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My record was achieved flying a Microlight in the under 50 kilo class.
After I had claimed the record and had it ratified the BMAA changed the definition of a microlight to under 75 kilos.
Arthur H. Trapp set his record in the 75 Kilo class of Microlights.
My record still stands, and Arthur's was the first in the new category.
Terry Aspinall

Microlight distance record by terryaspterryasp, 29 Jul 2013 01:39
Bob Barrett (guest) 10 Jan 2010 15:54
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » 2009 Finale & Still Rambling

Hi Ed,
I have just enjoyed reading your fascinating story taking a journey through your adventures. You have been honest about your failures as well as your achievements and success.I think that makes the account a good read.
Thanks for bringing back some very happy memories and seeing faces I have thought about and not seen for a very long while.
I wish you good fortune for the future and hope that you may find an alternative to hang gliding that will give you reward and pleasure. We all have to move on sometime.

Kind regards,

Bob

by Bob Barrett (guest), 10 Jan 2010 15:54
Huns'ton
Bob Barrett (guest) 09 Jan 2010 17:00
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » The Eighties & a Map

Hi Ed, I flew Huns'ton a few times and it was a real hoot as we had to be launched from the base of the cliff on the end of a bungee rope being pulled by at least four people!
You resisted the pull as long as possible and when the moment you could hold back no longer it all happened very fast. Run a few steps, push out and when you hit the wind hold enough speed on to fly but allow yourself to be taken up above the cliff top.
The "pullers" got very upset if you botched the takeoff as it was very hard work. (for them)

Great to read your story, brought back some happy memories…

Huns'ton by Bob Barrett (guest), 09 Jan 2010 17:00

Vince Hallam.01803316191………..07941313141

Steve Hicks where are you? by Vince Hallam (guest), 26 Oct 2009 13:06

Can you give me a contact or "last known at" for Steve Hickswith whom I flew at Rhossiliin the late 70s
Vince Hallam 01803316191…..07941313141….Im in Devon

looking for Steve Hicks family by Vince Hallam (guest), 26 Oct 2009 12:57
Re: Odd coincidence
Mike Lake (UK version) (guest) 01 Oct 2009 08:50
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » Mike Lake

Could be, but I have no knowledge of anyone moving to Canada.

Great name you have there (:

Re: Odd coincidence by Mike Lake (UK version) (guest), 01 Oct 2009 08:50
Odd coincidence
Mike Lake (guest) 01 Oct 2009 07:55
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » Mike Lake

I Googled my own name, and was directed here. My family came from Norwich to Canada around the beginning of the first war. Wonder if there is a connection with your Mike Lake.

Odd coincidence by Mike Lake (guest), 01 Oct 2009 07:55
I remember
stephen lake (guest) 24 Jul 2009 02:15
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » Mike Lake

I remember many of these exploits, although young at the time, maybe 13 or 14. A lot of things I did not know of course. What you don't know about your own family!

Stephen Lake - Mike's brother

I remember by stephen lake (guest), 24 Jul 2009 02:15
Pete & Jac Stevens (guest) 08 May 2009 20:36
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » 2009 Finale & Still Rambling

Dear Ed

Really good to see the old faces looking so young!, and reading the history and comments of the NHGC. They were good days and interesting flying with the personalities at the time. Tony and Rona were/are stalwarts with the hang gliding movement.

Thanks Ed
Yours
Pete and Jac

by Pete & Jac Stevens (guest), 08 May 2009 20:36

I love the fact that the way your opening explanation says that we should make inappropriate comments to Phil. How appropriate!

i can take it :-)

email thing. I'm looking into this. Thanks for pointing it out.

Oh you Charlie :-) by Phil ChettPhil Chett, 09 Apr 2009 10:33

Stephen says: 'I remember rescuing you from the middle of a Hungarian Forest one evening - by the time we found you the family had almost married you to their daughter and you were all quite drunk! How about when we landed with the Swift at Piedrahita and the cows came down the field and tried to jump over the wing of the Swift?
One minor correction - when we went to SA it was me flying a Strikemaster (grown up Jet Provost) that buzzed you that day. I have one at North Weald now as my old JP died after 10 good years. And I did fly the Hunter and Lightning subsequently that trip. Do you remember the day when the gust from came up the valley with a wall of dust? Too many stories to tell. I'm a display pilot these days and have a big season ahead. Thanks again for committing it all to paper! '

Stephen's memories by FlatlanderFlatlander, 29 Mar 2009 20:51

Mark tells me: ' I think the reason I was so keen on getting aerotowing going in hang gliding was that I had got to beyond solo standard in sailplane flying before taking up hang gliding – so it seemed to me to be an entirely normal, obvious way of getting airborne. It was perverse that we were not doing it. Once there was a workable system available (thanks to the French and the Hungarians) then it was an infringement of our civil liberties us not being allowed to do it in the UK. I think that I had also got bored with going downwind and spending half the night trying to get back: light winds and triangles were clearly far more sensible – and for that we needed to start the flight by being parked in lift.'

Mark Dale's view by FlatlanderFlatlander, 29 Mar 2009 20:35

I am told on good authority that 'Howard Edward’s accident on the prone trike was caused by him getting part of the prone trike harness snagged on a back wire, leading to him spiralling in to the deck'. Sorry for the misrepresentation.

Howard Edwards by FlatlanderFlatlander, 29 Mar 2009 20:27
Inappropriate Phile
Charlie Richardson (guest) 19 Mar 2009 18:41
in discussion Hidden / Per page discussions » Introduction to Ed Potter's Story

I love the fact that the way your opening explanation says that we should make inappropriate
comments to Phil. How appropriate!

The email field above has a character limit that does not allow me to input my real email address
(which is honestly not that long).

Cheers

Charlie

Inappropriate Phile by Charlie Richardson (guest), 19 Mar 2009 18:41

The following is about my very first attempt to fly my Birdman Sports Albatross Hang Glider. I believe I might have told a few of you before how in 1973 I saw Ken Messenger on children’s television program “Magpie” Anyway I contacted Ken and his company built me my very first Hang Glider. The minute I was informed that it was ready to be picked up, I wasted no time in rushing down to Marlbough in Wiltshire to pick it up, only to be informed at the factory that Ken was attending the very first British Hang Gliding championship at Mere and that he had my glider with him. So off I went again trying to locate Ken and the place called Mere. Only to be told that he was very busy taking part in the competition, however, he did have my brand new glider and after paying him in cash, I finally took delivery of my new “Pride & Joy”. Unfortunately, nobody had time to show me how to fly it, come to think of it nobody even showed me how to put it all together. Anyway that was just a mild complication, I could work it all out for myself when I got home. At that moment all I wanted to do was rush home, put it together and jump off the nearest hill somewhere close by. Therefore after watching the Hang Glider Competition and the then very famous Wills brothers clean up all the competition prizes. I drove home at break neck speed with my imagination runny riot, as to what I was going to achieve and show the world I could do with my newly acquired piece of hardware.

All that week after I arrived home from work, I would assembled the glider on my back lawn, you would not believe how many different ways I invented to achieve this and even now I’m not sure I ever did it the correctly way. Mind you with my lateral thinking, I convinced myself that I had found a better way than all the so called experts.

The very next weekend, along with Emily my wife, and Trevor Pearce one of my friends from my country band, we all went down to Sizewell Beach to assemble this giant kite (180 squares). This took us a couple of hours, mainly because all the time I was talking to Trevor explaining something I knew absolutely nothing about, but was trying my hardest to sound like an expert. As you might have guessed I had to make a couple of changes and minor alterations when a few of the bolt holes did not line up. When it was finally constructed, I found a large rabbit hill amongst a thick gathering of Blackberry bushes, which must have been all of a meter high. This I preceded to tell Trevor would be high enough for the first test flight of the day. Trevor then shocked me by asking how far I was going to fly up the beach. Somehow, I managed to evade the question, but I hoped I’d left him believing that it was going to be in miles rather than meters. At one time he even asked if I had clearance to fly from RAF Bentwaters the local military airfield about 12 miles away. Gee this guy seems to think he knows more than me when it came to flying.

Anyway I climbed into the seated harness strapped myself in, and picked up the glider and somehow managed to position myself on the top of the rabbit warren with the nose of the glider pointing out to sea. That much I had learnt while at Mere. Where I’d seen the so called expert nose men throwing grass into the air. Although to be honest at the time I believed it was some sort of ritual, a bit like making a cross on your chest.

The nose has to always point towards the wind in order that it might pick up the kite so you can fly, or that was how I keep answering most of the questions that were being fired at me. At this stage, I must add that there was absolutely no wind, so I tried jumping up and down on the rabbit warren, but with no luck. All I could hear was the flapping of the sail being generated by my frantic jumping up and down in order that I might get airborne. I felt like Tony Hancock the comedian in a scene from one of his famous films, where he turns up at an airport dressed as a chicken and asks the booking clerk “Can I fly to France”. I heard one guy tell his little boy that I was going to fly to France. Gee that guy had more faith in my Hang Glider than I did. By this time I had secretly settled on hopefully making it to the beach just in front of my one meter high rabbit warren.
After about an hour of me jumping up and down, which I might add was all taking place in front of a very large growing crowd. All of a sudden out of nowhere a large gust of wind just picked me and my glider up and tossed me over backwards. What had happened I did not have a clue? Not understanding the principles of flying, it was a crazy thing to do. With what I know now, it is a wonder I did not kill myself that day. The eastern coast line of England can be quite treacherous at times, especially when it comes to wind. It’s nothing to see the wind suddenly whip up to around 20mph. With a wind like that instead of going to France I believe I would have ended up in Wales going backwards. I guess I should also add that most flyers who came after me, at least had the help of others to not only help them build their gliders but to also advise them on the best way to fly it.

Anyway, my antics on Sizewell beach seemed to amuse the still steadily growing crowd, leaving me to feel like Co-Co the clown. I could also see that my sudden backward somersault amused the crowd to such a point that’s by now there were tears of laughter streaming down their faces. As they watched me desperately trying to get my car keys from my trousers pocket, while all entangled up in a mass of steel wires, aluminum tubing, sail material and the seat harness. Emily and Trevor then had to race back to my car to get some spanners to release me from my imprison position, and that took them another twenty minutes. While all the time I was trussed up within the heap of scrap. I was further humiliated having to answer some of the gathered crowds silly questions. Like, “Will you be flying again today mister”, or “Is that supposed to happen”. Then there was the usual, “Did it hurt”, while one young kid said he thought the wings were going to flap. One little old lady walked away saying that she could not see what all the fuss was about with these new fangled Hang Gliders, claiming that I hadn’t gone far, she also thought I was going to whiz up and down the beach, her words not mine.

The whole event was very humiliating for me in front of all those holidaymakers. As slowly, Emily and Trevor started to undo as many nuts and bolts as they could. The whole time Trevor was wetting himself laughing at me. It took them a further fifteen minutes to extricate me from the mess that was once my pride and joy. The net result was £50 worth of damage, I had only been off the ground about a foot and that was backwards at a speed of ten mile an hour. Trevor even measured it out to a distance of around five meters. That means that the flight cost me something in the region of £10 per meter. At these rates, it would have been cheaper to fly with Freddie Laker to New York.

I then had to contact Birdman Sports to organise them to send me some spare parts. This took several weeks, as we did not have telephones in those days it was all done by letter. Needless to say, I had to answer many many questions as the factory was always interested just in case it was their workmanship that had failed. I made up some cock and bull story that I had had a great flight, but unfortunately I had landed rather hard. It seemed to satisfy them and they sent the necessary parts, but not before, I sent them the postal order for £50.

Once I had rebuilt the glider, I started worrying that I might have weakened something during the crash and at that time, I was not game to write another letter to Birdman. Therefore, I just put it all into the back of my mind and took it down to the beach once again. Only this time Emily was my only helper and I found a spot that was deserted and secluded. However, it was all to no avail as I still did not get the dam thing up off the ground, nor did I at the second and third attempts. The whole exercise was very frustrating and I really did not have any idea how I was going to progress past this point of my flying career. For some reason I strongly believed that I could run down a runway, pick up some wind and just take off and fly away. My complete conversation with anybody who would listen was always about flying. And so you can imagine how I continually bored my wife. I’m sure there were times when she wished I would just fly away.

I remembered at some time I had been told about a local guy named David Cook, who was into Hang Gliding. Unfortunately, I had never met him, even though he worked at Richard Garrets a company I had also worked for a few years earlier. Anyway after my third unsuccessful attempt at trying to fly at Sizewell I called it a day. As I was leaving the site, I caught sight of a car pulling a very long trailer with what looked like a giant Hang Glider on board. This had to be David Cook, so I sped after it, and followed it all the way to his house in Aldringham. I watched him pull into his drive and through some trees where he parked. I parked on the roadside out front of his house and ran up to introduced myself.

And the rest is history as they say.

Terry

Re: History pages by terryaspterryasp, 02 Jun 2008 20:41

So what was your first flight/glider terry?

Mike

Re: History pages by PudPud, 01 Jun 2008 19:23

I'm in touch with Terry Haynes who used to own "Waspair" if you look at his first glider it also had a curved leading edge. Terry's helping me with my UK History of Hang Gliding project
Terry

Re: History pages by terryaspterryasp, 30 May 2008 03:39

Ken’s accident was defiantly after Little Snoring. No one in the club (or the region) had done any form of towing until the Skyhook winch was purchased, and this was first Demonstrated at the Little Snoring event.

You are right about Ken’s inexperience and this was a perfect example of enthusiasm overtaking common sense. Ken’s accident made me (us) 10x more careful.

Frank LeBurge I think was the Pegasus glider man. I think this picture is of Rod Pace on his.
Notice the curved leading edges.

Mike Lake
pegasus.JPG
Re: History pages by PudPud, 28 May 2008 23:47

This would have been the very first time I ever attended a proposed tow meet. As far as I can remember, most who were attending the meet had already arrived and I’m not sure if anybody had already flown, although I’m sure they would have because I would have wanted to watch to see how it was done, it being my first attempt. However, as I was about to set up my glider, John Sharp told me that I could use his glider. Sounded good to me as it would save me setting mine up. But when I picked his glider up for some reason I did not feel comfortable with it. Can’t remember what Glider John was flying at the time or what I normally flew. Although it could have been when we were both flying Monraker 77’s, Johns was a medium, and I was flying the large. Anyway Ken announced that he would take my place, flying his Wills Wing SST, one of John’s old gliders.

As Ken took off I was standing directly behind him and he rose into the air quite quickly then suddenly the glider started to lock to the left and went in, I’m not sure if it tucked what I do remember is that there was a very loud bang as he hit the ground.

Being scared and not wanting to watch, my wife had stayed up on the main road sitting in my car. The next minute Mike Pullford is banging on the side of the car for her to start the engine. He then jumped in and they race off looking for a phone box to get an ambulance. All the time my wife who had also heard the bang is thinking it’s me that had crashed. Mike in his desperation to find a farm house just forgot to tell her exactly what had happened.

I would like to also add that most of the Norfolk club members had all attended a first aid course run by a St John’s Ambulance officer just a few months early to the crash. However, the horror of seeing Ken crash, left most of us wondering what the hell to do next. When up stepped Paul Whitley one of the few attending who had not been at the first aid course. In the past Paul had been described as a bit of a wild type of guy, and had attracted a nick name of the bionic baby. To me it was Paul who saved Kens life that day by taking full control of the situation. He was cool, calm and most of all knew exactly what to do. My opinion of Paul went up 1000%, that day and I have admired him greatly for what he did that day for Ken. I visited Ken several time while he was in hospital, feeling a little guilty that he had taken my place in the queue.

Since the accident I’ve had time to think about it and I’m sure I’m right when I say that I don’t think Ken should have been flying that day. I say that because he was a total novice pilot, who had only completed a few top to bottom’s while flying at the RAF Bawdsey site in Suffolk.

Am I right in thinking that this all took place before the Little Snoring event??

Would like to know more about Frank, as he might fit into my early History of UK Hang Gliding article I'm trying to put together.
Terry

Re: History pages by terryaspterryasp, 25 May 2008 22:12

Frank ????
He was the guy who made the Pegasus gliders. Remember the curved leading edges? Very hi-tec at the time. Frank, and his gliders, are little known and I have never seen any mention of him anywhere else. I will see if I can find a surname.

The name Mel Mayes does sound familiar and Ashley Doubtfire I think was involved also with Gerry Breen in the very beginning.

No one in our region had had anything to do with towing until Little Snoring. Greg was certainly not the first to fly at the event his role was one of a local ‘test dummy’, well into the event. As I have said Greg was also the ‘test dummy’ when we went to collect the Skyhook winch (we were always willing to volunteer Greg for anything that might turn upside down!)

I can’t remember if anyone else flew the Skyhook winch up until Ken Cole’s accident I think this was the first winch outing. You were at that event Terry can you remember if his accident was the first (and last) flight on that day? Or had others had a tow?

Mike Lake

Re: History pages by PudPud, 25 May 2008 01:24
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