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Queen Elizabeth Country Park added to Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in South East by AeroJ on 11/08/2024

The South Downs contains a good few spectacular locations along its length, and Butser gets a lot of attention for being among the tallest and most open of them.

But the neighbouring peak of Butser is a slightly lower, almost entirely tree-covered hill where we find QECP, Petersfield's main big out-of-town country park, which deserves a pin on the map because it will occur to many to try and fly here, but we should be aware of the challenges in advance...

Parking is expensive if you bring the car, but bikes (and EUCs) get in free if you are up to the 400 ft climb to the top of the hill with another mile or 2 to go to the fly site once you get there ! Toilets and cafe facilities open within normal park sort of hours (also expensive !). The Park does not have any 'no drones' signs (as of Aug 2024), and I believe it's fine as long as you don't hang around the busy picnic and pizza oven areas at peak times. These border the closest TOAL field right next to the car park and make that one the least preferable of the 3 or 4 available - the others don't generally have stationary groups of people in them !

There ARE spectacular views available here, just not as many as you'd think ! It is MAINLY about the trees and sheer amount of them ! And it's quite a challenging place to fly for number of reasons I will briefly mention below.

All 3 of the potential fly sites are right at the top of the hill and are variously sized fields that adjoin the main gravel track running all the way along the main ridge from the upper car park to Wardown, which is the highest point of and end of the hill. The best place to fly from is undoubtedly the largest field, furthest from the car park (about 1.5km walk), and just before the hill drops off into the Wardown viewpoint (which is almost entirely obscured from view by trees from the ground). THIS is the view we want though and is a stunning vista back towards the town, in which we have imposing Butser on the left, the chalk quarry and town in front, and the A3 carving between the 2 hills, and vast, lush tree canopy in the foreground. This looks AMAZING in Autumn.

But the Achilles heel, so to speak, of this site is the fact that each of these TOAL fields are surrounded by tall trees, seriously limiting the amount of horizontal travel we have, even at some height without losing VLOS. The ONE exception is if you get your UV to follow the main track all the way along the hill ridge, which will give a long continuous shot with clear views of craft all the way along if you follow it on foot and lovely wooded drop-offs on both sides once you get about 100 ft above the tree-line.

We do get some RAF traffic appearing low over those trees on occasions, so good to notify them of any flights you may be intending to make here in advance. We also have to watch out for excess wind, which may seem calm at ground level, but can become suddenly huge as soon as you emerge from the canopy, where you are subject to a powerful prevailing wind that gets channelled along the A3 between the 2 hills. Although updrafts from this do get diffused by the woodland to some extent, some skim above it and can catch you, making descent a bit sketchy if you try it in the wrong places or need it in a hurry, so this is actually quite a challenging place to fly because you don't have much chance to see things coming and winds are unpredictable and powerful ! My advice is 'don't run low on power here - land well early'. The main risk is being blown out of VLOS for craft that can't handle big wind. I will only fly my M4P here on the very calmest of days.

A valid question to ask might be why you would fly here, when there is even bigger hill Butser right next door, which is a relatively easy-fly, vastly wide open space, with amazing all-round visibility wherever you fly on it, and I would have to agree !

QECP is for specialists, who want tree-lined ridges in certain lights, (and ones tall enough to poke through clouds occasionally) and who want to actually fly IN the woods where there are helpfully widely spaced and nicely managed trees and a number of interesting things to film including assault courses, bike trails, epic drop-offs and several crafty type play areas with rope swings and bridges and what-not. Looks great in golden hour. FPVers would have a ball in the woods if the light was right...

View and discuss this location in more detail on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 50.97363, -0.967226 • what3words: ///logs.marching.relations
The originator declared that this location was not inside a Flight Restriction Zone at the time of being flown on 10/08/2024. It remains the responsibility of any pilot to check for any changes before flying at the same location. Landowner permission may be required before taking off.

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St Luke’s Bombed Out Church, Liverpool (By Heading270)

A hidden gem in the middle of Liverpool. St Luke’s Church has stood since 1831, but the interior was destroyed during the Blitz of May 1941.
Left derelict for 60 years as just a shell, the local community has brought this place back to life, transforming it into a thriving hub of culture which plays host to art, dance, music & other events.
It gets busy, so get there early or late when the grounds are closed to the public.
There’s on-street parking nearby.

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 53.40169, -2.975179 • what3words: ///soils.spirit.hugs
Portchester Castle and Portsmouth Harbour, Fareham (By macspite)

Roman walls enclosing a 12th century church and 11th century Norman keep, the site of the largest, best preserved Roman Fort in Britain with views of Portsmouyh Harbour, to the North, East and South.

It's an English Heritage site, closing at 17:00 so no problems with overflying in the evening. Convenient car park for TOAL, £1.10 per hour until 18:00 . No height restrictions. The car park has a grassy area adjacent to the north with fairly open views for VLOS. The industrial units to the north are worth a look - a boat "hangar" and a hovercraft manufacturer. Across the haarbour to the east is PortSolent, upmarket houses, shops and a Marina and the Services Diving School - a long narrow artificial lake lnown to generations of diving matelots and civilians alike. To the south are the Royal Navy facilities in Portsmouth and in Gosport, normally several ships of the Grey Funnel line to be seen (in the distance!)

There is a gastro-pub about 200 yards distance in Castle sStreet (The Comorant). Not yet tried.

It's close to an FRZ which is for Fleetlands helicopter repair facility, they tend to be active Monday to Friday 9 to 5. Cobntact them if you think you may be straying into their airspace

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 50.83805, -1.114679 • what3words: ///penny.kite.simple
Four Barrows, Kennet (By gasbag43)

Barrow Cemetery in Wiltshire, 2500 - 1500 BC. A very well preserved collection of four linear barrows (three bell, one bowl) south of Sugar Hill, north of Aldbourne with their interconnected ditches and berms intact.

The monument is aligned along the crest of a prominent ridge-top and on the opposite side of a dry valley from a second barrow cemetery.

The contents of these Barrows are now in the British Museum. Three of the four barrows are of the Wessex bell type of barrow these are eight to ten feet high. The fourth is an ordinary bowl shaped mound, also ten feet high.

Excavations near the end of the 19th century revealed evidence of cremations and a skeleton. Other finds included amber, beads, flint arrowheads, fragments of greenstone axe and a grooved dagger.

Lovely walk out to the Barrows from the picturesque postcard village of Aldbourne with great views of an ancient landscape below overlaid on to a modern agricultural setting

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.49417, -1.642435 • what3words: ///stability.ruffling.sampled
St Michael's Church, Aldbourne, Kennet (By gasbag43)

Aldbourne has a long and varied history. There are signs of activity in the area from the mesolithic period onwards (from 10,000 to 4,000 BC). Occupation in the village area dates from at least the early Romano-British period.

The 12th-century church of St Michael's stands on a low rise at one end of the elongated village green in Aldbourne, creating a picture-postcard scene of an English countryside village idyll. Period cottages line the green, and a cosy pub looks out past an old preaching cross towards the church.

It is a lovely building of some considerable size. Much of what one can see today dates from the 13th to the 15th centuries and is in a Gothic style, but there are parts of a Norman church incorporated in the current building.

There has been a church on this site since before the Domesday Book. There are bits of Norman decorative stonework in the south doorway arch and further stonework inside the church. The Wiltshire Community History project suggests that there was a wooden church here as early as 966 AD, and a church is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

TV fans and those with an interest in military WW2 history may recognise the name of the village as home to “The Band of Brothers” - Easy Company were stationed at Aldbourne and were immortalised in Stephen Spielberg's hit American TV series

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.48074, -1.621379 • what3words: ///unopposed.issued.tagging
Kirby Hall, Corby, Corby (By D0c.Col)

Built in 1570, this grand Elizabethan mansion was meant to impress — and it still does, even in ruin. It began as a vision by Sir Humphrey Stafford, however, regrettably he tragically died without ever seeing it fully completed. In 1575, the nearly finished house was bought by Sir Christopher Hatton.

The hall was stabilized in the 20th century and Rather than restore the entire building to its original state, conservationists embraced a “romantic ruin” approach — preserving its grandeur while allowing the passage of time to be part of its story.
The roofless wings and decayed sections were stabilized, while some key rooms (like the Great Hall and state apartments) were restored to reflect their late 17th- and 18th-century appearances.

Today, cared for by English Heritage, Kirby Hall stands in elegant ruin — part stately home, part ghost of glory. A place where echoes live on in stone, shadow, and story.

The carpark is easily located and signposted so shouldn't be an issue. There is a public path that runs passed the hall and the EH Ticket office and I TOAL in the field entered through the gate next to the ticket office hut. Great line of sight from here.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/kirby-hall/plan-your-visit/facilities/

There is a vending machine there, toilets and wheelchair access too.

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 52.52392, -0.636341 • what3words: ///magically.stored.taxi
Buxbury Hill tumulus, Salisbury (By gasbag43)

Buxbury Hill Tumulus, also known as a round barrow, is a prehistoric burial mound located on Buxbury Hill in Sutton Mandeville, Wiltshire.


It's a scheduled monument and is situated in an area of undulating chalk downland with views of the Wylye Valley. The tumulus is a wooded conical mound, approximately 25 meters in diameter and about 2 meters high. It's a prominent feature in the landscape and is visible from the foot of the hill and indeed the main A30 road.

Looking at the local OS map, there are a number of other long barrows on the same escarpment close by, but this looks to be the largest (and most visible) of the cluster.

At the base of the hill on which it is located is the regimental badge of the Warwickshire regiment. Its origin is the same as the better known series of badges cut into the hillside 2 miles further down the road in Fovant – there were created by soldiers garrisoned nearby, and waiting to go to France, during the First World War.

While I was aware of the Fovant badges and their story and visited them several times in the past, I hadn’t appreciated how large the garrison camps must have been along the valley to have stretched this far down the valley. It is recorded that in excess of 20,000 soldiers would have been based there at any one time.

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.04152, -2.023759 • what3words: ///airtime.charmingly.helpfully
Compton Park House, Salisbury (By gasbag43)

Compton Park House is a Grade I listed manor house in Compton Chamberlayne in Wiltshire, about 7 miles (11 km) east of Salisbury. It was built circa 1600

It was the seat of the Penruddocke (or Penruddock) family from the mid-16th century until 1930. They were a notable Royalist family, with Colonel John Penruddock, an owner of the house, being the namesake for the failed 1655 Penruddock uprising against Oliver Cromwell. For this he was tried and executed at Exeter on 16 May 1655.

The present house occupies the site of a medieval manor house. It has been a Grade I listed building since 1960.

The house is set in parkland, once a medieval deer park, overlooking a lake formed by damming a stream running north into the River Nadder. The park contains a folly in the form of a summer house (the folly is marked separately on Drone Scene but having flown around it, its not as impressive a sight as the house, gardens and lake).

In the foreground of the shot is the 13th century church of St Michaels built when Salisbury Cathedral was rising ten miles away. The church is thus three hundred years older than the great house which, with it, dominates and graces the valley.

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.07026, -1.959343 • what3words: ///forgives.daylight.flow
Bury Hill Camp, South Gloucestershire (By gasbag43)

Bury Hill is an Iron-Age hillfort delineated by bivallate defences (i.e. (2 walls) enclosing an ovoid area with three entrances situated at the western end of a low promontory overlooking the River Frome.

The Iron Age fort was built about 700 BC. The double earth ramparts are well preserved except on the western side. One side of the fort is along a steep hill edge above the River Frome, the other 3 sides are flat. The flat sides have been destroyed by quarrying. There is a central ditch, with ramparts built on both the inner and outer sides of the ditches.

Occupation of the site began much earlier than the building of the fort in the palaeolithic period (between 3.3m and 11650 years ago) evidenced by a general spread of flint chippings and an edged blade, while a polished stone mace-head attests to activity during the Mesolithic (10000 to 4000 years BC).

The next confirmed occupation being during the Iron-Age when the visible defences were constructed. After a period of inactivity, the site was seemingly reoccupied during the latter part of Roman rule in Britain, as evidenced by a number of pottery finds recovered from within the defended area dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.50982, -2.502286 • what3words: ///dunes.universally.villa
Streatham Common, Lambeth (By grandad1950)

Streatham common is a very large public open space in the centre of Streatham south London with lots of space to fly.

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.42184, -0.12674 • what3words: ///magic.rides.stow
Cublington Spinney and Airport Monument, Aylesbury Vale (By BituWilliams)

This a secluded little spinney that no one really knows about. I never see anyone there. There is seating and lots of trees along with some wires.

This is a great location to go if you want to train your FPV drone and only really worry about hitting trees and not other people or buildings. There are three parts to the spinney where you can train by dodging benches, trees, small wooden huts etc..

You can bring the family. The kids can run around =, whilst you fly and someone else watches as your spotter.

View and discuss this location on Grey Arrows.

Co-ordinates: 51.9113, -0.777093 • what3words: ///exulted.swatting.masterpiece

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