A SKY RANGER FLIGHT.

Yes ... it is Dank Holiday Monday here in U.K. Conditions? Well ... wet ... very very wet. But, totally different from yesterday when the skies were blue and ideal late afternoon ... 

for a small two seater plane to be taking to the air and landing along the mountain road, avoiding wandering sheep and vehicles to park up right by the mountain gate where we met up with it as we have done many times before. <<< This photo was taken back in August 2009 with the dog bemused by such a seemingly alien craft, parked up on the commons. It's a Sky Ranger and comes in kit form. The owner built it back in 2005 and takes every opportunity he can to fly. It is a highly versatile little light weight with a maximum take off weight of only 540kg! Well yesterday it took a 52kg passenger ... no ... not the dog! ( He was safely grounded at home.)

I was safely strapped in, had a pre-flight brief about all the instruments and we taxied for take off along the mountain road, much to the bemusement of two ladies in a car that had to pull onto the verge to allow us to pass. This lightweight only needs a very short distance to take to the air, we turned into wind, throttle open and we were off rumbling along the "taxiway" within mere seconds we were airborne over the cattle grid and away into the skies above where I live. I've flown before in gliders and jets, but never anything quite like this. Designed by a french-man, Phillipe Prevot in the 90's, the prototye took to the air in 1992. As the years have gone by, improvements to performance have meant that this aerobatic little aircraft has won the World Ultralight Championships five times! It's "Do it yourself kit" is apparently so simple that it can be built by two folk in two weeks. Now that may make it sound as if it is going to be under performance, but don't you believe it, it really is an awesome small aircraft.
For this trip. I was quite content (this time) just to be a passenger as we flew over the landscape that I know so well from ground level. To see the geography of land from the air, gives a whole new perspective and understanding of how this glacial formed, very heavily mined area looks from above ... just wonderful! (Sadly no photo's to share, maybe next flight). We flew over the mountainous landscape, with sheep like small dots in the green fields and browsing amongst the purple heather. Then the scenery changed as we flew over Blaenavon and the World Heritage Sit of Big Pit where the ravages of the coal mining decades can be clearly seen for miles. The land bare of trees, with great gaping scars and pock marked with sites of long disused mine workings, crumbling deserted old farms and now crumbling stone houses. All across this bare, almost inhospitable landscape there are rutted tracks and roadways. looking like some erratic spiders web. We flew in low to asses one of these tracks as a possible landing site and gave one poor lone cyclist a bit of a shock as we flew a few hundred feet overhead. Then it was off to have a close aerial look at The Sugarloaf Mountain near Abergavenny and a low flypast along The Skirrid Mountain, waving at walkers as they headed back along the narrow track that wends it's way up to the peak. After that we left the bleak (but strangely beautiful landscape) and headed towards the lowlands of Hereford where the arable cereal crops shone gold in the evening sunlight. It was obviously a hive of activity as combines were working hard to get the harvest in before the rain that was forecast for today. Below us the houses had changed, large expensive mini mansions were now the norm, surrounded by acres of large open fields, so different to the smaller patches of our homeland. And all too soon we were about to land ... we held in circuit for a microlight before we approached on finals to land on this thin, green, private strip of a runway in between as yet unharvested, knee high corn fields. It all smelled wonderful.

What you are looking at in the foreground is the "taxiway" leading to the small hangars.

And there we were ... safely back on the ground after a really fascinating, if all too short flight, on a lovely, mild August Sunday evening. 
All that remained towards the end of the day was to get this amazing little aircraft safely stowed away and for the pilot to greet his patiently waiting dog ... who has by the way ... in the past, flown as a passenger!

I looked back towards where we had flown, over The Skirrid and The Sugarloaf, content.
All that remained of the day,  was to be a passenger in a car as we headed back home.

A tired but blissfully happy soul, looking forward to being greeted by my own loving dog.