cottage... The maize has been freshly cut...

Venezuelan Paramotor Adventure

Earlier this year in January, 2010, our friends / sponsors at Hewlett Packard sent us into the depths of Venezuela to test out their latest LTO tape drive. The marketing campaign has just been launched and you can see some of the things we got up to here in this short video. The quality is not great but it will give you an idea of the amazing flying we did up on the Gran Sabana. Michel Carnet (the Paramotor World Champion) came with us and it was WILD!

Flying the coast (Weymouth)

On Friday 25th June, I took off from Pulborough, from my friend Seymore's farm, at 9am. I had chosen to fly the Bailey 175 for fuel economy and I thought that I might just make it to a field near Weymouth on 14ltrs (160kms away). There was a 'Fly-in' that had been organised by Ben de Candole and there were going to be many pilots there. After 140kms I landed to refuel at Winterbourne Kingston (only 22kms away from Weymouth). I managed to hitch a ride from a friendly lady (whom I met in Scats, the farm shop!) to get some fuel in Bere Regis and got back to find the exhaust bracket had snapped! So that was it for me, or so I thought! My lovely wife, Diana, picked me up and I drove like a demon back to Sussex to pick up my other machine (a TOP 80 miniplane). The weather was set to be perfect and I wanted to experience the coast.

Here are some photos I took the following day - you will see that the sea mist rolled in but this added to the atmosphere...

Flying the entire length of Chesil Beach only a couple of metres from the ground was a highlight for me. Waving at the fishermen and the children. Everyone was smiling! What a day!
We landed on the beach at the Abbotsbury end and had a beer! We thought about a swim but we were wondering how we were going to take off again as the pebbles were very hard to run on. We carried our gear to the nearby field and took off from there. Sadly our host, Ben de Candole, had problems with his motor so had to be retrieved later and he got back to the field when it was dark. (from l to r) Colin, Ben, Phil, Paul...







Paragliders flying the White Horse in Weymouth - the wind was light and not much flying was had for them!
Evan flying back towards the field from the coast. You can see where the exhaust bracket snapped on my machine which was the reason I was unable to take off again to finish the final leg of the journey to the field near Weymouth!

80,000 feet above Earth!

Near Space Balloon Flight, shot with HD HERO cameras from GoPro from Kevin Macko on Vimeo.

I saw this and it blew me away! Check it out!

Flying in the Lost World

If you do not already subscribe to PARAMOTOR MAG then perhaps now is the time to. Issue 18 will include our story of flying in the Lost World and it comes out next week! You can see a handful of photos in the Photo Gallery on the right hand side
(click on Venezuela)...

Enjoy!

Danny MacAskill

Quite the most astounding clip I have ever seen... Enjoy...

Venezuelan Gran Sabana

We are currently in the Gran Sabana in Venezuela. A wilderness of savanah flatlands and magical Tepuis rising high out of dense jungle. Michel Carnet, Ben and I are flying paramotors and it is wild - like something out of a glossy magasine! Yesterday, we flew 30km over dense jungle and past a small tepui called Chiri Cayen before landing in an indian settlement where the locals looked bewildered when we landed on their football pitch. It was a surreal experience! We carry SPOT gps positioning systems and satelite phones so that in the case of real emergency we can still be found. A local pilot told us how his friend went missing and was never found - he was swallowed by the jungle. It is a committing place when you fly over the jungle. We have been having fun on the flat lands testing our Italian miniplane paramotors and our Dudek Synthesis 34 wings. We fly in the early morning at sunrise and late in the afternoon when the conditions calm down. It is very hot. Internet connection is slow but here are some photos...

HP Extreme Testing

I’m off with my brother Ben and world paramotor champion Michel Carnet to the Gran Sabana area of Venezuela. Humid rainforest meets wide open savannah along with huge flat-topped mountains called tepuis which were the inspiration behind Conan Doyle’s Lost World. We will spend three weeks out there and hope to have some spectacular flying whilst avoiding the notorious bushmaster snakes, bird eating tarantulas and blood sucking vampire bats.

We will attempt to update this blog via our satellite phone from time to time. Wish us luck!

Speed riding Ben Nevis...

Now this looks like a lot of fun! Gordy and Terry certainly looked like they had fun! Nice video lads!

Speed Flying descent down the West face of Ben Nevis from Antigravity Acro Team on Vimeo.

Avebury Stone Rings

There has been good high pressure for the last few days. We flew for an hour or so as the sun was setting on Monday 12th October and then on the following day we flew from Denmead in Hampshire all the way to the Stone Ring at Avebury and back which is about 200kms in total. My brother Ben and our friend, Mark Morgan, joined us for the flight. We flew up past Preston Candover before landing at Wadwick Farm where my friend, Rich, is a farmer and he promised us coffee if we popped in. The offer was too good to refuse and so, after an hour and a half of flying we swooped in to land in his stubble field and he met us in his tractor and coffee was served. He is building a house on his land and they were making good progress - we had a guided tour before taking off again, onwards towards the famous rings... We flew up the most beautiful valley low over the ridges, over Coombe Gibbit (one of the best xc sites in the south)... ...and on towards Hungerford where we then headed west along the A4 towards Marlborough where we could clearly see the high street and the golf course. From Marborough, we flew high over some race horse studs before reaching the rings at Avebury which were quite spectacular in this clear, autumnal weather. We turned around at this point and we knew we needed just one more stop for fuel before reaching our cars which were now 100kms away. We we on the lookout for a suitable fuel station. We were all flying Bailey 4-stroke machines and just needed a good field that would allow us an easy take off. We spotted a Texaco garage just outside Ibthorpe and landed in another stubble field above it on a hill. Perfect for taking off again as it sloped gently down into wind. The garage man looked at me in disbelief when I told him we had to get back to Denmead (nr. Portsmouth) before nightfall. Once we had taken off, I flew over the garage and gave him a wave! I think he then understood? It had been a grand day out and we landed as the sun was setting. We passed 3 balloons in the still evening air and got buzzed by a microlight heading for the Isle of Wight in the distance. It was a joy...

Coastal flying in September!

The forecast was good and on 24th September, Ben and I took off from our local field near Denmead in Hampshire. The skies were blue with puffy clouds. It was looking good.

We gained height and flew over the outskirts of Portsmouth to Hayling Island, before dropping down low having jumped the gap to the Witterings.
This was quality flying! We had about 12 litres of fuel on board and flew the coast all the way to Littlehampton before following the railway line and river up to Arundel Castle and then Petworth. The wind had strengthened from the west and we changed our original plan which was to fly to Brighton to land at the Dyke. So we headed home following the 272 to Petersfield and Butser Hill where we saw three paragliders trying to soar on the west slope. We cruised by waving and after 3 hours, (110kms) landed back at our field, in time for tea at Mum's... nice...

(photos of orange ReAction are Ben's and the ones of the Synthesis are mine)