Before writing the following article, I will first answer the inevitable questions;

1) Yes. On a paraglider. Once when I forgot the airspace was there (not this airspace) and once when a big black cloud would not let go of me.

2) No. I was too ashamed to report it.

3) Absolutely terrifying.

Now that's out of the way let's get on with it!

A recent AirProx report admonished two hang-glider pilots for infringing the local flight level 45 Daventry CTA area from the Fl.65 area to the east. Occasionally sailplane pilots have had their wrists slapped for infringing this airspace too. The question is why? It is our local patch and we should know it well.

Although this Fl.45/Fl.65 boundary runs, rather inconsiderately, right through the middle of our playground we do have two good landmarks. If we examine the air map carefully we can see that the boundary runs almost exactly through Mam Tor and Tideswell. Quite simply we must be to the east of that line before climbing above Fl.45.

The simple solution when flying in the Fl.65 area is to always keep so that we are looking down on this imaginary line at an angle of more than, say, about 20 degrees from the vertical. That way we will always be more than about 1200 feet from the boundary.

Keep it simple.

Nigel Page

Footnote. Editorial space and concern for the world's forests preclude showing the location of the hang-gliders AirProx on the above diagram!