Chris Freeman Richard Penney

The Great British Long Jump 2012 Name of Pilot: Richard Penney Name of Co-pilot: Chris Freeman Name of Balloon: Kew Technik Type and size of Balloon: Ultramagic M90 Date of flight: 5 October 2012 Propane at start: 420 litres Propane at finish: 24 litres Starting place: Tregoyd, Wales (SO 19073 37979) Landing place: Wattisham, Suffolk (TM 02462 53224) Start time: 09:30 Duration of flight: 06 hours 15 minutes Straight line distance claimed: 176.35 miles or 283.81 kilometres Average speed: 25.2kts Maximum height flown: 6000 feet Wind direction: 070 to 105 Witnesses to take-off: Martin Jones (Landowner) Tel: 07970 756 173 Witnesses to landing: RAF Wattisham ATC Length of landing drag: 60 yards

Ultramagic UK Long Jump flight report It all started as a passing comment whilst at the Ultramagic Factory with Richard during the Igualada Balloon Festival, we were refuelling and numbers were written on the top of the tanks, Richard explained this is how he does his fuel management for Long Jumps, the seed was sewn!

I didn’t think much more of it until the middle of September when I called Richard and explained I was really keen to do a long jump and asked if he would be interested in coming along, of course he agreed.

As October approached, we kept an eye on the weather and we aimed for the first week due to Richards work commitments during the rest of the month. No pressure! It very quickly became apparent the winds during the first week were going to be pretty fast, Thursday 4 October was picked, then as fate would have it, although I had booked the day off work, another member of staff had called in sick on Wednesday 3 meaning I would be needed to do a First Aid course in Exeter on the Thursday, my feelings soon changed from upset to happy as the weather forecast for the Friday turned out to be even better than the Thursday. A plan was hatched; I would meet Richard and Jeremy Bennett (top crew man) in Bristol on my way back from Exeter on the Thursday night and we would head to Hay-on-Wye to a lovely little Bed and Breakfast that Richard had stayed in during a previous visit.

We awoke bright and early, looked out the window and there was some quite low cloud cover, this raised a little bit whilst we were eating breakfast, it was at this point Jeremy informed us that someone must have left a chainsaw on in the room he shared with Richard, apparently he got no sleep, Richard denies all knowledge!

We finished breakfast (Richard saved his Bacon sarnie for the flight) and headed for the farm in Tregoyd where we would be flying from and met probably the nicest farmer ever, “I’ve got just the field for you, it’s in a bit of a dip and it’s as dry as a chip down there”, he showed us into a field that was full of sheep, “Don’t worry about them, they will soon disappear”.

We unloaded the trailer and Richard began assembling the tanks inside the basket, all seven of them, leaving just enough room for two people to stand.

The inflation was no windier than a normal ‘windyish’ one, we managed to do it just the three of us in what was only about 7/8 knots with the occasional gust. We took off at 9.30 and dropped the quick release back to Jeremy, “See you in East Anglia” we shouted back and with that we were gone.

On any normal flight, doing 14 knots at 500 feet might seem a bit daunting for some, but it was nowhere near the 25 knots that had been forecast, as we climbed up to 1500 feet we still only had 18 knots, we weren’t going to be winning any prizes with that sort of speed.

We climbed a bit higher to 2500 and there it was, the kick we needed, 32 knots.

Richard took charge of navigating the flight and liaising with air traffic, whilst I looked after flying the balloon, we sped over the top of the Brecon Beacons at 35 knots, at this point Richard pulled out his bacon sandwich from breakfast that he had folded into a napkin. We passed just to the north of the Madley aerials and then straight over the top of Hereford.

It got to about 11.00 and we were settled into our flight, we broke out the supplies, this included chocolate twirls and reduced price Caramel bunnies. Richard spoke to Gloucester Airport and told them our position and we were attempting a long jump from Hay-on-Wye (thankfully the wrong location any way) to East Anglia, we were outside of their zone but they radioed back and said they had no traffic around so do as we please.

At 11.40 we passed over Morton in Marsh disused airfield, quite an interesting place, appears to be some form of fire fighting training centre with old aeroplanes and fire towers that are used for practising their life saving skills.

At this point in the flight, Richard and I had a tough decision to make, the wind higher up was tracking 105 however if we carried on at that height we would be likely to end up in Luton / Stanstead’s zone so we had

to sacrifice some speed to get a better direction lower down where the direction was 070, this was perfect as it would take us towards Banbury / Northampton.

We passed the southern side of Banbury and watched the Parachute dropping into Hinton in the Hedges, as we approached Brackley, Richard called ATC at Turweston, once again they were incredibly helpful and friendly, explained to us there was no incoming traffic and to proceed as we wished.

The wind had now slowed down to a painfully slow 14 knots, this wasn’t good, but was needed so we didn’t go towards Luton.

As 13.00 approached, so did another familiar sight, the Silverstone race track, we flew over the top at 12.50 to the sound of cars going round the track, quite impressive!

Once we had left Silverstone our next landmark was Milton Keynes, we came down a little lower to skirt past the edge of Cranfield, as we approached, Richard gave them a call on the radio, again they were happy for us to pass through as no notable traffic was due in.

We cleared Cranfield’s zone and headed towards Bedford, again remaining a bit lower to avoid the danger area at Cardington Hangers, once we had passed Bedford, Richard and I had a discussion about where we eventually wanted to end up, we could either carry on low, pass by Cambridge at a slower speed or try and get to the coast, we decided for the second of the two options, I took the balloon up to about 5500 feet and we got a massive kick to the right as expected, this took us south of Cambridge and North of Duxford zone with a track straight for RAF Wattisham, we passed to the North of Haverhill at 6000 still doing over 35 knots, this is what we wanted.

As we passed over Lavenham disused, Richard spoke to RAF Wattisham who gave us clearance into their ATZ if we required, I suggested to Richard that a landing at Wattisham airfield would be a good idea if they would allow us, nice, big, green grass field.

We came down lower to try and get into Wattisham but didn’t look likely that we were going to make it, now down to one tank with about 20% and another tank on 30%, the other 5 completely empty and the coast rapidly approaching we thought it was a good idea to find a suitable field to land in, Richard again spoke to ATC and asked for an actual wind reading, “260 @ 18”, Richard and I looked at each other and said, this is going to be a bit spicy!

Richard took the burners for landing as he knows the balloon better than I do, so Richard on the burners and I was on the rip, as we passed down from 1000ft to 500ft we were still doing 25knots, we tried an approach into one or two fields before finding a huge stubble field with a road running along the bottom and no gates / fences, Richard radioed Wattisham and told them we were landing, thanking them for their help, thankfully the speed had dropped to 14 knots, we came down over the tops of the trees and what originally looked like a huge field, becomes surprisingly small when you are travelling at high speed, Richard switched the pilot lights off and said “it’s all yours mate” we touched down in the middle of the field and I kept pulling on the rip like my life depended on it, we dragged for about 10-15 seconds before coming to a halt, one field outside of Wattisham’s airfield.

We climbed out, Richard called Jeremy, our retrieve driver, he was about an hour, I went and found the landowner who was happy for us to retrieve the balloon, he asked where we had took off from, seemed a bit confused when I told him the Brecon Beacons, “Did you take off today?” he asked.

Richard and I packed the balloon away and waited for Jeremy to arrive, shortly after everything was as dismantled as we could make it, Jeremy arrived and we packed up and went.

Overall an incredible experience, even if we don’t win it was well worth doing, well done to Jeremy too, who without we couldnt have undertaken such an enjoyable flight.