Hang gliding across the UK

The beginning of my hang gliding adventure.



My name is Shola Ogunlokun, I am married with children, and I'm about to embark on a hang gliding adventure which is probably going to be the hardest challenge of my lifetime.

I was born in London, but left the UK when I was in primary school, spending the next couple of years growing up and studying in Nigeria. I returned to London in 1991 and since then I have been confined to the rigours of metropolitan living.

In January 2005, I decided that I would like to fly across the UK in a hang glider, meeting the local people along the way. The only quirk being I've never flown a hang glider before!

So my challenge is to learn to fly a hang glider and then fly a doodlebug hang glider from Land's End to John O'Groats!

The challenge is on!

Why?
1. This will be the achivement of a life long dream.
2. I want to encourage people from my ethnic background (Afro-Carribean) to take a risk and pursue their dreams.
3. I want to tour the UK, and meet the real people along the way.

Am I mad?

No. I have done some research into hang gliding, and I believe that this challenge is possible. I am not trying to break any records, will not do anything stupid and will only attempt to make the journey once the required training has been completed.
This website will chart my progress through various milestones of the challenge, as a detailed hang glider blog. If you have any questions or comments, please make contact by leaving a comment.

If you would like to know more about hang gliding, then visit The British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association.

Hang Glider Airfield visit one Year on.

Exactly a year ago I had my last hang glider flight, and this last weekend I visited the Suffolk Coastal Floaters Hang Gliding club airfield in Mendlesham to see some hang gliding launches and remind me of the dream of flying across the UK in a doodlebug powered hang glider.


I didn't participate in any hang glider flying as I haven't flown for over a year due to the various reasons, I mentioned in my last hang glider blog post, and I knew my flying skills would be current enough for me to deal with hang glider safely in the conditions of a warm june afternoon.

I stayed around to watch a few hang glider tow launches, renewed my hang gliding club membership, as I could be returning to flying in the autumn when conditions are milder, and hopefully I've sorted out all outstanding personal issues.

Here is a video of some hang gliding activities from my visit to the Mendlesham airfield.

The hang gliding dream lives on

The year 2007 has come and gone, and I didn't do much as far as my hang gliding flying challenge is concerned.

There were many obstacles that I had to overcome in the year, but unfortunately this really meant that I had to put my hang gliding dream on the backburner.

The year started off with family commitments stopping me getting out to the airfield, and I only managed to have one day of hang glider flying in June 2007. Later on in the year other things cropped up that meant I had to completely abandon any thoughts of hang gliding while I sorted things out.

I am still committed to making this challenge one day, and I'm praying that things will turn round soon so that I can get back on track.

In the meantime I wish all of you my hang glider flying adventure supporters the best for the year 2008.



More reading
The beginning of my hang gliding adventure.

Hang Gliding Independence Day

This is about my first few independent solo hang glider flights at my gliding club the Suffolk Coastal Floaters hang gliding club on Saturday the 9th of September.

The weather forecast for the day suggested a moderately strong easterly wind, so it looked like a fair day to get in air, and for the first time totally be pilot in command, no gliding instructor telling me what to do. Obviously the club has coaches who look out for new members, and guide them through their early flights, so I wasn't on my own nor would they allow me to fly if conditions were not suitable for my skill level.

I arrived at the Mendlesham flying airfield shortly after midday, and had to wait for other members to arrive (I was obviously keen)! Two hours later everything was set up, and I had rigged and fully checked my recently acquired Airwave Calypso aircraft. By now I was feeling apprehensive and nervous about the whole thing. I was flying with people who I'd never worked with before, and the hang glider was also new to me! A few of the more experienced pilots had already had a flight, and the report was that the air was smooth, so I was advised now would be a good time for a flight. I moved my glider to the launch point, carried out my pre-flight checks, hooked up the towline to the my chest bridle, had a briefing from one of the coaches, and was ready. I informed the launch marshal to ask the winch to take up slack on the line, went into the hold position, checked my wings were level, and ordered 'All out' to begin the launch. Within a few seconds I was in the air, but things weren't going well as the glider was off the towline veering left, and I wasn't on top of things, so the winch operator cut off all power, and I came in for a landing. I probably got to about 40ft on that one! The coach came over to explain that I had dropped a wing just as I launched, hence the direction problem.

There was still a lot of runway left, so we decided to launch from where I had landed. This time I got off well, and was rising in the air, but I was struggling with the glider to keep it pointed at the winch. I got to about 100ft or so, and decided to release the top line, went for the release hit it, and the glider veered off to the right, I noticed the loss of tension on the line, so I knew I was in for another landing. The line was still attached to my glider, so I released it. This time I had a longer glide down to the ground. Analysis was that I was flying too fast (probably due to that fact that I was tensed up, and thus all my correction movements were exaggerated. I now faced a long carry back to the launch point, which was about 150 metres or so. by the time I was almost there I was totally exhausted, and was very grateful to Paul a fellow pilot who offered to help me with the final 20 metres. I had a long rest, while I mulled over what had gone wrong, and the words of encouragement from all the pilots around who could see from my face that I was disappointed.

One and a half hours later I was ready for another flight. I was still nervous, but knew what I had to do, and this time I got in the air, and had my first complete flight. I was still tense, but not as when I started, and by the time I released my glider from the tow line, and was free flying, I could relax a bit and start to get acquainted with my glider. A few minutes later I was on final approach to land, a pilot shouted 'pull in', I responded and landed without any problems.

I went on to have 4 more flights, all of which went without incident, the last one of which I specifically requested even though the winch man was about to pack up for the day. I was now happy with the glider, and just need to gain a bit more confidence in the launch process, as I still feel a bit nervous each time I hook the tow line onto my glider.
I am now looking forward to many more days of flying as I gain airtime and experience in preparation for the next milestone of my hang gliding adventure challenge.

To see how hang gliders are towed into the air at the Suffolk Coastal Floaters Gliding Club, play the video below.

Hang Glider training report.

Hang Glider Training Harness

Here is a full report of my hang gliding trip to Algodonales, Spain.

Sunday 11th Dec

Sunday's Report




Monday 12 Dec

After breakfast I met Tony Webb at his workshop where Rona finished off the paperwork for my hang glider training, and we loaded the van with the gliders and the necessary equipment (training harness) to enable us to go tow launching today. Tow launching involves attaching a cable to the hang glider and pilot and then pulling both into the sky. The advantage of this is that given a large enough field, training can take place irrespective of the wind direction, whereas if training on a hill, the wind needs to be blowing up the hill in the right direction for training to take place.

I am joined by a local Spanish lady Laura who has had some previous hang glider training, so I won't be alone today. We head for a village called Moron, where the field to be used for training is located and rig (setup) our hang gliders. I am the first to fly, was a bit apprehensive, even though the flight was a simple straight flight across the field at about 20 feet. The local Spanish lady takes her turn and also gets across okay after a few teething problems with her glider release system. I went on to do about 7 flights, with the last one at 50 feet, and I was releasing the glider from the tow line and doing shallow turns before landing. At the end of the day, I was fully confident with the glider and was now fully back at the skill level I was when I finished training in March of this year.



Tuesday 13th Dec

We are at the hang glider towing field in Moron again, but I'm the only one harness training today, my first flight of the day started okay, but the landing was poor, looked like I was still asleep. After that false start, I went on to do 9 further flights including 7 circuits (where I take off to a height of about 250 feet, release the tow line and then land as close to take off as possible). A good day, and much progress made with training.



Wednesday 14th Dec

We arrive at the towing field with dark clouds looming in the distance, I rig the hang glider with a fresh breeze blowing across the field.

Read more hang gliding blog.

Thursday 15th Dec

Hang gliding on Lijar mountain

Lijar is the local mountain in the village of Algodanales, and I got my first taste of this flying site in March, during my first training visit to Spain. As with the first time I flew from this site, the nerves kicked in, as I do have a little fear of heights, especially when I have to look down. By the time I have rigged the glider, done my daily inspection of the aircraft and my pre-flight checks things have settled a bit, I do a couple of dry runs to make sure I haven't forgotten the proper procedure for a hill launch and I'm off! The launch goes well, and I'm in the air floating gracefully away from the hill, once I've moved far enough from the take off point, I change into the prone position (lying down flying position), practise some turns, even do some 360 degree turns, a bit too sharply, so Tony tells me to stop, and we then do some stalling manoeuvres where I push the control bar forward gently, I notice the drop in air flow, feel the sluggishness of the glider, and then finally the nose of the glider drops as it stalls completely and auto recovers, I do this twice and then head for the landing field. I setup my approach, and just like my first flight off Lijar forget to lower my landing gear, so land on the wheels and my knees. No damage done, and apart from the landing everything goes according to plan. That was my qualifying flight, and I still have two more days of training, I'm over the moon!

We have lunch, and then go to a different hill for a soaring flight, but my hill take off was very bad, with me using too much airspeed, and quite close to hitting some rocks on take off. I attempt a bit of soaring, and then proceed to land some 10 mins later. Tony my instructor has some strong words with me, advising that what I did was very dangerous and I SHOULD never do that again. I go to bed that night pondering on the day's mistake.





Friday 16th Dec

Having earned my Club Pilot hang gliding rating yesterday, and making a mistake on the same day, I was not really interested in taking another flight off the top of Lijar mountain, and would have preferred doing some more practise of hill take offs from the training slope, but Tony advised me to take the flight as he was sure that I had learnt my lesson, and that I was fully able to launch properly from a hill. Rona was also going to fly today, so we went to the top of the mountain, I rigged the glider, and when the conditions where right, I made a perfect hill launch, fly away from the side of the mountain, made some nice gradual turns, and found a thermal (column of rising air) and made some 360 degree turns in it, gaining a bit of height, and also experience the falling feeling you get when you lose the thermal as well. I did this for a couple of minutes, then headed for the landing field where I set up a nice approach and landed gently with a good flare. This was the most enjoyable flight to date, and had lasted for about 22mins. I was grinning from ear to ear, the icing on the cake being that I had a longer flight that Rona, as by the time she launched, the thermal has disappeared and thus was only able to get about 15 mins of air time.




We had lunch and went back to the training slope where Tony introduced me to the Doodle Bug powered harness, did some ground school for powered flying, showed me how to rig the engine to the Aeros Target hang glider and then gave me a flying demonstration of the unit. After about 15mins in the air, Tony landed, switched the engine off, I clipped in and proceeded to do 4 un-powered runs in the aircraft. I was totally exhausted, but loved the whole experience, at last I was much closer to achieving my dream. By the time we un packed and put everything away, it was already dark, but I didn't care, I had just been introduced to the aircraft that would make my challenge to fly a hang glider across the UK possible!

Saturday 17th Dec

It was my last day in Spain, but since my flight was late in the evening, there was time for me to meet with Tony in the morning to complete my training paperwork, do some more powered flying ground school (mainly revising what we went over yesterday, emphasizing safety) and then drive to Villa Martin where I had the opportunity of rigging both the Target and Doodle Bug with some help from Tony of course, we then when on to do 5 powered runs, learning the proper procedures for take offs and the abort procedures where you spit the mouth throttle out of your mouth. On the 5th powered run, things where going well, and Tony did not give the abort signal for a while, so I gradually increased the power, before I knew it, I felt my feet leave the ground, Tony signalled abort, I spit out the throttle, and flared the aircraft as my feet landed back on the ground, I had just flown the Doodle bug for a whole 3 seconds! Tony said we should end the day on that good note, and I totally agreed. Not only had I come to Spain to complete my hang glider training and obtain a club pilot rating, I had begun the third and final step of my training for my challenge. Though I will probably have to go through most of what I done with another hang gliding instructor when I get back to Britain, I had more than surpassed my dreams for this trip. A big thanks goes to Rona and Tony Webb of Lejair Ltd harness training school, Algodonales, Spain for all their hard work during my two flying trips.

Hang Glider waiting?

Hang Glider and waiting for weather

I'm not a qualified hang glider pilot yet, but it looks like I'm going to have to learn how to hang wait!

Been doing a lot of reading about hang gliding on the internet, and one thing that seems to be cropping up all the time is that this flying sport relies a lot on good weather and you should not be in a hurry to get in the air if the weather is marginal.

I'm also on the mailing list of my local (to be) hang gliding club, and even though it is tow based, it still hasn't been very flyable over the last 3 weekends.

I think I need to get closer to the man that stilled the waters which is what I will be doing while hang gliding.