The Great British Long Jump 2008
Name of Pilot……………Mark_Dunstan_Sewell…………
Name of Co-pilot………Alastair_Spurr………………….
Name of Balloon…Rotork…………………………………….
Type and size of Balloon…………Cameron_105………….
Date of flight……25th…………..OCTOBER 2008
Propane at start………6X60=360…………………tanks/litres
Propane at finish…………10% + 15%……………..tanks/litres
Starting place…………Jacobstowe,_Devon…………….
Landing place…………Sutton Bridge,_Cambridgeshire.
Start time…………………10.05……………………………………..
Duration of flight………6.00_ Hours………………………..
Straight line distance claimed………230 miles……………
Average speed……………………38.3mph……………………….
Maximum height flown…………6250…………………….feet
Wind direction…………………10 to 80 degrees……………..
Witnesses to take-off……Elaine Locke……01837 851308..
(inc. tel. no. & email)
erjames@homecall.co.uk……………
Witnesses to landing………Nic Porters……………………………
(inc. tel no. & email )
………karenporters1@btinternet.com.
Length of landing drag……>250………….yards

Long Jump Report 2008

Pilot: Mark Dunstan-Sewell
Co-pilot: Alastair Spurr
As usual, Alastair and I were restricted mainly to weekends – and only to three of
them. We left it to the last one, after weeks of looking at Avbrief. This showed the
same weather pattern for the weekend for at least four consecutive days. Normally,
promising weather disappears as the day approaches. It showed isobars passing from
Cornwall to East Anglia on the Saturday.
Last year we flew heavily laden across the Irish Sea, so with advice from Mike
Scholes, we vowed to fly lighter, higher and hence faster. So we ditched three 60-litre
tanks, thermos flask, bag of apples, life-jackets, dropline, envelope bag, extra
carabiners, crownline (used 3mm cord), flares, EPIRB, flightbag, spare GPS, big
battery, big coats and full crash-helmets.
Instead, we took just six sixty-litre tanks, maps, radio, altimeter, GPS, vario, striker,
transponder, chocolate, apple, water, a cycling helmet and a rock-climbing helmet.
We loaded this lot into our VW bus and headed down to Okehampton, where my
wife’s cousin has a farm. We drove down in the morning from Bristol and enjoyed a
leisurely cup of tea before heading out into a very wet and icy field.
It was almost flat calm at about 9 o’clock, when we started to assemble the balloon.
We had a fairly normal inflation, but by the time I started the burner, it had begun to
get gusty. We got it half inflated when the mouth closed and we just managed to get it
back up without having to pull it down completely. We were launching without
shelter.
We launched at 10.05, managing to drop the quick-release and strap, so there was less
to carry. Initially we went North, but quickly turned to the East with height. We
climbed to 3000 feet and flew on for a while at 30mph. We then climbed to 6000 feet
to see if there was more speed. There wasn’t much difference, but there was about 70
degrees of steerage. I called up Yeovilton to see if the AIAA was busy, but got no
reply. We were at 6000 feet, ready to fly over it if they were busy. We were soon over
Taunton and our track was going to take us over Salisbury Plain and on to Heathrow,
so we came back down a bit to head North-East. This took us over the Somerset
Levels up to Axbridge and Cheddar. Here I called up Bristol Airport. They were busy
landing Easyjets, but allowed us to pass through their Zone at 2000 feet. It really
helped that we had a Transponder – and a co-pilot. While I flew and did the radio,
Alastair’s job was to set the transponder. ATC were quite tense while Alastair
stumbled through setting the dials, which were recessed to avoid damage. We flew
over Blagdon Lake, past Dundry and over Bristol city-centre. Our retrieve made their
only sighting of us here from Clevedon.
Bristol passed us on to Filton, who fitted us into their circuit traffic. Filton passed us
on the Gloucester, which we never really saw. We were passing it well to the East. I
got a bit concerned here that we were heading for Birmingham / Coventry, so we
climbed a bit to head more to the East. We picked up speed too, to about 40mph.
Gloucester passed us on to Brize Norton, who asked for a position report. We were
working in Lat and Long and quirkily thought we were near Shrivenham. When we
squawked the required number for Brize, the ATC replied that we were, in fact, 15
miles East of Gloucester. This was another good reason to carry the transponder.
So we motored on past Stroud and Cheltenham, heading for Northampton. We saw
the race-track at Santa Pod and Silverstone, where we could also hear and smell the
motor-racing. We passed over Grafham Water, where we could see sailboats shooting
across the breaking waves. Our speed now climbed above 50 mph and yet our flight
remained so smooth.
Around Wellingborough a small red plane came up and circled us a couple of times
before heading off with a parting barrel roll for fun.
We were beginning to think about the end of the flight and we were now down to our
last two full tanks. We were getting about an hour per tank. I knew there was a lot of
left on the ground and that we were heading for the Wash. I wanted to be North of it,
so that on landing, we would be heading inland. We came down a bit to change course
and were now over bigger and bigger flat fields.
In the end we went over Wisbech and were headed straight for the middle of the
coast, near Sutton Bridge. Now we had slowed up to 35-40 mph. The fields were
huge, but there was a gas-fired power-station, with its cobweb of power-lines. We
kept going, with the thought that the wires would thin out near the coast. But even
though we landed in the last field, there were wires on the way in. Beyond lay
marshes, then mud, then the sea.
Alastair’s job on landing was to keep us straight with the turning vents. I had to
decide when to stop burning, pilot lights out and grab the red line. Alastair noted 28
mph on the GPS as we entered the last, ploughed field. We landed reasonably gently
and bounced back up. Next came a hard landing, followed by the longest, wildest drag
over bumpy, hard ground, that I have ever endured. We were both facing backwards,
squeezed among the tanks. At one stage I started to leave the basket, but Alastair
managed to pull me back in by my trouser belt. At length, the ordeal was over, and as
the fabric finally settled, we were drenched by a sharp shower of rain. The wind
ripped the water back up off the flattened fabric into waves of spray. We hadn’t
noticed any rain up to that point.
A car pulled up along the edge of the field next to us and a farmer and his two boys
came out to see if we were ok. I was beaming from ear-to-ear, glad to be alive. We
paced out the landing drag of over 250 yards, while picking up various bits of kit from
our furrow. The farmer kindly helped us roll up the balloon and took us back to the
farmhouse, where we settled our aching, bruised bodies into comfy sofas. There we
spent the next couple of hours drinking tea and watching television until our trusty
retrieve turned up.