Pensioners spend retirement hovering over North-East town (From The Northern Echo)

Pensioners spend retirement hovering over North-East town

12:17pm Tuesday 3rd January 2012 in Darlington By Chris Webber

Hovering above a North-East town each day is how two pensioners have decided to spend their retirement. Chris Webber meets the two airborne friends, dubbed 'The Flight Engineers'

AS most of us earthbound workers make the daily crawl to work in our cars along gridlocked roads, it is easy to let the mind wander towards the skies.

And the chances are that two old friends, retired engineers Arthur Harrington, 72, and David Clapham, 74, are floating above the Darlington and Newton Aycliffe area, watching us ant-like commuters far below.

Only way to travel: Arthur Harrington in full flight

The men spend just about every hour of half-decent weather “paramotoring” on powered hang-gliders.

And for Mr Harrington it is not the first time the skies have won him attention.

The Darlington pensioner is an amateur inventor and is credited with having made the town’s first electric bike, in the Seventies.

But it was after many years spent sending increasingly sophisticated 3ft rockets into the air that Mr Harrington had an epiphany over his ONLY WAY TO TRAVEL: Arthur Harrington in full flight fascination with the skies.

“The trouble with rockets is that they have all the fun – I’m stuck on the ground,” he said.

The revelation led Mr Harrington to take up hang-gliding, and this quickly became a passion for “paramotoring”, which allows him to also indulge in his other great passions – photography and videography.

His skills in photography led to a stint as librarian with the North Yorks Air Wing Paragliding Club, and it was there he met Mr Clapham, another Darlingtonian and fellow- engineer who retired from Cleveland Bridge after working on a number of major projects, including the arch and roof for the new Wembley stadium.

A farmer whose land is close to the Burtree A1 interchange, west of Darlington, allows the two men to take off from his fields.

“Mind you, you have to know your air law,” said Mr Clapham, who gave up paragliding in favour of the motorised version after crashing through a wall in Morrocco, having previously broken his foot in a crash landing.

“You have to be careful over towns, so in Darlington we need to be 1,000ft above the highest structure, for example the town clock.”

Mr Harrington says that going close to Durham Tees Valley Airport would mean they would have to be 6,000ft high, so both usually stay to the north and west of the town.

Mr Clapham is the more experienced and, by Mr Harrington’s admission, the more adventurous of the two. He has flown extensively over the country, including Wales and the Lake District.

“You can fly at 52mph, but that’s really going for it. It is more usual to fly at about 16 or 18mph. That gives you enough fuel for a couple of hours in the sky,” he said.

A glider costs about £2,400 and an engine about £3,500.

“It’s a fantastic way to spend a retirement,” said Mr Clapham. “Everyone else is going to work while you are soaring high in the skies.”