Winter is here....who's been flying?

[Rich Griff]

Hi Jake,

 

Nice location and selection...Rog take off and landing, that one have flaps ?

 

Beaches are great, firm smooth all round landing strip apart from the dunes and water, long lazzy climb outs on power and long approaches with good flying speed, wide open skies and clean air...but disciplined...

 

Any slopes on prevailing wind ?

[GrumpyGnome]

Managed a couple of hours flying this morning - felt much colder than it was.

 

Put another 4 flights on my Double Trouble, before an innocuous nose over managed to partially detach the firewall. Consoled myself with multiple cups of coffee, and a nice cold Boost bar.

 

Kevs morning was more eventful.  He lost a wing strut bolt on his Decathlon, but found a closed loop connector fitted perfectly. He then spent the best part of an hour getting his 'new' engine set up.  Then tried a few different props to try and extract some speed from the tubby, but cheerful looking airframe..... "wonder what it'll be like with this 15% Nitro fuel....." said he. Topped the half full tank up, making it about 12.5% Nitro. Total transformation as it batted about the sky (I didn't think it would make that  much difference tbh).  Big smile. Until closing the throttle had no effect. 20 minutes of flying around at full throttle later, the first dead-stick landing was attempted, and carried out with minimal fuss. Investigation showed that the piano wire throttle pushrod had actually fractured. New one on us!  A quicklink broke while disassembling the plane, topping off the day.

 

 

On the positive sides, after at least 4 months of solid rain, the stream at the bottom of the field is finally full of crystal clear water.  We suspect that following last summers drought, a farmer upstream from us dammed/diverted the stream and it's either overcome his efforts naturally, or someone complained..... whilst it makes retrieving errant models harder, it brings a feeling of normality.

 

 

 

Sorry, this carpy Amazon Kindle Fire is unfamiliar so I'm struggling to rotate the picture.....

Edited December 14, 2023 by GrumpyGnome

[Jake Bullit]

The beach is closed too traffic over the winter. Our club has permission to fly there with a permit, we drive about 1/4 mile up the beach and most of the walkers go the opposite way.

 

We get a new runway twice a day 😀.

 

It's drier on the beach then at the club field.

 

 

[Adrian Smith 1]

Managed to get out today for 4 flights despite the grey weather. First time for a long time I didn't need my sunnies on! 😎. Good fun session though.

 

 

[GrumpyGnome]

Bit frosty this morning, but felt warmer than yesterday due to lower winds.  Nice flying until about 12:30, when the breeze picked up a little.

 

Todays squadron....

 

[Ron Gray]

Excellent day’s flying today despite a really oribble sky that white models disappeared into. Best fun bit of the day was with the XFly Eagle eventually managing to do ‘Catherine wheel’ flat spins, although the first attempt was a vertical one which was really weird but the sound was amazing. My Depron Mossie still amazes me with the way that it flies.

[Eric Robson]

23 hours ago, Ron Gray said:

Excellent day’s flying today despite a really oribble sky that white models disappeared into. Best fun bit of the day was with the XFly Eagle eventually managing to do ‘Catherine wheel’ flat spins, although the first attempt was a vertical one which was really weird but the sound was amazing. My Depron Mossie still amazes me with the way that it flies.

My depron and foamboard models are the same when it comes to flying, makes a mockery of aerodynamics.  I think because they are cheap you tend to be more relaxed when flying them.

[leccyflyer]

Yup - we really didn't think that the wee fatty dogfighters would fly well, with such a short tail moment, but they are superbly agile and you can chuck them about without any fear whatsoever - they will loop in little more than their own length and twinkle roll if you want them to -all with a flat plate wing and a slab profile fuselage.

[David Davis 2]

I was planning on going flying yesterday afternoon but every year in my village the mairie organises a Christmas dinner for the over-seventies. I was able to walk to and from the restaurant but after several glasses of Cotes du Rhone were forced on me I considered it prudent not to drive to the flying field and as I already have two models to repair, I bottled out of flying too!

[SIMON CRAGG]

Great "FUN" spot landing comp yesterday.

 

Variety of hack models, including my foam board "Thunderbob" which had its maiden at the same time!.

 

Great day, and managed to come third.

[SIMON CRAGG]

On 16/12/2023 at 16:07, leccyflyer said:

Yup - we really didn't think that the wee fatty dogfighters would fly well, with such a short tail moment, but they are superbly agile and you can chuck them about without any fear whatsoever - they will loop in little more than their own length and twinkle roll if you want them to -all with a flat plate wing and a slab profile fuselage.

These fatty dog fighters models sound good, can you let me have the link to plans / info please?

[cymaz]

No flying again this weekend, heavy drizzle all day on Saturday 

However, got the club noise test done, fail safe and range check done on the big tiger moth 

 

It’s now 5 weeks without a flight😬

[Geoff S]

After an early Christmas present from my darling wife, the chances of my being able to go flying until the new year are highly unlikely.  She's gifted me her cold and it's developed into the worst case of manflue I've had for many years.  I haven't had a cold of any sort for at least 5 years and this one's a humdinger!  I did manage to do a bit in the workshop today but I was in a daze most of the time.  At least my workshop is cosy and heated and part of the house.

 

Good job we're not Christmassy people and we're both waiting eagerly for all the fuss to die down 🙂

 

Merry Christmas all 🤩

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Sounds rather like you've picked up a dose of Covid - stay in the warm and look after yourself Geoff.  Did it start by you feeling cold and shivery and a day or two out of it?

[Geoff S]

1 hour ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

Sounds rather like you've picked up a dose of Covid - stay in the warm and look after yourself Geoff.  Did it start by you feeling cold and shivery and a day or two out of it?

 

Not really. It's just a heavy cold, I think, I was supposed to be going for an eye test tomorrow but I'll stay home and avoid passing it on to the whole of Specsavers and their clients.  Never had Covid and I've had all the injections for that and flu.  I had a worse case over Christmas years ago when we were staying at Patterdale YHA - I missed the superb meal they used to provide - it just lasted a few days.

 

Just checked my temperature and it's 38 deg, so not astronomically high.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Geoff S

[PDB]

Maiden of my Soarcerer yesterday, perfect conditions. 👍

[leccyflyer]

On 18/12/2023 at 07:19, SIMON CRAGG said:

These fatty dog fighters models sound good, can you let me have the link to plans / info please?

There's a thread here

 

You can download the plans here.

https://www.flugmodell-magazin.de/

 

[Ron Gray]

The Fatty Fighter plans here 

 

[SIMON CRAGG]

Thanks, any idea where I can get the plans for the flat plate 109 on the Winter build thread please?

[Ron Gray]

I think this is the one you’re after RCGroups

[leccyflyer]

I don't think that's the one that Simon is looking for Ron - that's the SEMFF Bf109E, which has a more scale-like profile, rather than the fatty one.

 

For comparison, since I have both - the Fatty Me109, for which there isn't a profile plan AFAIK

 

 

 

and the SEMFF one, which is similar to the SEMFF Bf109E in your link.

 

 

Both of these built by my pal Bob and both now in my fleet.

 

[Ron Gray]

Ah, right, well @SIMON CRAGG now has a few to be looking at!

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

A chilly sunny windless day 16°C,,,😇

[GrumpyGnome]

Tuesday - final indoor session of 2023. Reasonably warm, calm, dry.  6 of us had fun.

 

Dumb-thumbed my Crack Yak into two walls, and the floor a few times doing stupid things. Por is great!  Although it can't fix broken props. 

 

Also managed some faster left and right hand circuits with my baby heli - figures of 8 next...... this small, bouncy, cheap heli certainly makes learning less stressful than earlier attempts 🙂

[Futura57]

I managed to get in a few flights today. Virtually no wind and not too cold on the fingers. Probably my last flight at one particular club after not renewing my membership for 2024.