One kilometre before entering the lake, the beck makes the 20 metres (66 ft) leap down a rocky and steep sided ravine at the falls known as Aira Force.

The water falls approximately 22 metres (72 ft) to a rocky pool, from where the beck continues through a shallow valley to the lake.

In 2015, Ullswater 'Steamers' opened a jetty on the lake shore near Aira Force, making the waterfall accessible by foot passenger ferry from Glenridding.

[8] The Lake Poet William Wordsworth paid many visits to the area around Aira Force; he was probably inspired to write his poem "Daffodils", with the opening line "I wandered lonely as a cloud", as he and Dorothy Wordsworth observed daffodils growing on the shore of Ullswater near where Aira Beck enters the lake near Glencoyne Bay.

[9] The falls themselves are mentioned in three Wordsworth poems, the most famous reference being in "The Somnambulist", where in the final verse he writes: Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834, Airey Force, to an engraving of a painting by Thomas Allom, refers to a legend that a hermit once lived beneath the falls.