Chris and Mike take the Arcus to Pately Bridge
We both took a day off work as we wanted to practise flying the Arcus cross-country before our trip to Lasham at the end of August. We had an idea to follow the good weather up past Leeds without setting a task. It felt like there was wave around but we couldn’t connect.
So set off towards Sheffield with a significant tailwind. The first decent climb was a fair distance away, past the old dry ski slope in a ragged sky.
Chris spoke on the radio to Doncaster and Leeds so they knew our position, but we didn’t need to access airspace in the end. Once past Barnsley we made decent progress North past Ferrybridge and Wetherby to Harrogate.
Cloudbase dropped as we went into the Dales but the hoped-for wave still didn’t appear, so we turned for home at Pateley Bridge.
The clouds were working well going south until we reached where Pete Gray had warned ‘there be Dragons at Barnsley’ and sure enough there were two low points with slow climbs to stay airborne. Once back up high, the headwind was significant coming back into the Peaks and we had to choose our lines well to minimise the sink, crossing Stanage with 1000’QFE into buoyant Hathersage air where we could relax and climb enough to get home.
Article by Mike Stephens, flying with Chris Dawes in his Arcus.