UKMSG (UK Mountain Soaring Group, formerly Eden Soaring Society)
We are a group of friends who love the beauty of gliding on ridges, hills and mountains.We prefer to launch directly into those areas, preferably by our bungey, winch or (modified) auto-tow kit from what we call “expedition sites”. We usually take off from fields and land in fields, though we sometimes meet up at gliding clubs based in the hills.
This kind of launching was “mainstream” in the early days of gliding, but has been overtaken in volume by launching from more “regular” and less challenging sites. We founded a new “mainstream” site at Skelling Farm near Penrith (“Edensoaring”) in 2007 on the back of our expedition activities in the Northern Lake District (we operated as “Eden Soaring Society” 1985 to 2016, changing our name, for clarity, to UK Mountain Soaring Group in 2016). A fuller account of our history is in the “history” section of the website.
We have no hierarchy, all members are mutually helpful to each other in enjoying this flying, and are “self-authorising”, taking responsibility for their own fitness, currency, and preparation for their own flying. We are committed to flying safely and within Aviation Law. We recognise the value of the information in the BGA Laws and Rules and the procedures based on the desire to minimise risk of accidents. Without exception, the members also gain from, and contribute to, clubs of the British Gliding Association. Between us, we have enormous experience, but welcome interested but less experienced pilots if they wish to learn by drawing on our experience. We do not have any extra “flying rules” to those mentioned above, except to hope that pilots will not try ( and invariably fail) to bend the laws of physics. A safety assessment and discussion is always the precursor to any launching.
Our “home” is the Lake District, but we will launch and fly in other hilly or mountainous areas of the UK. We also make forays into other countries.
We hope the mutual benefit of association will lead to affiliation with the BGA at some stage in the future.
PSW. Jan 2017