FlexiWallop 1 Kite Festival 2005

Middle Wallop, Hampshire - 27th-30th May 2005

I have been hearing tales of Middle Wallop ever since I started flying with the Sheffield Kite Fliers. Normally in May I'm on holiday with my family so have never been able to attend. Last year (2004) I had hoped to go to the August event but was sadly canceled. However this year we weren't on holiday for the May event - and with the permission of my family I sent my application off and got myself a ticket.

Friday 27th May

I had booked the afternoon off work so I could travel down with the others in convoy. As it happened I was late leaving work, got stuck in traffic across Sheffield, was late arriving home and therefore late in setting off. The others set off and waited for me at the Trowell services on the M1. Once all there I was handed a walkie talkie, given basic instructions on it's use and then we were off. Uneventful until where we joined the M40 - I managed to get separated from the others (by going the wrong direction), but then couldn't gain on them due to the heavy traffic around Oxford. Eventually caught up and at about 7:15pm arrived at the gates of Middle Wallop.

There had been a lot of controversy over the arrangements of this Wallop as there had to be greater restrictions this year on numbers and the MOD (who own the site) had reduced the camping area the week before. There were concerns that we wouldn't be able to camp together and we would have to leave the cars a long way off. In the event everything was fine - we could all camp together and the cars were a very short distance away on the Perry track.

Once the tents were erected it was time for a quick fly of the Revolution on the field. Others were static flying traction kites (buggying/boarding was not allowed on Friday). As night was falling I managed to do something I have wanted to do for years: do some night kite flying. I had brought some of those chemical glow sticks with me. As a test I taped 3 sticks to the leading edge of the Custom Revolution SUL using gaffer tape. This worked very well and I had an excellent time flying in the dark. Hard work changing lines over in the dark (thanks Ian for holding the torch!).

Back to the tents for drinks and chats. And listen to some of the others nosily go to bed at 1:00am........

Saturday 28th May

Awoke at 5:00am to the sound of the tent flapping madly. Which turned out to be our 540 banner flapping wildly. Lay listening to the flapping and snapping sounds from outside until 6:00am when I could also listen to the sound of a delta with a flapping trailing edge screeching around the sky. Got the Custom Vented Revolution 1.5 and went outside to fly a kite (which after all is what I was there for!) and boy was that wind strong!

Of course everyone was waiting for 9:00am when the traction field was open - as 9:00am approached more and more people were setting up kites and when the hour came the field at Wallop was covered with kites of all types, colours and sizes. With trepidation and fear I assembled my buggy collected my Airea Raptor II 2.5 (my smallest traction kite). and followed Paul, Andy and others to the slightly quieter part of the field and launched. I have never flown with either so many others fliers and such a strong wind. It was fantastic, if extremely nerve wracking, fun - goodness knows what speed I was going - felt like Warp 10. Which in a basic Peter Lynn Competition ST buggy really does feel like Warp 10. Having to keep my eyes open for others was hard work - especially on the turns. I also had difficulty in the rule (as I understand it) was for boarders to keep their kites high and buggiers to keep their kites low when passing - I found that I was too overpowered if I tried this and so had to keep the kite high. Which caused a few rapid changes of directions for both me and others (sorry if that was you).

When I began to get tired of buggying (I don't use a harness so my arms get exhausted) I would stop, pack the traction stuff away and get the stunt kites out for an hour or so, then pack those away and get the buggy again. This seemed to work well and prevented me from getting too tired.

In the afternoon I wandered over to the STACK field to introduce myself to them as I had been talking to some of them over on the Fractured Axel forum. I had wondered about trying my hand at the Multi-line Individual competition - I was (wisely!) advised to watch for today to get a feel for the competition format. The quality of Revolution flying - both technical and interpretation to music in the ballet section - really showed me I have a lot still to master on the Revolution flying. Chris Goff impressed me with the snappyness of the turns ("You mean the kite isn't meant to bounce up and down? Wow!" and Garry Mathews with his interpretation to music. I will be practicing some more and maybe, just maybe, trying my hand at competing sometime.

After the last buggy blast of the day I collected by stunt kites and flew various ones in the static area - going from the Airbra (and hoping Andy Wardley, the designer of the real Airbow, wasn't there!), to the Custom Synergy Deca, and finishing up with the Flexifoil Fury as the sun was setting. Time for some more chips and a drink then as darkness fell I again tapped glow sticks, this time 7, to the Revolution for a spot more night flying. I don't know how it looked to anyone else but from where I was standing it was very nice indeed. Another chap had a Cody kite decked out with blue and white LED's - this looked beautiful in the sky. Popping back from the toilets sometime past midnight I noticed someone was flying a large foil with the leading edge decked out with different coloured LED's. A nice end to a very tiring day.

Sunday 29th May

Again woke up at 5:00am - this time to an absence of flapping, snapping sounds. Not a breath of wind. Which more or less sums up the whole day. After the 20mph+ winds on Saturday we were lucky to get 2mph. I tried to fly the homemade Nasa Wing 5.40 - which didn't get off the ground due (I think) to the lack of wind and 'issues' with the bridling. Paul flew his 25m NasaWing - which looked very impressive, I flew the Custom Revolution SUL until the wind dropped to nothing at all then I had to change it's sail back to a the official Revolution one which has better performance. Dave amused him self by having a long fly with the Revolution (ironic as I bought it off him 3 years ago). The nearest to traction activities was to take some buggies to the other side of the field where the Perry track went down a slight hill and do some downhill buggying. We ended up trying just about every combination of forward/backwards/standing/sitting possible in the buggy. Backwards buggy races were my favorite.

I had a look around the Museum of Army Flying, which was OK - I'm not into military things so details of past campaigns were not my thing. But at least I could use a real flush toilet. Back at camp chilled out with the others and flew the Guildworks Low Wind 333 quite a bit and watched some Flexifoil blades being flown on 200 odd meter lines.

The evening ended with Dave, Liz, Phil and myself driving over to Stonehenge and Woodhenge to have a look around.

Monday 30th May

I didn't wake up at 5:00am today. It was 4:00am with the bird's dawn chorus. I would have been more impressed if it had been slightly later. Like 9:00am. Vaguely fell asleep again until 5:00am. Again at 9:00am it was again time to play in the traction field - this time using the Ozone Razor 3.5. The wind was much less than Saturday, as was evident by the size of kites out on the field (9m Blades were common). Slightly underpowered with the 3.5, especially going upwind, but fun was had none the less. I ended up using the Perry track (the same as on Sunday) to go upwind - much faster. Even tried it downwind a couple of time but was rather too fast for my taste (I began to wonder just HOW much it would hurt if I fell out at speed on tarmac).

Sadly at midday my time way up, so saying good-bye to the others I packed the car and began the 4 hour trip back to Sheffield to see my family again. And have a shower.