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!