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Ben Lawers in Scotland OS Map Thumbnail. If you click on the Ben Lawers Thumbnail you will see a full screen Detailed Map of the area, the small yellow circles mark the sites I have been lucky enough to try out. The black arrows indicate the directions that I flew from on this hill. As it happens the first day I flew (Monday) was the right most arrow, The middle arrow was the best day (Tuesday) and the leftmost (Wednesday) was my last day up there. |
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Directions to this site are: From the A85 between Crainlarich and Lochearnhead take the A827 towards Killin. Follow the road through the town over the falls of Dochart and out past the golf club and up the hill. About a mile or so along this road is a very sharp left up a very narrow track. The sign post reads 'Bridge of Balgie' and 'Mountain Rescue Information / Visitor centre'. Follow this road all the way up past the visitor centre and on up to the reservoir. Drive right along past the reservoir, until you see a cairn. This is marked on the map here by the thick black arrow there is a small car park - get here early to avoid disappointment!" Ben Lawers - Scotland July 2000. There was something seriously lacking from my trip to Scotland this year…and that was the presence of my "poignant" brother Geoff. He had to rush off back to Leeds to build some circuit boards for the BBC (No Less!) so that "Dead Metal" (a house robot in the BBC's Robot Wars series) could at least drag itself across the arena! Okay, so it was my own fault for having to sleep for a couple of days after returning from a business trip to Australia, but it was so disappointing that the day I finally arrived at this years rented cottage, Geoff had to go back to Leeds. HOWEVER all was not lost, a very good friend of mine, who is mentioned in other pages on this website had insisted on driving up from Kilmarnock for a days soaring, and the day he came it was the best weather day too. Geoff had said that if he hadn't had a call from his office to say the circuit boards had arrived, then he probably would have stayed for the weekend instead of leaving on the Friday. It's a good job the boards had arrived because it rained for the whole weekend. I contented myself with familiarising myself with the plan and balsa bits for the "Hi-Lite" chuckie that I had just recently bought from John Stevens. On Sunday afternoon though I got bored of that and decided to take a drive out to where Geoff had got some flights in my absence, for a bit of a reccy. That night (as the previous two nights for that matter) I took a stroll down to my "local". Already the bar staff had got to know me; I love it when you can swig down the last dregs of your Tennants 70 shilling, look up, and your next pint is already being poured! Well what a night. First of all there is this fella playing his guitar and singing bad 60's songs badly. His name was instantly forgettable, not surprisingly so because he was bloody awful; I felt sorry for the two Canadian girls that were watching because after they made a request for a song, he kept picking on them. They smiled sweetly and tried desperately to ignore him! I had made a resolution to go over to chat up the blond one, but I looked up and another pint had appeared on my bar mat. I thought that staggering over and crashing into their table was not going to impress somehow! What a relief then when I noticed the odd local yokel or ten (and I wasn't seeing double!) drift in with guitars, violins, bass, or flute, and even a Bohdran (that Irish drum thing) under their arms. Then suddenly they all converged around the table in front of said awful singer/guitar man and started playing traditional Scottish folk and Irish (wild rover etc) type music. Shame the Canadian girls had already left coz they might of quite liked it…plus I had drunk enough not to have cared if I had careered into their table whilst slurring some very poor chat up line! Yes you are right reader, they had a lucky escape! Monday dawned and the clouds looked less ragged and were actually higher than the tops of the hills opposite our cottage. This was the first promising day so far and so I set out as soon as I could. By the time I had arrived at Ben Lawers, it already looked a bit grey, but none the less I was determined to get some flying in today. I set off up the hill, and Geoff was not kidding when he said it was " a bit of climb!". Within about 2 minutes my feet were soaking because of the rain the previous two days and the state of my very old hiking boots. I think that too much of the "good life" if you can call it that; Hotels, rich food, lots of booze etc. has had a bit of a toll on me because I stopped to "admire the view" so many times that I must have taken nearly 30 mins just to get ¾ the way up! It was at this point that I decided that it was at least worth a chuck from here. I put the Eliminator SR together, did my pre-flight checks, and bunged it off the slope. Well of course it was superb, and I thoroughly enjoyed my first flight in Scotland for a year. After about 15 minutes, I was looking around, not only looking for a place to land (and thinking S**t I will have to land in very strong slope lift on a down slope) but also wishing I was already at the top of the hill! After going downwind for about the fifteenth time very close to the slope as I turn back into wind (you know that when you do this the model automatically zooms up) I decide that a fast "dig in" is what is required……..At least the plastic wing bolts broke as they should do and the wing shot forward without any other damage! A quick repair later saw me hiking up to the very top of the hill where the landing area was not perfect, but at least gave me a chance to make less of a pigs ear of it. I got settled, got ready and had a good 30 mins of flying. The wind was such that the slope gave that unlimited lift where you can indulge in idiotic aerobatics safe in the knowledge that you have enough room to stop and pull out in plenty of time, level the wings and gain 300 feet in seconds. | |
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I made a nice landing too when I was finished, and as I munched through my packed lunch I realised too late, that the last of the good weather was about to disappear! I looked to the hills in the distance, and the tops were already shrouded in cloud. Minutes later it started to spit with rain, and then a shower went through. "Still, it was only a shower, it would pass" I said to myself as I huddled down in my ski suit, getting steadily wetter ! Every now and then I would look up and out at the advancing clouds, sure that it looked clear behind that next shower that was coming through. But no it was not. After about the tenth shower had gone through I trudged back down. By now my feet were wrinkled with moisture and I was so depressed that the only way to overcome it was to treat myself to a new pair of nice waterproof hiking boots, and I resolved to drive to the nearest outdoor shop. It was my Birthday tomorrow after all! Tuesday dawned, thirty five today. Not only was the weather perfect (sun, fluffy white clouds and a good breeze) but I also had a new pair of boots and two bottles of Scotch whisky courtesy of my Mum & Dad and one from Harry (who had lost our Radioglide Bet - for the second time running :-) Harry (who had driven up from Kilmarnock to Crainlarich) and I set out to the Ben Lawers site. I took up my "brace" of Eliminators (100" and SR). Harry took and aild bruiser 60" hybrid and his new Calypso. I didn't think that it would take me as long to get up the hill this time as it did the previous day, but if it were possible it seemed to take longer. Harry seemed to like the very frequent stops that I had to make, in fact it was he that coined the phrase that "I wouldni hear him complaining about the frequent stops to admire the view!" | |
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About three quarters the way up, not too far away from where I had flown the previous day, Harry decides that it is time to fly an aeroplane. I ask him if he is sure, and insist there is a better landing area further up, but Harry is determined to have a go and I am too knackered to argue the point. After about ten minutes or so my friend decides that he has had enough, and it is probably wise to land and head on up to the top. I ask if he has considered where about on this downward facing slope he thinks it best to land. We both laugh, then Harry says "Errrr" as it is his fifth landing circuit. The next thing we know as He takes a brief look back up the slope to plan his next circuit, a funny down draft catches the model and it goes nose in right up to the leading edge and the wing and tailplane break away. Of Course when we get to the top it is absolutely superb, right weather, best direction, good landing area. We both had a fantastic day, I mainly flew the SR as the wind was a touch too strong for the 100" . It was one of those days where you knew when thermal lift came through because you might zoom across the slope at about 50 to 100 metres for ten minutes or so, and then all of a sudden you were fighting to keep the model from being sucked into the sky. When this happened of course it was all out crazy aerobatics; double bunts, inverted stall turns, inverted fast passes. I really got into diving from right to left and then pulling a loop. As I passed inverted and started diving again I would feed in some right aileron so that I came out of the manoeuvre diving across the slope from left to right and I would repeat the same stunt but mirrored, on the other side of the slope. Really quite an easy, but effective and quite pretty schedule. All too soon it was time to head back, I had a birthday meal to get to with Mum & Dad. Harry jokingly said that I could probably fly my 100" back down to the car. No sooner had he said it than I was busily seeing if I could fit my TX case into my rucksack. He was a bit astonished that I was going to attempt it, but you don't joke to me about such feats…I was game. The only down side to this was that I was going to have to wear my all in one ski suit all the way down as I couldn't fit it and the tx case in the ruck sack at the same time. It is hard enough, and sweaty enough work to walk down a hill in shorts and a tee shirt, and so half way down, fully togged up, I thought I was going to melt! There was a moment about 5/6ths of the way down where I thought I was going to have to land before I got to the bottom. However, I was able to push out again and luckily I hit some more lift so that I was stood right at the bottom of the valley adjacent to the road with about 80 feet of height ready to make final approach. I made one downwind turn, lined up and landed at my feet. Happy Birthday to Me! I did go up there again the next day by myself. The wind was not as strong, and the thermals were not as good, but it was a challenge. There is something about flying on your own in wild wilderness like this. It is very different from being with a good friend, which I think is always preferable, but slope soaring on your own can be a very satisfying experience…at least there is no-one else there to mid-air you apart from the golden eagles and buzzards! |
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