The worst
Whilst navigating behind a pilot in a flex wing microlight during a round Britain competition, within a few minutes after takeoff (Barton) after much verbal resistance from me, flew into the base of a towering CuNim at about 1,000ft.
All the other microlights (60) had veered off left and right to avoid it as the target was to photograph a lighthouse beyond. As we entered from bright sunshine it just got darker and darker, the hail became vicious, the turbulence bouncy. The base of cloud was about 500′ above but not for long! we went up into it losing all groud reference, he had powered off and was shouting for me to help pull the bar in (and steady the wing), I could see the variometer climbing hard then after a minute or two the opposite, we came out ( the right way up ) descending faster than a breeze block, after powering up and pushing the bar forward we got it all back together only to be sucked back up into the base of cloud again, minutes later, thrown out the bottom…again. After what seemed an age, it got brighter and brighter and we emerged the other side out into the sunshine and still air. The other microlights converged and formated on us, we had gained nothing. It gave a new meaning to Flex wing, the cables were either piano wire tight or flopping around uselessly. We looked like a couple of snowmen sat in a deck chair.
We flew on in total silence for several minutes………
There were other instances of near disaster on the same flight/s, it was push on ite’ss at it’s worse. I had/have never been so wet, cold, tired and miserable than those three days.
I never flew with him again.
Baz
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