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Summer is here!!....Who's been flying??


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Summer..... Summer SUMMER....... your 'avin a laff!!

Three or four of us brave/hardy/stupid people braved the field yesterday, wind gusting averaging 10mph gusting to 20mph, I had a couple of flights but wind was rising all the time when I saw it hit 25mph it was a case of hmm shall we run away before we crash? - We did

Today, as Sods Law decrees... almost no wind, but cold and wet.... and I have the heating on in June

Dont talk to me about SUMMER......

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Where do you live exactly? I need to send you hate mail! devil

Seriously though, you have a marvellous facility to fly from and I don't blame you for showing it off. thumbs up

It's 21°C here at the moment with a light breeze, so it's warm enough, it's just the ruddy rain and clouds!

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I didn't have much time this morning but I got a couple of flights in on my Multiplex Gemini before taking a beginner up flying a Seagull E pioneer, not had a go with one of these before but it flew very nicely.

It looks windy tomorrow so I think the only action will be the final couple of running in tanks on my Saito 115, this is destined to live in a seagull sky bolt when they arrive in the UK.

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Not much flying in the last few weeks due to wind/drizzle/rain, apart for a great Sunday morning a few weeks ago with a busy field and doing more spectating than flying due to great aircraft such as a Boomerang Jet superbly flown and a maiden of a great looking Hawker Typhoon warbird.

Decided to get down to the club field this morning despite the higher than normally comfortable winds/ gusts and try and get my newly acquired but well used Axion Laser Arrow Delta into the air, ( having tried to lone hand launch last week for the first time ever with a half roll and dive directly into the ground )

Anyway, only one at the club and having gone through and dispensed with the experimental and unsatisfactory stage of fitting tricicle landing gear to it, I got it lone hand launched into a pretty brisk wind, and three batteries worth of flying later came away with a big grin on my face. Though a bit under-powered ,previous owner had 4S - I have 3S  and a handful in the wind it looked good in the air and was great fun.

 

 

Edited By Bravo Delta on 21/06/2015 13:10:28

Edited By Bravo Delta on 21/06/2015 13:10:42

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Yesterday, Saturday, was the first opportunity to get out for me this week. The weather forecast was excellent, starting of dull, improving as the day progressed. On that basis I was not in the slightest bit bothered that the air was damp in feel as i walked to get my newspaper, only being slightly more bothered as the damp feel changed to ultra fine drizzle as I walked back home. Then looking out of the house window, a little later it was raining, hmmm.

By mid afternoon there was intermittent drizzle, which was enough of an excuse to make my way to our flying field, where it was now not only yet again drizzling, but windy. So much for the Beebs weather forecasting. Arriving another three modellers had a similar idea, beating me there and also harboured a desire to fly a model. Eventually we managed to convince each other that we should go up from the car park to our flying field.

Although it was madness i was desperate to fly my trainer, which I had recently crashed, as i sought reassurance that the repair was fine, and that I had retained the accuracy and trueness of build of the original. By the time I had sorted myself out, checked carefully the models control movements, one model was already in the air for a good 2-3 minutes. Having satisfied myself everything was OK, I pushed the left stick fully forward, until it was bending under the pressure, the model raced across the grass, slightly down hill, with the prop catching the grass as it went. All the while the model wriggled and squirmed first this way, then that way. Then the prop really caught the grass, and I brought it to a halt. On the field I shouted, retrieved the model, and readied myself to start again.

By now the fine drizzle had returned. I pondered I had not applied enough up elevator to take the load of the nose wheel, deciding a little more back stick was required. Beyond that i thought no more about the take of attempt. Once more I pushed the left stick forward, with slightly more back stick, the model lifted of and the climb out commenced. At some height I eased of the up on the right stick, only for the model to nose down determinedly, also the model was turning strongly to either the left or right, I cannot remember which. I immediately shouted out I had a problem, as I assessed the situation, whilst struggling for height and flying an approximate circuit.

Now at some height i had a clearer mind. I decided to deal with the diving first, with my left hand held the up trim button in. let go, the model was still diving, the process was repeated. I now had a reasonable pitch setting. I repeated the same process with the ailerons. Now the model was flying OK up to a point. The drizzle had increased, my flying companion shouted landing. I was now in a position to trim out the model a little more accurately. With the wet and the wind, it was my turn to shout landing and landed with no great fuss, other than my soft nose wheel , prevented a full taxi back towards the pits, even with quite a bit of up held in, the propeller caught, the model rocked forwards and stopped, I then walked, "shouting on the field".

Now in the pits, the final model made its return to tera firma.

All recognising that the BBC Weather report had yet again failed us, we all climbed in our cars and returned home. In my case in time for the Austrian F1 qualifying.

I now need to make the trim changes permanent on the model, as both the elevator and aileron trims are nearly of scale. So much for my skill as a builder, maintaining the original geometry.

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Posted by brfc7 on 16/06/2015 09:05:12:

And also tried my Nexus heli that for the last 10 years is brought out once every few months and works without a problem but today it decided to strip the main gear crying Now trying to get a replacement one without having to pay three times the original cost.

baz

Well managed to get a replacement main gear for my Nexus after a lot of searching, luckily a brand new in packet one had been put up on ebay £25.00 smile o Also having a bit think of how the break happened I remembered that I was hovering at about 1 foot of the ground when all of a sudden the tail massively went sideways so I cut the throttle and she came down level but the tail blades struck the ground,, so this will have caused the damage to the gear. So on investigation I've found that my tail servo is intermittently working when you move its wire. So took servo out of body and took it apart. I found the signal wire had completely come off the circuit board angry So in with a new servo and all is well yes I'll solder the wire back on another day

img_1797.jpg

baz

Edited By brfc7 on 23/06/2015 09:19:14

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Finished work early and had some cracking flights with my Hangar 9 Katana , then had a couple of flights with a learner. Great day with good company.

That's it for me until mid July , my next flight will be on an Airbus heading south for some sun sea and a beer or three.

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Had a very pleasant 4 hours today, no rain and almost no wind - which makes a change!) - One alarming incident though about 12:30 when a large round yellow thing overflew the patch at a very high altitude, to our relief this didn't last long and a quick check on Google revealed the culprit to be that rare visitor to the UK, the sun........

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Just had a great evening...hardly any wind and the sun came out (bit of a novelty this year!!). Only two of us,so flight after flight. All looking fair for Thursday evening too.laugh

Andrew

ooh!...almost forgot.....i didn't break anything either!!

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Great night at blyth last night, 10-15 members present and mostly all flying including 3 students taking turns on our club trainer yes

Personally I flew my Dave Smith Panther for one 12 minute flight which flys like it's on rails and then I concentrated on my Nexus heli. I had two 15 minute flights with it. The first was mainly hovering and small side to side movements just as a shake down due to replacing the main gear and tail servo the previous night. Then the second flight being a full circuits flight. Was great to really get her wound up along the runway, not bad for a heli that must be over 20 years old.

baz

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A few of us decided to have a little excursion today ..........we went here.

cl4 copy.jpg

cl1 copy.jpg

The intention was to try to video the castle from the air using Mobius cameras. We were only somewhat successful as we were concerned about flying too close to the castle, and people visiting, etc. Additionally the landing site was a fair distance from the castle and the models became quite small very quickly.

We do plan to go again though and search for a more suitable position from which to take off/land and which provides more opportunities to take advantage of the slope and the breathtaking view beyond.

Steve.

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Hands up those with Heyfever! I bet I am not the only one. This year has affected me much more than is usual, I guess the wet, cold weather and now the sudden appearance of the Golden Globe, warm weather, has great clouds of pollen visible in some lights.

So going down to the field today is intended to be a 1 hr, stint. Also due to the critical need not to land out or crash, I would ned to fly conservatively.

Then there was another aspect, all the models taken had had some issue, and these were essentially proving flights. The first was the Delta, which had some very minor damage repaired. The second the HZ Albertros, which has a replacement battery, not one of the 3 off new Turnigy 2200 lipos, as they will not fit. I have had to pinch a Zippy of the same size removed from another model, the question here will it last the 5minutes and deliver the current required. The final model is my trainer extensively repaired body and the previous test flight was way out of trim. I had set the servo central and then adjusted the clevis mechanically.

My flying went well, all seeming to be OK, allthough the trainer seems unstable laterally, even though the ailerons have exponetial of 50%.

For once nothing much seemed to go wrong for anybody.

As for the Hayfever, I needed a shower because of the pollen, plus i was rather sticky.

The sun has now gone, the clouds have once more rolled in and there is a threat of rain, perhaps heavy.

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Flew today (and yesterday). Today was somewhat variable, with spaced out punch gusts at near 90 degrees to the steady flow in between.

As usual my 91 powered Panic with paddle blade low pitch prop was the weapon of choice, and lots of touch and go's with vertical half throttle rolling climb outs ensued with knife edge at idle gliding turns tight to the strip on landing. I must be very odd as I enjoy landings and usually do at least ten per "flight", whereas everyone else I know tends to treat a landing like a trip to the dentist.

Flew the Irvine 39 powered Cougar, too.

The usual culprit, a "full scale" twin seat Spitfire was circulating a lot. I know they charge a lot to fly very (VERY) briefly in it, but the thought of what all those landing gear impacts on the airframe must do makes me wince. Shows how variable it was as they were altering the T.O. runway almost every flight.

Lost a while trying to get a friends errant WOT4 FoamE out of a tree (which was managed when hanging by its u/c in foliage we could only just "shake" it (with a lofted up roofrack strap "rope" eventually through persistence moved out to release the prop enough to pull itself out inverted). Personally I thought it looked better up the tree, but hey, 40,000 Frenchmen can't be wrong, can they? wink 2

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Got one 12 minute flight in with my nexus heli tonight between showers yes Really loving flying it at the minute. Although I need to catch up with some of the other lads that fly helis in my club as need a bit of help with the tail as it just doesn't yaw as quick as I'd expect. So I'm thinking the gyro is trying to cancel out my imput of full yaw.

baz

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Up here in the Great Northern Powerhouse, it has been really hot.

On Sunday I think it was we saw the Vulcan in the distance circle Barton Airport (the first Manchester airport) then saw it fly off towards Woodford, its birthplace. Unfortunately all at a distance, all very, quiet. I did fly, although a bit windy.

Today, was my first day out into the great outdoors, being a hay fever sufferer, I do limit my forays. There were 3 of us at the field, but the heat.

As I prepared for my first flight a helicopter went up. So as not to interfere with it, I stayed down, casually watched it, from time to time. Then there was a fawk, looking round, the coptor had buried itself, a little mangeled, although it was a mangled blade that made things look worse than it probably was. Apparently, the tail rotor stopped responding and then the rest is now history.

As for me, again i flew my delta. I have become very cautious as to where I fly, as landing out, has such horrendous implications to me, that caution is the better part of valour. I did practise a few manoeuvres to widen my repertoire. then landed.

A wot four, i think it is, a biplane went up, did a few circuits and landed.

Yet the main story was the heat, so hot we all decided that enough was enough and we just went home.crying 2

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Avoided the field as I guessed it may be even hotter than the rear garden!.. Replumbed a fuel tank and set up the idle on the motor, set up a leccy glider for soaring duties tomorrow as this temp drops... hot

Two gallons of fuel inbound via Mssrs UPS tomorrow..... all gear on over night trickle charge... yes

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Has no one been flying in this glorious weather for this year?

In my case I have been out a number of times, in many cases talking and discussing amongst other things the NFC, not much flyingembarrassed. Well that discussion is behind us for now.

At my club with UC type models, the steady sacrifices to the river and jungle gods continue. Three models disappearing this week, one of which twice. That has been rescued the first time, the fate in this latest incident, is still to be told. The other model seems to be lost forever.

The difficulties with this field have encouraged a very cautious approach to flying by me. I now only (well try to) fly over the mowed and shorter grass area, that is waist high on flat land.

Non the less Sunday nearly ended in tragedy, I had done all my normal, that is easy manoeuvres, a good few rolls, a number of loops, returns by 3/4 loop and rolling out, and my preferred pull up to 45 degrees, roll inverted and pull through to horizontal. It was now that i made my almost fatal manoeuvre, I rolled inverted, and found the model just, started spinning, up side down. As fast as a spitting Cobra on a freezing cold day, I did nothing. Finally I may have done something, as the model was right way up and now flying, having lost half its height. I was so shaken, I had no option but to repeat the process, a couple of times, this time fortunately without the spin. The first, inverted for a few hundred feet, the second or may be third the whole length of the field.

I did ponder subsequently what was going wrong, with the model (it could not possibly be me).

I am beginning to think it is both the wing planform and section offer clues.

As can be seen the section is a KF-3. When I role inverted, the model has a tendency to start a dive. My response is to push the stick forward, if done carelessly, that is without finesse, the model can now pitch up. I think I have managed to stall it. Although I used the KF-3 for ease of build, I am not convinced it is as good as a conventional section

I have also noticed in the past, that if flown very slowly, that the model will suddenly fall out of the sky, just like dropping a plate. It drops to earth with a flop. Under these circumstances, even full power does not seem to get the model flying again, certainly not low down. Also the flying surfaces elevons are totally unresponsive.

So another lesson noted, if not learnt, I need to be careful not to stall the model by over controlling when going inverted, even at speed, it seems to stall at a modest AOA.

But I did have a good time.smiley

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I had a very pleasant day at the field on Sunday - until it got very grey, wet and windy! I had converted my Schweighofer Cularis ARTF from IC using an OS61SF and pipe to electric with an SK3-5055 motor running on 6S. I've got to say it was a bit of a revelation as it's the first time I've been able to do such a direct comparison between IC and electric. No mess, all that's needed is the model, batteries and transmitter and the performance was just as good as with IC. Against that was the loss of the starting and tuning ritual, the negative aural experience and a lack of duration. Also the trim didn't alter throughout the flight, most odd.

The other model I took was the Weston cougar 2000 with a nice smelly, oily ASP36 that starts with a backflick almost every time, a great fun model that'll cope with most conditions and do a fair impression of a helicopter even with me on the sticks.

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Having finally seen off the last of his summer visitors and other diversions, Terry rang a couple of days ago to fix up a visit for an afternoon of flying and catching up on the goss. Today was forecast to be a very pleasant 24C after what seems like weeks of 30+C temps, so we took the chance to fly without being roasted or bitten to death by those nasty green-eyed horseflies that won't take a slap for an answer....face 7

Unfortunately the wind strength was considerably stronger than forecast, from a NW direction, which produces a vicious rotor over the patch from the stand of trees behind the house, making landing something of a lottery. Anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so a selection of models were readied for action:

pic_0273.jpg

Spacewalker, Radjet, Reichard Champion, Phoenix 2000, E-Flite Cub 25 and VMAR RF4.

Problems with the Radjet's ESC last time Terry came up meant that today was the first time he'd seen it fly and it's a good starter to get the fingers working. It's also little affected by the turbulence, so that got us under way. Lots of rolls, loops and whizzing around but not much else to report there.

Next up was the Cub and the RF4. Terry was using a new Lipo and was seriously impressed by the climb-rate, which was most un-Cub-likesmile A few seconds climb found him in a bit of slope-lift off the trees and careful tracking found him almost stationary in the headwind at a couple of hundred feet.

The RF4, once a twitchy beastie, has been transformed with the installation of an Orange stabiliser and coped admirably with the conditions, to the extent that I managed to pull off one of the best landings for a long time - the swirling, gusting wind right down the strip at the time and she just gently touched down on the maInwheel, ran about 6" and stopped.....smile d

Gliding time next, with the P2k and the Champion, which did not enjoy the conditions, I must say. Small ailerons on an elliptical wing with a relatively small rudder made it quite unresponsive to gusts and the landing, although without damage, was a tad messy....sad

Before that happened however, I sensed rather than saw Terry leaping about behind me and then heard and felt the unmistakable scrunch of a model as it slid along the ground and collided gently with my sandal - my attention was elsewhere at the time! Next thing I see is Terry wandering off down the hill, returning a few minutes later with the P2k's prop, spinner and part-motor shaft in his hand......smile p

Spacewalker time and I was rather more confident of its ability to cope with the conditions. Although designated as an EP by Hobbyking, it's a pretty solid, weighty model and she can be blatted about the sky in a very un-Spacewalker-like fashionembarrassed This time, all went well until on the second landing attempt, a very large chunk of downward-going air pushed her into the long grass a yard short of the strip, splaying the u/c, which now deserves a bit of TLC.

The fun wasn't over, though. The Cub was keen to show its paces again and Terry took off, apparently directly into wind, parallel to the house. Now, I'm not sure why it happened but upon leaving the ground, the Cub turned right, cartwheeled on the bank, vaulted the fence and ended up in the pool....smile o

Terry immediately blamed me for confirming his decision to take off into wind, naturally - but I have broad shoulderssmile

Walking round, we found the Cub in the middle of the pool, which, by good fortune, was wearing its bubble cover. Just out of reach from the margins, Terry nonchalantly nudged the throttle and taxyed it to the edge, where it was easily recovered. The only damage was a broken strut attachment and the rudder was offset to the right. Further investigation is needed...

By this time, it seemed to make sense to give the conditions best before something really got broken, so we settled for an ice-cream and a coffee on the terrace and sorted out Greece, China and Calais instead.....wink 2

Pete

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