royal berkshire show

Adam and I were camping at the show, Dave and Wendy drove up from Basingstoke. Morning flights were from a field by the side of Chieveley Service station – to avoid disturbing the animals etc. The field was ‘set aside’, the grass was about 1½ ft high and the area was vast – looked big enough to launch 100 balloons. It was quite calm and the wind aloft was supposed to be Southerly. When inflating, the flying wires dropped, telling us that the air movement was from the north. There was very little fortunately – it doesn’t help when the envelope is creeping back towards the basket.

An easy take off, we flew slowly down the A34 and then drifted west towards a country park. It looked perfect for low flying but as we descended into it we stopped and then drifted backwards the dual carriageway A34. We climbed and hung suspended over it. We crept up to 3000’ – no movement. We dropped slowly to 800’ – no movement – It was a lovely sunny morning and with Adam doing the flying, Wendy and I relaxed and enjoyed the view. Very peaceful until we realised that time was passing and we were still over the stretch of the A34. Time for action. We kept changing height until the GPS eventually indicated movement. It was very slow and we crept South over the A34, resisting the impulse to descend until we were sure that we wouldn’t do a 180° and drift back to the very busy dual carriageway. On the approach to a large field we drifted right to a small field with wires across our flight path. We were being forced into the corner of the field, slid about 8ft over the wires, touched down much too close to trees, Adam jumped out with the crown line and kept the envelope away from them until I joined him. We were about 400 yards from Donnington Castle. The road by the side of the field was private with a locked gate. Dave stopped a car – the driver had a key and what could have been a long carry out wasn’t.

Other points

1. Adam and I were the only ones camping. There were no facilities after 8pm but there was a hedge about 20 yards away which was very ‘convenient’.

2. I had taken broken tent poles instead of the replacement set. I didn’t believe we could put the tent up but we were trying and failing when Adam though of using insulation tape. It worked, although the tent was lopsided and attracted comments all weekend.

3. There was no gas on site and Adam returned to Southampton to refuel. Traffic congestion was very bad and we only got back just in time for the evening briefing, the flying being cancelled.