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


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Weather was cold and poor sky, then it slowly got worse as the wind picked up!

 

Squeezed 3 WooHoo, 1 P38 and 1 Habu flights in + a lot of coffee and gassing on the WR FW190 build so all in all a very productive morning!

 

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Nothing very spectacular but I did fly my modified FX707 powered glider with flaps.

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The flaps are set on a 3 position switch. Stage 0 (no flap). Stage 1 (15 degree flap) gives slow speed thermal flight. Stage 2 (50 degree flap) for a steeper approach and a really slow landing. The flaps create a strong nose up pitch so appropriate down elevator is mixed in. With a bit of trial and error testing It is now possible to flick up and down between the flap positions with no significant pitch change.

Its all a bit "over the top" as at 340g for a 1200mm span converted kids "chuck" glider it really doesn't need flaps.      

 

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Bit chilly at WHMFC on NE Coast yesterday - not as cold as others found though! The field was VERY soggy though........

 

Got a few flights in on the Spacewalker; Phil blew the Xmas cobwebs away with his Aerostar (a remarkable plane); and 'New Kev' showed his few months layoff hasn't damaged his flying skills!  His 90% inverted flights encouraging Phil to do some inverted circuits of his own.

 

Looks good this morning so some batteries on charge.  'Old Kev' has promised to bring his old school flybar equipped ic heli along for an outing.

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Lucky it is not winter here in South Africa, My son and I had some good flying with the Gee Bee Y which has a DLE 60 twin and flies very well and a Sig Bravo with a ST 3000. I bought the Bravo from a gent who said the motor ws no good and would not idle, he had tried up to 16% nitro with no luck. I filled the tank with my ST mix of 12% oil and no nitro and it runs very well.

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Two mods liked my flapped FX707. I am honoured.

I do have a rather poor video of it flying. The 'sight' on my hat cam was a bit out of kilter so it is was pot luck if it was actually in view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5klYW99Lmg&t=13s

heavily edited to show the bits where there was something to see but at least is showed the short landing run with full flap.

At least the "lake" was a bit smaller but I fear it will many days for the field to dry out properly.

Edited by Simon Chaddock
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Winter Tuesday=indoor flying!

 

Crack Yak Superlite, K110 heli and FunnyCub. Great fun.

 

If you've never tried it, pop along to a session and you may get hooked. The constant use of throttle and rudder will be useful for the great outdoors too....

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A chilly Tuesday afternoon didn’t stop Graham and me from enjoying Thirsk MFC’s facilities.  This is my trusty old Hangar 9 80” Cub. 
I love braving the elements in Winter. It makes you appreciate those balmy Summer afternoons. 😎

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Perfect conditions today, 5 degrees, very light wind, decent bright sky and a good turnout. Had a bit of a Corsair day, with my PZ 1100mm version and EFlite 1200mm one. The hard frosty ground was a bit bumpy but they both got off with little drama. I normally take off on the wheels with the smaller, then belly land, but one retract was determined to hang down and being twist and turn that spelled disaster. So it was a wheels down landing and I was delighted with the end results, a couple pf decent rollers. Also flew the wee fellers and fatty Me109 for a good afternoon session. Clubmate Bob continues to add more decoration to his Buchon, which looks better with every outing.

 

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Four of us braved the weather yesterday - actually at between 3 and 4° it wasn't TOO bad!

 

Andy was having a nice quiet time with his foamy leccy planes (Viper - having undergone nose surgery, Kingfisher, and his warmliner) until Kev (Super Chipmunk, Raptor, T-Rexs) Duncan (Woy4xl) and I (Valiant, Double Trouble, Hawk, SE5, baby FW190) turned up with our infernal consumption devices, including Kevs old school Raptor heli.

 

The field continues to be soggy, with the moss on the runway being like a large wet green sponge! Everything survived unscathed though.

 

As I'm still recovering from the lurgy, I headed home after a couple of hours, leaving Kev and Duncan  discussing how large a petrol engine will fit in Kevs Super Chipmunk.

 

This constitutes a busy pits area for us....

 

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Today looks calm and cold. Sitting in front of the Vesuvius that is our log burner, I'm wondering if I'm up to another outing today....

 

 

 

 

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Slightly frustrating start to yesterdays session, my OS46 equipped ever reliable Boomerang dead sticked on its first flight and after landing I noticed fluid dripping out of the fuselage.

 

Found the fuel tank bung had worked loose and emptied the tank into the fuselage. We had a problem tightening it back up as the nut on the rear of the bung was turning as it was tightened, eventually we managed to fashion it in.

 

Next flight the engine was loosing power when raising the nose for a manoeuvrer but recovered on straight and level flight, once landed we found the tube to the carb had a split located at the end of the brass tube from the tank, maybe happened when we were messing around with the tank previously.

 

Had a load more flights after that in a beautiful blue sky and sun but took it gentle due to the bung not being 100% secure, new tank on it's way now.

 

Turned out to be a great day.

Edited by PDB
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Things continue to be frustrating here. I charged my batteries on everything yesterday, as the weather forecast was favourable, other than cold.

 

Just as I was about to load my car it started to rain, which turned to light drizzle.

 

I stayed at home, as the track to the field could be muddy and slippery and grass on the field would be wet, no doubt uncut, for some time now. 

 

Worst still my wives golf course is yet again closed, as are some of the links.

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Started bright, cool and and the sun was right at the end of the runway with 90 cross wind. Sun went in and it just got colder until it started to rain (a bit). the grass was cut in the week but as cam be seen in the photo the carpark is getting cut up.

 

WooHoo given a load of flights + one of each for the others.

 

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Not the best of days today TBH. Dawned fairly bright and calm, though the forecast was for 7mph NW winds. I'd left most of the models in the car and so after loading a couple more, bag of batteries with a nice hot water bottle in there, transmitters, flask etc it was still fairly calm, much calmer than forecast. Ten minutes later at the field it was as forecast and blustery - feeling cold. I'd decided to fly my trusty go to windier weather PZ Spitfire and the nard frozen ground was better suited to an ROG than a soft pitch would be.

 

The Spittie demands high elevator rates for take off, to keep the tail down, but the take off run wasn't too bad, on leaving the ground though, things started to go wrong and the model was sitting very tail down and not responding as normally - possibly not fully up to comfortable flying speed, I just managed half a circuit, not even managing to hit the rates switch with my gloved hand and my most likely explanation is that I overcontrolled  it on the downwind turn. The Spittie spiral dived in from about thirty feet and hit the frozen ground very hard, making quite a spectacular debris field - the nose and battery ending up about 20ft from the wing and fuselage. The wing has a split, the fuselage is in eight pieces and it's a Cat B/C crash. Potentially repairable, plus I have spare plastic parts, but I've put it aside for the time being.

 

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That set the rest of the morning as one where I was happy just to get some decent flights with my profile depron fighters in the increasingly blustery and windier conditions - thankfully no more mishaps for the rest of the morning, leaving when the snow started to fall.

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