Expedition to Eden Soaring 6 to 13 Sept 08
Tony Walker
Eden Soaring put out an invitation for glider pilots to sample their site in September and October this year. John Young and Tom Edwards took Tom’s K8, arriving by way of an overnight stop at Bowland Forest on Sunday and I took my Vega arriving at the campsite on the Tuesday evening. (About 5hrs, with trailer from Marshalls Paddock). The group flew on the Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and a little on Friday and returned home on the Saturday. Tuesday was too wet to fly.
Skelling Farm is on the foothills of the Cross Fell Range at the upper end of the Pennine Chain and across the Eden Valley from the Eastern hills of the Lake District. (It is near Penrith if you are still lost) They are shown on the current Northern half mil chart.
(Picture of the launch site from above Photo by TW)
The site is two fields, with a gap in the wall dividing them, orientated approx North – South and at 1000m long gives launches comparable with those we enjoy at Nene Valley. The ground is not particularly flat and it slopes to the west across the length and has several wet areas. Because it is NS and the ridge works best in a westerly launches and landings are often crosswind. It is not a tame flying field and is probably unsuitable for powered aircraft, if it were licensed. Having said that it should be well within the capability of most competent pilots. Access via the farmyard is restricted to trailers and balloon tyred vehicles, no cars, so you need to be fairly organised with what you can take in the trailer or can carry. It also helps to have glider tow out gear so you can move your aircraft around on the field. There is a caravan for making tea with a stock of water and chocolate. Wellies are a must because the track and fields are used by both cows and sheep. And no, you have to catch your own. Eden Soaring have the use of a two drum Skylaunch winch, running steel wire on one drum and polypropylene on the other, we only used one whilst we were there because is was not possible to pull in a straight line for fear of cutting the field up with the tow out vehicle.
There is no accommodation at the field but lists of B&B’s, pubs etc can be found on the website. We camped opposite The Fox in Ousby, the next village along and found the field there also wet, but it had rained a lot. The Fox is a real ale pub and serves really good food. What is more they were very happy to have several noisy and happy glider pilots drinking with them.
(Picture of rainbow over the campsite, photo by TW)
Flying at the site is fun. The launch site is a couple of kilometres from the spurs which push out from the main body of the Crossfell Range and with anything more than a gentle breeze blowing on them reliable lift can be reached from the winch launch. A couple of guys in a Bergfalke failed to reach the lift and gave up after 4 launches but we reckon they gave up before reaching lift and rather too early. (but we were not in the glider so what do we know) As the land rises and you get closer to it is easy to forget that you have height over the landing field. And there are landable fields as Tom discovered on Monday between the ridge and the gliding field.
Wednesday we had solid cloud cover which eventually lifted sufficiently to show the top of Cross Fell (2,300ft over field height) and a SSW wind which gave reliable lift for several hours enabling us to explore from the northern end of the ridge a distance of about 30k. The Warcop army ranges cut off the southern extent of the West facing ridge but when this is closed then a ridge of 45km is available. 
(Picture of Melmerby Bowl. Photo by JY)
On the Thursday, with more South in the wind and broken cloud cover over the valley, the first two to launch (David McCarthy in Duo 620 and me in the Vega) felt our way from the ridge out into the valley sunny spots and thermalled to cloudbase at about 4000 ft where we contacted weak wave. Persistence in using the clouds as cliffs until we cleared the tops at @7,000ft gave us heights of just over 10,000ft above Appleby.
(Picture of Cloud tops, photo by TW)
(Picture of control Panel –Passing 10,000ft, photo TW)
We had lots of cloud cover but three major holes, one over Appleby, one to the west of Skelling and one much further West over Shap and the Tebay service area on the M6.
(Picture of gaps in cloud, Photo TW)
I used 3000 ft reaching this hole into the headwind and found no usable lift so scuttled back to the Eden Valley and landed after a couple of most enjoyable hours. Several other flights were in progress but the conditions had changed and despite valiant efforts no one else contacted the wave. In the afternoon heavy showers forced a gang landing, John being the final one to land in the K8, sideslipping in so he could see through the DV panel - then sitting in the glider - whilst those of us on foot stood and endured the downpour, and the brilliant double rainbow that followed, almost worth getting wet for.
Friday the wind had swung to the north east and we had low cloud on the hill. Thomas Edwards demonstrated his considerable skill in finding lift by soaring below a rotor cloud formed on the back of a spur to the North of site but I could not contact it and neither Tom nor John took a launch. We packed up and left on the Saturday.
Eden Soaring have a website which will fill in details of the site, charges etc. One should note that although they are affiliated to the BGA they have no club aircraft so you have to take your own. There is NO instruction capability so no check flights and therefore you have to be self certifying, it is proper grown up stuff. The site is open for expeditions hosted by Eden Soaring four or five weeks a year and I have booked for the May 2009 week. The date is not certain but likely to be the w/c 16th May so it may coincide with NVGC short task week, if that goes ahead. If you want an alternative to a week of thermal flying at the early part of the year I would encourage you to join me if you can. Note you need to book early because Edensoaring limit the numbers in order to keep the whole thing manageable.
(JY enquired and it seems possible that an organised group could open the site and using some of Eden Soaring equipment run their own expedition. This could make it possible for NVGC to translocate if enough people were interested!)
A note on equipment.
Wave is common and the restrictions on height (19,500ft) can be lifted in pre arranged wave boxes, so Oxygen is a good idea.
Control of the launch is by radio and it helps if you have one: so you can call the winch driver to ask him to back off, and thank him/her when you ping off at the top.
Dave Mansfield recently refreshed XCSoar on my IPAQ and when set up correctly this shows a trace of where you have been (in green if you look carefully below) – really useful for tracking back to hot spots, and if you have the means you can download the trace to play back. Thanks for that Dave. The topography is also very helpful when considering where to go next.
(Picture of IPAQ to show trace, photo TW)
