The Great British Long Jump 2015

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2 The Great British Long Jump 2015 In true Anthony Smith style, let s look at a few statistics. Total straight line distances flown this year amount to 1081 miles, combined time aloft added up to 45 hours 30 minutes, and propane used on these 6 ambitious flights came to 2,732 litres. We dare not calculate how much fuel the trusty crews used on their long retrieves, or how many miles they drove! If we add up the distances dragged on landing we would be disappointed - 4 stand-up landings, one of 10 yards and Rob Bayly/Andy Gregory upholding tradition with a drag of 110 yards heading for the sea with bruises to show for it. Their report is a literary triumph beautifully illustrated with the inevitable theme of The Great British Seaside Long Jump having flown coast to coast - Skegness to Weymouth. Most of the reports share photographs of the wonderful views enjoyed from above, in fact Dan Wade and Trevor Read s report is mostly photographs, culminating in a gem taken through the retrieve s windscreen of the M6 motorway on the way home! Most flights explored high altitudes and Debbie Day writes about feeling a little strange at 15,000 feet until gentleman Mike Scholes corrects the kink in her oxygen tube. Dom and Abi discussed the effects of altitude, having reached 13,500 feet and you will enjoy Abi s understanding of hypoxia in her report. Oh, the joys of youth! I remember 1980 because I came 2 nd by just 6 points in the British National Balloon Championships. I would have won had I not forgotten my marker on one flight, and after scoring 900 points with a marker made from nomex with my shoe tied to the end, Nigel Tasker disqualified me for throwing the wrong marker. Ian Bridge came 7 th to Dave Bareford s 6 th. Subsequent years saw Ian and Dave both take the art of competition ballooning to new heights so it was a pleasure to see Ian enter and thoroughly enjoy his solo flight, plotting his route with a pencil on a paper map just like we always did, and achieving the flight he d always dreamed of across the length of Wales. Ian also thanks the younger generation for injecting new enthusiasm into ballooning so he and Dave can be proud of their offspring who flew the two longest flights this year. Their reports bubble over with enthusiasm, personal bests, talk of BBAC gold badges, digital maps, Hysplits and Facebook leaks all of which we did without back in 1980 ( except enthusiasm!) We thank the air traffic controllers for their co-operation, the long suffering crews for their safe driving and hard work, the Mums for the packed lunches and the Dads for lending balloons and tanks. All the reports share how much fun they had and will surely inspire others to have a go themselves. Dominic Bareford and Abi Bridge can be proud of their winning flight this year the new champions flew 225 miles from Norfolk to Powys in 8 hours 20 minutes and can enjoy squabbling over who has the magnificent new silver Long Jump trophy on their mantelpiece for the next 12 months. It has been donated by an anonymous pilot who has enjoyed Long Jumping in previous years a BIG thank you. My thanks and congratulations to all who entered and the results and reports can be found on the website where your magnificent efforts can be shared with the rest of the ballooning world and what a wonderful world it is! Robin Batchelor Founder and Judge. robin@thelongjump.com

3 The Great British Long Jump 2015 Name of Pilot Dominic Bareford. Name of Co-pilot Abi Bridge Crew: David Bareford, - John Braddick, Gareth Bufton Name of Balloon Espiritu G-CBRB. Type and size of Balloon UltraMagic S105. Date of flight 1 st..october 2014 Propane at start 484 litres Propane at finish litres Starting place Acle, Norfolk TG 39943/ Landing place Trecastle, Powys SN 87473/ Start time Duration of flight 08hrs 20minutes.. Straight line distance claimed 225miles (362km) Average speed 23knots (30knots max). Maximum height flown 13,500.feet Wind direction East-North-Easterly.. Witnesses to take-off Norwich Radar, Ian Chadwick (somehow), Facebook, GPS track.. (inc. tel. no. & ) Witnesses to landing Iewan Jones, Bwysta Fach, Trecastle, Brecon, Powys, LD3 8VR , (mobile) (inc. tel no. & ). Length of landing drag 10. yards Signature of Pilot

4 My First Long Jump Dominic Bareford and Abi Bridge Let s do a long jump, I thought to myself. All the other young pilots are giving it a go. Tom Hook and Chloe Hallett had mentioned it as an idea and formed a partnership, Stephanie Bareford and Will Wood had grouped together to combine Will s extensive knowledge of long distance flying from the Gordon Bennett whilst also getting Steph to steal the 105 I had thought to use, sneaky. Peter Gregory had also announced some intention to participate despite having one free day all October and then Alex Court would probably make an attempt in an upside down plastic carrier bag if he couldn t find anything else I was also encouraged by Tom Hilditch s and Abi Bridge s success in their first attempt last year (the latter was now somehow my girlfriend and offering to co-pilot and use the same balloon for our attempt, marvellous!), however I still targeted a total of 200+ miles to beat a few of the long jump veterans. If I m honest though the time I actually finally decided I was entering the long jump was about late afternoon on Wednesday 31 st September, about 12 hours before my take-off time! I had looked at the forecast for the 1 st October over a few days and it looked pretty good, a fairly strong easterly would involve driving out to Norfolk somewhere and flying back to Wales hopefully. On Wednesday the weather looked good enough - I am young and eager so why not do it on the first day of the month! I contacted crew and Gareth Bufton and faithful Bareford crewman John Braddick were both available and eager for some cross England chasing. Somewhat well-known balloonist David Bareford also made himself free and came along, he even lent me some of his tanks which was much appreciated but sadly the balloon I had hoped to borrow from him had already been given to another Bareford. No matter, a quick confirmation with Ian Bridge that we were OK to use his envelope and basket and a few more tanks and everything was set. We set out for Norfolk at 2.00am on the morning of the 1 st and arrived at the google maps-pre-approved launch site near Acle, around 10 miles to the east of Norwich at 5.30am. The site was a cut field off a track with no farmhouse in sight in the pitch black. We had called Norwich Radar the previous evening telling them of our plans and they told us that it shouldn t be a problem, give us a call when we open at 5.30am they said. Fine, phone them at 5.45am, no response. Typical. Time to start setting up the balloon soon anyway, sunrise was 6.55am but I wanted to be up as soon as possible as the wind was forecast to gradually decrease over the day. We rigged the basket up, throwing in three V30 s, two Titanium 55l s and one Worthington 35l, with three 35l and one 44l tank on the outside and one last Worthington to inflate off. We rigged up the rest of the balloon and inflated and gave Norwich another call, this time they answered and gave us clearance to 2500ft, brilliant. Abi hopped in, electronics set up (one laptop with two spare batteries) and we set off at 06.35am, See you in Wales! I shouted back to the team. We had a lovely view back over the Norfolk Broads and the sea as the sun rose. In total 484 litres of propane at 1liter per minute should last 8 hours, but I was hoping for a little more than that in a flight of full sun for the most part. Norwich were very co-operative (and not really very busy at 7.00am) and gave me clearance to 4000ft and then to 6000ft, where the speed increased to 21knots and then to 25knots, with a good direction too, the ultimate goal being Carmarthen in South-West Wales which would give us a straight line distance of 260miles. As we exited Norwich airspace we climbed through to 11,000ft and picked up to 28knots; however there was the same speed at 8000ft so we descended to save fuel. If we could hold this speed we could be in Carmarthen by 3.00pm, perfect as this was about as long as our fuel would last and I was looking forward to flying over Will Wood and waving down to him, but that was a long way away. The next few hours passed rather uneventfully, Abi and I shared the flying. On our first climb to 11,000ft Abi had the good idea to write down the speed and directions at different altitudes, this was particularly useful to confer when looking for a different direction with good speed. At 8.45am I made the decision to climb to 11,000ft as I noticed at that height we had the same speed at 28knots but slightly more left which would help us stay further south of major Birmingham airspace, although missing it altogether was not an option if we wanted a good distance into Wales, we would either have to fly under it at a low speed or get clearance to fly through slightly higher. At 9.00am we flew just to the north of the Lakeside Lodge centre in Pidley where several UK national championships have been held. At 10.00am I made the mistake of

5 contacting Northampton and informing them of my position even though I was at 10,000ft. Why was this a mistake? It later came back to give us away on Facebook as Jeff Bell had our registration! Thanks Ian Chadwick! Next we started our descent to get below Daventry airspace, down below 4500ft we went and spending 1 hour and 30 minutes at the altitude would cost us time and precious fuel to climb up again. Birmingham airspace was very cooperative despite being very busy and allowed us to pass through their two southern stubs at 4500ft as long as they were kept updated on our position. Unfortunately the speed at this height was still only 22knots which was the same as at 2500ft but with a worse direction. So we descended to 2500ft to turn left and surrounded by scattered cloud we watched the ETA on the laptop to Carmarthen increase from 3.00pm to 4.00pm to 5.00pm, it was unlikely we would reach that far now with my earlier duration estimate of 8 hours seeming quite accurate. When clearing the last Daventry airspace over Redditch it felt like leaving the pit lane in a formula one car, straight up to 10,000ft but the speed from earlier in the day had already decreased and we averaged 25 knots despite climbing up to 13,500ft at one point, a personal height record for myself and Abi. I had revised my target destination to Llangadog but even this seemed optimistic, it also required avoiding the large Senny Bridge danger area if we didn t want to be shot down by multiple anti-air missiles. At 12,000ft there was a good direction that took us over Worcester and towards Hereford, taking us just to the south of the danger area. The next few hours passed by smoothly, taking turns to fly and the other to sit in the bottom of the basket and rest their head against the tanks (we had been awake since 1.30am). For the last two hours of the flight we were met by the beauty of the Welsh countryside, the Black mountains and the Brecon Beacons, even with broken cloud it was impressive and a welcome change from earlier scenery. With wind speed slowly decreasing and fuel running low I revised my intended landing position again to Senny Bridge, with the target of beating Debby Day s and Mike Scholes distance from last year. This we managed and with 30 litres of propane left I decided it was time to descend from 10,000ft, I even managed to get Espiritu to fall at 1,300fpm at one point with no distortion! Maybe I was in a thermal or maybe I need to consider changing envelopes for competitions Now it was time to land, I flew at low level for while a braced myself for a tricky landing, the wind speed on the ground was only 5knots gusting 10, but the time 2.55pm and I expected thermic conditions on the ground. As we descended over Trecastle Abi reminded me, Remember Dom this won t stop going down as quickly as a racer, I know that I thought to myself, just before a combination of a thermal and some very conservative burning by me plunged us into a tree right in the centre of the town, WHACK! Plenty of landing witnesses at least But this wasn t our final landing, I put some more heat in and skilfully managed to collide with another tree, this time slightly less spectacularly, and we climbed out of the town, with most of our landing fuel allowance used and with the basket suitably camouflaged in foliage. We had to land, I thought, somewhere; anywhere! A field was ahead and there was a gap we could make just before some power wires, but with no RDS it was going to have to be a sharp stop. I used a tree before the field to slow me down (this time deliberately) and hit the ground with some force and pulled the red line like never before, the balloon stopped with room to spare before the wires. Abi took most of the impact (thank you Abi) but we were both OK and glad to be safe on the ground after 8 hours and 20 minutes airborne The retrieve team was remarkably with us in minutes of our landing, thank you to all three of you, John Braddick, Gareth Bufton and Dad, to Abi Bridge for her help in flight and to Ian Bridge for use of his balloon and basket. One gold badge for duration and another for distance: 225 miles covered (362km). I was happy as I had achieved my target of over 200 miles but kind of wishing I had increased my duration by seeking out a lightweight basket or using some more titaniums instead of Worthingtons, but these are things for next year s attempt.

6 My Second Long Jump Abigail Bridge Over the 3 years that I ve been learning to fly I have totted up 70hours. In there are two Long Jumps; one of 9 hours, and one of 8 hours and 20minutes. That s 25% of my hours coming from Jumping the Length of Britain; 17hours and 20minutes of brilliant memories and breath taking views. One of the things I love about the Great British Long Jump is that it gives you a totally different experience. With a normal morning/evening flight, you find new things and views to be amazed by; but the extent of the variety you get with a long distance flight is one you don t get with a typical one; the clouds, the sunrise, the sunset (if you re good and have enough gas!), the coast and flying area. You get it all! For me, I found the take-off, climbing quickly, absolutely astonishing I ve not seen the sea from a balloon before and as we flew on and left it behind, beautiful wispy cirrus cloud covered the sun as it rose. I like clouds. I like how not one of them is the same as another. I like that they are predictable to a certain extent and yet we never know exactly how they will turn out. In this flight, we got to see them all. Okay, well luckily not them all, we were sensible enough to avoid any Cu-Nims, my meteorology tells me they aren t so fun to fly in. As we toyed around with different heights, we found that it was useful that I had noted down the best altitudes for the optimum speed and direction that would get us as far as possible, and to avoid airspace. The highest I have ever flown is 13,500ft, and that was on this Long Jump. Dom and I were joking at 12,000ft that the books say you can get symptoms of hyperventilation at that level; we reckoned that it s probably just because, when people get that high and realise there s only a wicker basket, some hot air and a whole lot of flammable gas that is keeping you from falling to your imminent death, it probably makes them a little short of breath. However, keeping an eye on each other juuuusst in case, we climbed just a little higher to try and max our speed. And I thought I wasn t competitive. The thing I have found with the Long Jump is that there is always something to do, and I really admire people who have managed to do it solo, because there s a lot more to it than meets the eye. You have to constantly be on the ball, and once you have found a good speed and direction you want to keep it, fly level - but then what if there s a better one that s just a little higher? There s also the navigation you have to know your location in order to make sure you re avoiding airspace, obviously. Oh, and manage the fuel in a bit more of an elaborate way than you would a normal flight pink sticky tabs were my way of making sure we knew which tanks were used up and which weren t. And then of course we had the Worthington s with the bent dip tubes fastened to the outside of the basket that we pulled inside so we could lie them down and get the last remaining gas from them. And if you re serious about it and end up flying dawn to dusk, you d have seriously funny feeling arms by the end of it! Imagine doing all this on your own? But then if you fly on your own you can get an extra tank worth of gas, more space in the basket, more available lift, and for some pilots, their concentration is maxed. I think I ll have a companion for next year though by then I ll be Mr Boss man, P1, I m hoping.

7 Altitude track and Speed track for the flight. Final landing position was roughly 2km south of Senny Bridge danger area

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9 The Great British Long Jump 2015 Name of Pilot Stephanie Bareford Name of Co-pilot William Wood Crew Dominic Bareford & Joel Hemmings Name of Balloon Black Magic Type and size of Balloon Ultramagic S 105 Date of flight 10 th OCTOBER 2015 Propane at start 9 tanks / 660 litres Propane at finish 9 tanks / 2 litres Starting place - Parham Airfield N , E Landing place - Nant-ddu N , W Start time 0725 BST Duration of flight 10 hours & 5 minutes Straight-line distance claimed 208 miles Average speed 18.2kts Maximum height flown 4,400feet Wind direction 245/285 Witnesses to take-off Lydia Kirk mob Witnesses to landing Molly Rees - info@breconbeaconsbunkhouse.co.uk Length of landing drag 2 Inches Signature of Pilot

10 The Report It was early August when Steph asked if I wanted to attempt the long jump with her. I had been thinking about taking part for months but this confirmed it! Steph and I have met a few times in recent years mainly at her New Beginnings Meet held in April, which I have attended twice. We got to know each other more in Metz this year where clearly I left a good impression after nailing some fun competition flying tasks. Planning We quickly established what kit would be best to use, and anything bigger we could get hold of would be a bonus. Steph s family 105 Black Magic is eight years younger than my Dad s 105 that I now fly and so seemed like the logical choice of envelope to give us the best duration. We decided to use my basket although heavier it was larger and would allow us to carry more cylinders inside. Jeff at Virgin Balloons kindly lent us six 80 litre tanks which when empty only weigh 2 kilos heavier than a V30 but collectively gave us an extra 120 litres without taking up much more room in the basket. Unfortunately neither Steph nor I were able to attend the Exclusive Cup but met at Steph s family home on that Sunday to gather all our equipment and load it into the Bareford s Green Van, very kindly lent to us by David and Karin. Steph is studying Medicine in Swansea and I am currently at University in Carmarthen, that place that no one had heard of until they all started to aim for it when doing a long jump. It really does feel a long way from anywhere, apart from Swansea! Our plan was obvious, to fly as far as possible. When looking at the map, a good route that would avoid us doing too much travelling would be to fly from West to East or the other way around. You can avoid any major airways if you get it right and achieve a maximum distance of 300 miles from St David s to Lowestoft. October came around and there were rumours already of a flight on the 1 st, I was annoyed to let slip what was potentially a good slot but I was hoping for faster winds and besides, we still had the whole month to go. Being at university I was able to make myself available most days but for Steph it was not so easy, the first two weeks she could possibly do a mid-week flight but after that it would be just weekends, this year we did however have five Saturdays in October which was a positive. We were also aware that there wouldn t be many others in an as fortunate position as ourselves with availability so it gave us a good fighting chance for the win. Steph and I discussed most days, our options for the following few days and decided that we wouldn t go for the slot unless a flight of at least 200 miles was possible. Steph had sorted some crew in the form of Alex Hook, also studying at Swansea and Joel, Steph s boyfriend who had just spent all summer flying in Europe with the Bareford s so must have been missing his fix of ballooning by now

11 I had been watching various weather sites non-stop for days with no sign of any real long distance slots. My Dad had introduced me to the NOAA Hysplit Models a few years back in preparation for the Gordon Bennett and I have been addicted ever since. With the choice in start location, three predicted lines at any heights you so wish and six hour splitting intervals you can get a pretty good idea of a where you are roughly going to end up and what steerage you have. We looked good for Saturday 10 th from East Anglia to fly back to Wales. Unfortunately Alex wasn t available so we called upon Dom, Steph s younger brother to help with the crewing. A controversial choice as we now knew that it was Dom that had flown on the 1 st October, but despite Dom and Steph s competitiveness this has never gotten in the way of their sportsmanlike conduct and continuous support for the sport. I was never at any point aware of how far Dom had flown and still as I write this report am none the wiser. During Friday morning I watched the weather and Steph and I agreed that we needed to be in land to avoid a windy take off. In 1998 my Dad took part in the Long Jump flying from the Lindstrand Factory in Oswestry to a small village on the Suffolk Norfolk border called Denton. I looked on a map and had seen that this village had an airfield a stones throw from where he landed, after his passing earlier this year I felt, and Steph agreed that it would be quite fitting if we could take off from the same village a mere 17 years later. Unfortunately as the time came closer we moved launch site three times on that Friday; from Denton, down to my old boarding school near Ipswich and finally settled on a disused airfield somewhere between in the village of Parham. On the Friday afternoon I drove to Swansea where Steph and I hopped in the van and picked Joel up straight from his work by the waterfront. Kidderminster was our next stop to pick up Dom and more tanks. We had originally decided to fly with just the six 80 litre tanks, flying lighter and looking for a fast flight. The winds on this flight didn t seem much over 25 knots and so we opted for more tanks and so picked up 3 V30s that would be strapped securely to the outside. We loaded up

12 with a food parcel of sandwiches crisps and chocolate kindly made by Karin and were on our way to East Anglia. My home in Essex is only an hour away from where we intended to take off and so was ideal in keeping our costs to a minimum. We arrived shortly after midnight and after a quick hello with Mum we all got our heads down for a few hours rest. When we awoke somehow Mum had put together a feast for us of toast, coffees and teas, sausages and pasta, not forgetting strawberries for dessert. Amazed as to quite when Mum had managed that we bundled in the van and arrived at the launch site in no time. It was getting exciting now When we arrived it was still dark so working out where the field was that we had been allocated and given directions to on the phone took a few moments but we found enough space and began getting all that gas out of the van. Word must have got round to a few people from the village as to what we were doing as we soon realised that we must be in the right place when a few cars turned up full of excited children that were all keen to help and learn. The Flight 0725 BST Take off We used an inflation tank to ensure we took all the gas we could with us. Quickly took that out and get Steph in and we were on our way. Although fairly calm on the ground we made the right call to move in land as before we reached 500ft we were travelling at 17kts and heading south. At 1500ft we had 250/22kts but on this track we would hit Stansted. We climbed to 3000ft and were heading 285, much better but our speed was down to 16 knots which was not ideal. We found a happy medium to get us further right in order to come down and take the speed and better direction in no time We are overhead Wattisham and keep a listening watch on their channel. We get our first fly by of the day from a small fixed wing aircraft, (I m no plane expert). Steph was in charge of navigation and radio communication for the first few hours, and we shared the flying fairly evenly throughout the day. As we left Wattisham we descended to 2000ft and found the wind we were after, 260/22kts.

13 1030 We cleared Stansted and our first major hurdle out of the way. We realise it been a while since that toast at 5am so find the food parcel from Karin and enjoy a few sandwiches, ensuring we keep our drinking to a minimum to avoid too many toilet breaks Hot on the nav Steph spots our next point of contact as Duxford and tunes in to listen. Despite some low level mist and fog as we approach, Steph lets them know our intentions and they are happy to see us through. The cloud clears as we are overhead and we can see the airfield is as busy on the runway as it is by the museum. Duxford 1130 Our gas consumption has not been great and we have burnt through nearly half of our gas in 4 hours, but that was to be expected. We are still very heavy, we have had to ascend from the ground to higher than we first expected and also getting into the swing of being efficient and flying straight and level takes some time. All of which costs fuel. Henlow Airfield was next up and even friendlier than the last. Another plane flew under us this time, much older and nosier, I could guess but it wouldn t even be an educated one, nonetheless it sounded great! We make contact with Dom and Joel who are having an easy time parked up near Bicester enjoying the other packed lunch thanks to Mum. We ve managed to stay North of Luton and an ideal heading to miss Birmingham and keep heading west for Wales! 1230 Now south of Milton Keynes we passed over Woburn Golf Club where the British Masters was under way. Either we were too high or it was a tense moment, as no one seemed to pay us any attention despite balloons having a good rapport with golf courses. Woburn Golf Club My Godparents and long time family ballooning friends Andy and Suzanne live in Milton Keynes and had been watching my progress via a tracking device. I sent them a text to update and they were already getting ready to come out and follow. Despite the cloud they managed to spot us and followed us as we flew parallel to the A421 for sometime

14 until they hit traffic near Bicester and decided to turn back. It was great to know other people were watching and able to follow us despite it being a competition flight that most keep quiet about until the month is out Our speed and direction has remained consistent all day at 260/22kts. Steph has been flying for a few hours now and made the last 80litre tank last 95 minutes! Finally we are seeing the benefits of burning off all that gas. To put this into context an hour after take off, the first 80litre tank we used lasted 55 minutes. We now only have 2 80litre tanks remaining. We have had no issues with contacting any air traffic for some time now but tune in to Gloucester early to get an idea of how busy they are. As we fly South of Cheltenham my phone goes off again as Jonathan Harris is shooting somewhere below and has spotted us. He was also able to follow us on the tracker throughout the day and has been blown away by our efforts as we have now been in the air for over 7 hours. We talk with Gloucester and have an easy time crossing their airspace; we even catch a glimpse of the rugby stadium being used for the World Cup games but not at the right time to see any action Suddenly our consistent wind speed has died off. We are worrying as we had really got our hopes up about making it to Wales and suddenly we are doing 15-16kts, there is cloud just above us and we go through to see if there is any improvement but nothing significant. We drop lower and find the same direction and 18-19kts that will have to do. The border of Wales varies from following the River Wye to ambling up the countryside and now we appear to be heading for the most westerly part of that border We crossed into Wales. finally! The first goal of our trip achieved. We are burning much less now which is great, we must be so light. Having agreed to go down to 10 % on one remaining tank for landing we have now been flying on our last full tank for a while. Our next aim is to reach 200 miles this could be close. Sunset isn t until 1830

15 so lets see how long we can make this one last. I leave the flying down to Steph from this point as she seems to have mastered the efficiency and as I inflated we agreed that she would land the balloon. Our speed has picked up again which is handy and we still have the ideal direction to take us as far away from our starting point as possible We reach Abergavenny and have another contact with Dom and Joel and they assure us that they are nearby. We enter the Brecon Beacons and realise our landing choices are quickly passing beneath us We reached 200 miles! Our Second goal, the third being 10 hours flying but this one doesn t matter now, lets get down safe. But wait. there is no where to land, every valley is full of trees and lakes and the mountains, not really just little hills anymore but proper mountains, are high without signs of significant access. Even if there was access it is much too wet to get a vehicle up there, let alone a two-wheel drive van We keep our eyes peeled on the landscape for any sign of an option. Our eyes are also fixed on our gas levels and we are running low, we only have one chance of descending to round out for a landing. We gently descend and ascend out of tight valleys but the wind has now picked up and we track across a large high rising plain just to the South of Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in the Beacons. We stay low so in order not to waste gas and see grass fields beside a road in the next valley. At last! Civilisation!

16 1730 As we descend the wind dies and we turn to get dragged back up the hill but land before it does. A stand up landing after flying all that way is always greatly appreciated. As we pack up the balloon a face I recognise is walking across the field towards us. The farm next door is where I have stayed once before when on an expedition with friends, I kindly ask for the address to give to Dom and Joel and we get the balloon packed away. It isn t long before we have all them light cylinders packed in the back of the van and we are on our way back to Swansea, which is less than an hour away. Ideal. Steph works out then that she managed to make our last 80litre tank last a whopping 105 minutes and in the midst of the drama of finding a place to land we passed the 10 hours in the air goal by five minutes! A successful trip! We said before the flight, that it s good we are making an attempt so early in the month because it should give us an opportunity to better our first attempt. But after that epic adventure we both easily agreed that this was the one that was going to be our one and only attempt this year. Special Thanks must go to Jeff for the tanks, David and Karin for the use of their envelope the Green Van and the packed lunch along with their endless hospitality to all young balloonists they have coming and going continuously. Also to my Mum, Jan, for putting us up last minute and coming up with that packed lunch out of nowhere. Last but by no means least to Dom and Joel for crewing all that way! I m already buzzing to take part next year!

17 The Great British Long Jump 2015 Name of Pilots ROB BAYLY & ANDREW GREGORY Name of Balloon BRISTOL BLUE G-UWEB.. Type and size of Balloon CAMERON Z Date of flight 14 th OCTOBER Propane at start 660 litres 12 tanks Propane at finish 30 litres.. Starting place..gibraltar, SKEGNESS N 0.269E Landing place.. WEYMOUTH N 2.469W Start time 0900 hrs.. Duration of flight 8 hours 15 minutes.. Straight line distance claimed statute miles Average speed...25 mph. Maximum height flown...12,000 feet.... Wind direction North Easterly 050 degrees.... Witnesses to take-off Michele Coombes & Julie Miller Havenhouse Farm B&B, Gibraltar, Skegness PE24 4AR havenhousefarm@hotmail.co.uk Witnesses to landing Tim & Janet Collins Bradford Peverell Weymouth, Dorset DT2 9SF timothyfcollins@hotmail.co.uk Length of landing drag..110 yards. Signature of Pilot Rob Bayly.

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28 The Great British Long Jump 2015 Name of Pilot Deborah Day Name of Co-pilot Mike Scholes Name of Balloon. Type and size of Balloon U/M S90 Date of flight 25 OCTOBER 2015 Propane at start 320 litres tanks/litres Propane at finish 20 litres..tanks/litres Starting place Landing place Cardigan. Chesterfield Start time Z Duration of flight 7 hours 10 mins. Straight line distance claimed miles Average speed 21.7 mph Maximum height flown 16,700feet Wind direction Witnesses to take-off (inc. tel. no. & ) Ian Wadey & Chris Pugh Witnesses to landing Mr. J T Jackson ( farmer) (inc. tel no. & ). Length of landing drag 0.inches/feet/yards Signature of Pilot Debbie day A Wooly Adventure And so it arrived October my favourite month. I had spent months plotting in my head the ideal flight over 250 miles but once October arrived so many other things seem to needed my attention and so it was that the fifteenth of October arrived and still no jump. The usual discussions about weight how many tanks and which envelope or combinations of culminated in a two

29 hour drive to borrow a lighter basket after declining the use of the poly tunnel basket as i call it. Being not quite as brave as mike I wanted something slightly sturdier. We saw a slot on the 22 nd from North west wales to Norfolk however we would have possibly struggled to actually get off the ground based on the forecast for the surface and we decided to pass on this one. This was a mistake as it was we were later told not so bad. For us this year several slots were let go due to work commitments and with the end of the month nearer than the beginning a decision was taken to go on the 25 th regardless as I had booked time off and we were not prepared to risk the end of the month arriving and no flight,we look forward to listening to Robin reveal the results along with his notes and comments at the lunch. Working on the Saturday meant that for the flight, I had planned for us to be in Cardigan for 6 am to give us time to find a suitable take off site.chris and Ian our crew drove through the night and we duly arrived in cardigan at 5 am! I managed to sleep most of the way in between google earthing where we could take off from. I chose Cardigan because the forecast for the upper winds meant we were in unrestricted air and would have some distance under our belts before having to descend into slower winds. We found a small field off the public car park and proceeded to unload assemble and inflate.at five past eight we took off, our intention based on the forecast was to head east at 15,000 feet doing 45 to 50 kts. Not to be we actually tracked parallel with the coast for forty five miniutes so the plan changed we had rung and confirmed all the danger areas were not active that day, finally when we did get the right our track needed to be no more than 050 to avoid going down to 4'000 feet for Birmingham cat as this would have slowed us behind target distance at this point we decided to go up and see what was happening oxygen on having looked at examined and checked it probably fifty times in the lounge at home as this was to be the first time I' had used it. we managed to get to 15'000 feet The speed unfortunately was only 26 kts not the 45 to 60 we were hoping for. comfortable with this altitude the thought maybe we could carry on up to at my oxygen did not seem to be coming through so being a gentleman Mike gave me his and I started a decent whilst looking for the problem it took a couple of miniutes to find that the pipe was kinked this sorted we carried on descending as the speed at this height was only 20 kts. I wish we had gone back up to do 19,500 though this will be done another day the task that day was distance. Our flight took us over the Beacons,Church Stanton,Telford where at 5,000 feet we were only getting between 8 and 13 knots I asked London information if we could go higher into the class a cta he was helpful and asked Scottish control who's sporran obviously wasn't on straight as they said no, on to Alton towers between Stafford and Stoke on Trent and the edge of Sheffield. We landed on a farm at Old Brampton and the farmer was waiting for me in his Land rover at the top of the hill with a smile when I asked if he was the landowner he gave me a lift to the entrance and Chris and Ian were there within three minutes pretty impressive retrieve after seven hours. It was not as far as we had hoped though the longest flight for me to date over seven hours and the highest 16,700 this softens the blow of knowing we would not win the Great British Long Jump this is also something that you go through during the flight the realisation you might not achieve your goal but while your flying also realising that actually it doesn't matter you tried and enjoyed doing so. This year, whoever does, will have deserved to based on all the criteria needed being so for them on the day. Well done I would like to thank Ian Wadey who did an excellent retrieve, enabling the flight to take place. Also, grateful thanks go to Neil Greenwood at Summit Oxygen who kindly lent an oxygen system for two people and to Paul Hignet for providing several weather forecasts.

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35 The Crew: DANIEL WADE TREVOR READ The Retrieve: PAUL WADE The Aerostat: G-SMIL The Launch: Lowton St. Mary, Warrington The Destination: Bridge of Allen, Stirling, Scotland The Final Landing: Nr Hawick, Scotland Distance Covered: 134 miles Distance Retrieve Covered: 195 miles Flight Time: 4Hrs 15mins Words and Photos - Trevor G. Read PPL (B)

36 Saturday morning 9-30 am, not a brilliant day, wind and rain all morning nothing much to do so I decided to drive up to Shevington, near Wigan, to take back some ballooning equipment I had borrowed from a good friend of mine, Paul Wade. I knew Paul wanted to be there to see me as he said he had a plan to discuss. On arriving I was intrigued to know what this plan was. Paul said that his son, Daniel, wanted to compete in the GBLJ, although Dan has passed all his exams GFT, Solo etc he can t be P1 till he is 17 on November 5th, when his PPL(B) will be issued, Paul wanted to know if I would accompany Daniel on his mission? Obvious answer was "Yes, so what s the plan!!" Daniel had done all the preparation work and flight planning, even the on board catering!! Paul told me to await a phone call and when the phone went Sunday evening the message was," OK Trev, it s on." Paul and Daniel were ready at 5am Monday morning when I arrived with extra tanks and straps. With the van loaded up to the gunnels with tanks and barely room for us in it, we set off to our launch site The van loaded 0554hrs The forecasted wind on the ground was for 14 knots gusting 20-25, not your ideal take off wind but we had no choice if we were to take off and go, the three of us readied the 105 with Dan coordinating everything, a quick brief of what we had to do, we knew it was going to be a fast take off so everything had to be in the basket ready,ground checks done carabiners etc, once inflated check parachute and off. A crowded basket 0651hrs

37 We Launched from Hesketh Meadow Lane Lowton, Warrington, witnessed by a number of Police Officers (40) who just happened to have a training day that morning at 7am? Dan handled the inflation very well, although it wasn t as gusty as predicted and there was a quiet lull in the ground wind just enough for us to get ready. Sunrise was appearing in the distance as we made our way up and away from Lowton. And take off 0710hrs

38 Sunrise 0711hrs In order to maintain the agreed plan we needed to fly out of the Manchester low level corridor then we could climb to 2,500 feet and head towards Wigan, tracking 350 degrees at a speed of 37 knots we soon reached Wigan and were well settled in to the flight. The crew0713hrs

39 Well, I still haven t said where our destination was, I must say it was a shock to me when I found out SCOTLAND!! Dan had done a flight plan guide for what speed we needed to maintain,what heading we had to be at, time arriving at certain points on the map and flight levels, he really had gone to town on his calculations and planning. As we sailed past Wigan approaching Leyland and Preston I recalled that I did a lot of my early training around these parts but not at 3,000 feet doing almost 43 knots!! Approaching Preston 0739hrs The view up there was stunning; to our left you could see the coast, Southport and Blackpool and to the right the Pendle Hills and forward the adventure about to begin! The first tank, a 60 Litre was exhausted about 30 minutes in to the flight, my first thought was have we got enough? We had 7 tanks plus an inflation tank so in total around 360 litres on board, burning on average a litre a minute we reckoned we had enough for 6 hours flying Lancaster was our first way point and we reached it on target within the hour, speed now 44 knots, the sun was shining by now and clear blue sky ahead with beautiful scenery as we were nearing Grange-Over-Sands and the Lake District.

40 Lancaster 0807hrs Dan and I took it in turns on the burner one flying while the other did the navigation and the course direction needed to maintain our heading, we even had some in flight music and catering! The estuary 0814hrs

41 We were nearing Milnthorpe at so we slowed down to 24 knots at 1,500 ft, time for tank change number 2 having used,120 litres in just over an hour and half. We then climbed again to 2,500ft and sped up to 33 knots and a direction change as we were now 005 degrees. Milnthorpe 0831hrs Flying over the Lake District was challenging as we were flying just below the cloud base, it was the first time I have ever felt cold on a balloon flight even with the burner blasting away above our heads. The Lakes looked spectacular from above as we flew past Coniston and Windermere but the mountains looked menacingly close! I have to admit that neither of us were really comfortable mountain flying and we were both relieved when we reached Ullswater with Penrith to our far right and some flat countryside ahead. Windermere 0841hrs

42 Ullswater 0908hrs It took almost 40 minutes contour flying through the mountain valleys and we lost a lot of speed and direction, we were now off our target track of 350 degrees and heading more to the right, we could see the M6 motorway and really needed to be following it north towards Carlisle and Gretna Green. We opted to go higher for more speed and reached 4,000 ft and maintained 30 Knots this was great but the direction wasn t. Contour flying 0900hrs

43 At we had been flying for 3 hours 40 mins; tank number 3 was now empty and we now changed to a Worthy 40 litre. We had the radio on frequency for Carlisle Airport, a passing military helicopter mentioned us on his approach and I called the tower to let them know we were about to enter their zone, he replied requesting our destination,when I said Edinburgh he replied Really, that s a trek" and asked our Departure point, Wigan, I said and he replied, "Have a good day Sir." We kept a listening watch on the Radio throughout the flight from then on. Carlisle Airport 0952hrs After losing a lot of speed and going off our original planned track it was decision time. Scotland 1020hrs

44 By now we had crossed the border in to Scotland and heading towards Langholm the original plan was to track between Glasgow and Edinburgh Airspace but our present direction was heading straight in to Controlled Airspace, the time was now am, we were at 1,800ft doing 19 knots with a heading of 340 degrees and not ideal for getting across the vastness of the Mountains we could either climb to 3,500 and get a track towards the east of Edinburgh, North Berwick or start looking for a landing. Approaching Langholme 1033hrs We climbed to almost 5,000ft and got a heading of 030 degrees but the speed had dropped to 22 knots so having now used up 5 tanks it really was decision time. Dan made a quick calculation on how far we could get on how much fuel we had left. We decided that the best option would be to land at the first suitable location. We flew on for a while taking in the beautiful Scottish countryside virtually following the A7 towards Galashiels. A long way over 1047hrs

45 Decision time 1049hrs Climb higher for direction 1052hrs By reducing height gradually we were getting the desired left which we needed but still not the speed and when a really good farm appeared in the distance we decided to go for it. We were motoring at low level, 17 Knots at one point and contour flying.

46 Final approach at 17kts 1117hrs With everything stacked away in the flight bags we braced for impact, whistling down the hill and then there we were STOPPED, without a word of a lie a 5 Knot stand up landing! absolutely fantastic, ripped out the envelope and then basket tipped over!! Stand up landing 1125hrs

47 Ripped out 1128hrs Cheesy grins at 1129hrs Dan and I were congratulating each other, both with big cheesy grins on our faces! One question though, where were we and where was Paul? We had been in regular contact with him by text but where we had landed there was no phone signal.

48 Waiting for retrieve 1232hrs Two lads came down from the farm and were amazed; they had never had a balloon land on their Dad s farm before. They were great, letting us phone Paul from the farmhouse and helping collect the balloon on a quad bike. The farm lads give a hand 1312hrs Paul turned up an hour later, what a day it had been, we had covered 134 miles in 4 hrs and 15 mins.

49 Paul arrives at 1317hrs All credit goes to Daniel Wade for the determination, enthusiasm and commitment to detail. All packed up at 1337hrs

50 The long drive south 1348hrs The M6 Motorway at 1536hrs I asked Dan what made him pick me to go along on this adventure when there are loads of other people Paul and Dan knew? His answer... "If we are going to be flying for almost 5 to 6 hours I ll feel more at ease having to pee in a bottle with you in the basket than anyone else!!" And on that note the tale ends.