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John Richard (Rick) Ware
'In February 1975 in response to a Scarborough newspaper advert myself and 5 others met up with Dr Richard Arnot who had just started hang gliding and wanted company. Suitably inspired by his introductory talk us we bought McBroom Argus's through him, found a hill and followed the A4 sheet of instructions. Truly a crash course, but by Summer I was still alive and proficient enough to come nowhere in the BHPA competition at Mere; but I did witness Bob Will's famous one-foot-on-the-nail landing.
We had started a club which we named after local aviation pioneer, Sir George Cayley and flew mainly at the Hole-of Horcum, Pickering. Apart from the 'Brooksticks' the other glider mainly used was the Skyhook 3A. Robert Bailey from Leeds pioneered coastal soaring using cliffs between Scarborough and Filey where we could soar all day in the sea breezes.
A few gliders later in 1977 I joined that brilliant traveling circus which was Brian Milton's National League and flew with the 'sky-gods', Brian Woods, Johnny Carr, Bob Calvert et al which had only read about in WINGS magazine.
With support from Graham Slater's Ultrasports I began instructing and opened the Northern Hang Gliding Centre with Ian Currer as CFI until I was qualified. Around 1985 I sold the school to Ian and worked as locum CFI to Joint Services HG Centre, High Adventure and Wiltshire Hang Gliding Centre.
At some point I bought a second-hand Hiway trike which I slung under a beefed-up Chargus Vortex and happily around in flew that. Nowadays the very thought of it makes me shudder.
One of the many highlights was meeting Dr Francis Rogallo in 1988 at his home near Kittyhawk together with Mark Dale and Ian Currer. Thank you Granada Television.
In 1992 I gained a senior instructor rating in paragliding and instructed in both disciplines at WHGC before joining Dave Sollom at Paravion and didn't fly a hang glider for about 6years.
When Dave imported the first Flight Design Exxtacy it was therefore a great act of faith to let me fly it from Pandy . The performance was incredible, a huge leap forwards and I thought how far away it was from the triangle of cloth with a ping-pong ball suspended beneath which Francis Rogallo showed us which had kicked-off our amazing sport.'
To enlarge click on photo repeat to shrink
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L to R Mark Dale, Francis Rogallo, me, Ian Currer. See article page 7, Skywings! Sept 1988 |
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McBroom Argus. 1975 |
Hiway Cloudbase 1976 | McBroom Cobra. 1976 |
Chargus Midas E. | |||||||
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| U.P. Mosquito the only one in UK 1980 | Competition stickers. | Membership cards | Pilot Rating signed by Ann Welch and Francis Rogallo |
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| Badges |
Photos from Rick Ware
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