Camphill is a hill top site on the south-west corner of a plateau with three sides forming appreciable slopes to the North, West and South. The East side is cleft by a valley that runs down to join the Hope Valley (of telephone exchange fame) at Hathersage. The major slopes all produce good lift and hill soaring is available straight off the top of a launch in winds from northerly through west to southerly.

 

To the north of Camphill, as well as the Hope Valley, there is Edale Valley and the valleys containing the Ladybower, Derwent and Howden reservoirs. All have soarable slopes usable in one wind direction or another. Soaring these is not difficult and is fully described in the club's Pilots Manual - as are the local landing fields which are not as small as is rumoured!

The prime wave generators are the flanks of the Pennines. However at a lower level each major hill produces some local wave which usually feeds into the main wave at some point where they are in phase with each other. Camphill, in the heart of the Peak District, is so situated that our hill lift is nearly always in phase with the best waves that are generated in winds from southwest to northwest. Frequently a winch launch to 400ft or so is all it takes to start a flight that may take you to levels where oxygen is required and you can venture forth to join the pilots from Sutton Bank at Thirsk flying in wave over the North Yorkshire Moors.

 

Our good climbs are made to the East where the cloud gaps tend to be bigger and the airspace more open. Although the best wave is in winds predominantly from the west, just as there is a soarable hill accessible from Camphill in any wind direction there is accessible wave in most wind directions as well. You just may have to make a step to a local hill to find the way into it. Silver, gold and diamond heights are all to be had at Camphill within gliding range of the site, cloud cover notwithstanding. The height record for Camphill is 23,000ft. The only real limiting factor to high wave soaring over the Peak District is the presence of controlled airspace above and to the west, related to the Manchester CTA.

From our airfield at Camphill we regard the area from North Yorkshire down to Cambridge in the South, and South Wales as our back yard for thermal cross countries. However thermal flying in the hilly country is very different from that over flatter terrain. The hill slopes catch the sun's rays earlier than the flatlands and correspondingly do so as the day ends so the thermal activity is often prolonged. There is frequently a breeze and often superimposed wave. Flying at Camphill is characterised by a rich mixture of all three classical forms of soaring which is challenging, rewarding and endlessly fascinating.

 

Because of the influence of the wind and hills the thermals often behave unpredictably, or so it seems. Learning the way they behave and developing the skills to successfully soar them and use them as the stepping stones into the lee wave is one of the reasons why Camphill is one of the uniquely interesting and challenging gliding sites in England .