There is a certain ecstasy in flight. Travel with no constraints of speed, boundary or traffic, surmounting geography without effort, looking down like a god or a hawk.

The best place to do this is the Lake District, where I went in June. Modern autogyros (also called gyrocopters) are usually slender aircraft about 3ft wide and 15ft long.

They have no wings. Instead, an unpowered rotor provides lift and a small engine and propeller at the back give forward speed.

Recent video of Lake District autogyro flight:

The delights of our flight were marvellous: floating buoyant in the summer air, deftly absorbing or avoiding updrafts and downdrafts, thrumming softly over the tapestry of lakes and fells, skimming steep, dun-coloured slopes or the meadows where poets wandered, Ruskin enthused and Beatrix Potter conjured small animals to human life.

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