Spring is here again - who's been flying?

[Erfolg]

I thought these pictures may be of passing interest.

 

The first is of the clevis that failed on landing on Saturday. It is over 40 years old, the landing itself was pretty ordinary. The significant issue seems to be age. I recently (in the last 2 weeks) replaced the rudder plate type hinges, as I noted that one had failed (part of the preparation of the current flying). I thought, I have a pile of these left over from, the dark ages. I will just take out the pin, ease out the sheared plate, replace it with one half of an unused Kavan hinge. I found the old packet of hinges in the draw of one of those storage boxes that many of us have. Only to find that the unused assemblies were brittle, breaking on handling. All of these have gone in the bin. It is not the first time recently that I have found that many of the old plastic bits have deteriorated. 

 

The clevis seems to be a Micro Mold item, my remainder have also gone into the bin. It can be seen that the pin has sheared as has the limb that the pin was attached to.

 

Unlike what environmentalist tell us, these polymers do not seem to have a life of thousands of years. Even when stored in a dark drawer, never having seen a solvent ESC, Environmental Stress Cracking) or even sunlight , photon Mer breakages.

 

The picture is of the garden that convinced me that the weather was pretty much perfect for flying. Plus the help of whoever directed me to a Plant recognition App, has helped me a lot in weed (unwanted pant) eradication. I am often happier in the garden, than on a wind swept flying field, this time of year so it seems.

[Adrian Smith 1]

Looks to me you are up to date with your gardening (very nice it is too), but don't give up on the flying yet!! ✈️😀

Edited Thursday at 11:29 by Adrian Smith 1

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Your gardens nice Erf, what mower have you got ?

 

[Colin Carpenter]

First time out at patch since October with 3 others. Long winter. Gave four buddy box lessons to new member on his Riot. Definite improvement on nos 3-4 when he started l:h circuits. Doesn’t like r:h. ! Blue Riot lost against clouds when he got too far away , and my vision not the best at that distance 😱😱. Colin

[Erfolg]

Colin, it is a ordinary, wheeled Bosch, rotary.

 

I now know that i am old, in that I have come to enjoy gardening, almost like weeding. I have been surprised that the garden responded so well, as for many months it has been to cold, windy or wet, with me being reluctant to spend above 15-20 minutes outside. Those who have corresponded with me on gardening matter know I have little knowledge with respect to plants. A couple times a year we are visited by one of my wives friends, who tells me what I am doing wrong or need to do. Last year I came close to killing a new apple tree, because I was not watering it and so on.

 

I have just resigned from undertaking a local role on behalf of our area, because I am to old, and a sudden demise although will not be welcomed by me, for others it would have caused problems. This period of poor weather has concerned me, in that it is not conducive to getting non modellers thinking, I would like to obtain a model aircraft, as a consequence joining a club, leading to BMFA membership.

 

There are consequences for the model retail trade.

 

On that basis I am happy when lots are posting about being out flying. Would I be flying if my wife did not force me out of the house, prising my finger tips from the door frame. Plus I get to talk to other grumpies at the field.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

An afternoon dog fighting, nothing like two warbirds buzzing around with 4 strokes.😇

[Tom Gaskin 1]

We 'enjoyed' our first thermal comp (F5J-ish) today. The wind was on our declared limit (14mph) when we started, but by the time we had completed 4 rounds it was gusting 33mph! And yes, there were thermals to be had, whistling down wind past us.

 

No models were damaged so after some celebratory coffee and cake we went home happy 😁

 

Tom

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Nipped out to maiden the 2m RES Mirai I've just finished. I've decided to have a go at some of the FxRes comps' this year, particularly as Kent Interclub is running it's own league for the first time. Some trimming needed but it went well in damp and windless conditions. I got the AUW down to 540g, whether that's enough we'll see. 

 

 

 

 

[Adrian Smith 1]

I had to scrape the frost off the car before I ventured to the field this morning, although the sunny start provided all the encouragement I needed get out and fly 😀

I wheeled out the Sbach 342 which hadn't seen the wide blue yonder since January. 

 

 

 

Three glorious flights with her. I had forgotten how frisky this plane is. If the cold hadn't woken me up, the first minute or too in the air would have done. Ops. were curtailed after that due to the tail wheel connecting rod to the rudder coming loose. This has happened before and despite filing a flat on the rod and using blue thread lock on the grub screw it has happened again. I can't say I am surprised as the tail takes the occasional thump on landing. I am going to have a think on doing some sort of modification the stop it happening. 

 

[leccyflyer]

Another sunny morning with light winds here, though a little chilly. Great conditions for flying and enjoyed some of that big sky with a couple of Spitfires, as well as my wee VMC Hurricane and Volantex Me109, the latter of which finally achieved Ace status with it's fifth "victory", a few minutes after being felled itself. No damage to either model.

 

 

Bob's Flite Test Spitfire was performing superbly, same as always and I took a few snaps , we were joined later on by John, with one of his own design depron models, a YF22 which flew brilliantly.  The field is looking great and I'd brought the Cricket out again to take advantage of the newly shorn grass, but she failed her preflights, with a broken elevator horn that wasn't up to snuff and literally crumbled when I tried to adjust it. All replaced and working properly now, for next time.

 

[Eric Robson]

Only 7 flights with the Warbirds Hurricane today, fingers freezing, not only mine but the younger flyers.

Early finish for all.

[Ron Gray]

I missed out on flying today due to household commitments! Weather looked to be fine for the morning but rain edged in over lunchtime then disappeared by about 4. that completes the weather forecast for the Norfolk/Suffolk border.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Still Quack, and can't get a grass cut done.

[GrumpyGnome]

A weather window opened at about 14:00, in that the showers became infrequent, and the wind dropped a little.

 

Took the Wot4 'cos that'll fly ok in anything....

 

Half a dozen enjoyable flights on my own, interrupted only by the farmer filling his bowser from the stream - no idea what he needed all that water for.... can't have been for crops!

 

Mid flight, I heard a bang behind me. Tony had snuck up with his leccy car, got out and shut the door with a bang. Proper Ninja like. 

 

Shared the sky with Tony's little Zoom (looked like trying to control a falling leaf, in that wind) for a couple of flights. 

 

Came home. Nice couple of hours.

[Nick Cripps]

Arrived at Loch Earn this afternoon for a weekend's waterplane flying. Already experienced 3 of the 4 seasons today but managed to get a couple of early flights under my belt while conditions were favourable. Not expecting to see summer anytime soon though.

 

[Peter Jenkins]

Recently, a guy in one of the Clubs I fly at decided to give up the hobby and sold off all his fleet.  My eye was caught by what looked like a pair of reduced size Chilli Breezes.  It turned out that they were, in fact, Bell Hops.  These are 40 in span sports electric design by Sid King for simple bell motors and 4 function R/C.  It has taken me some time to sort them out and bind them to my JR DSX9 Tx that uses the Spektrum radio design.  After a couple of false starts, I managed to fly both of them this afternoon.  When I got to the field it looked like I was going to get a drenching but all that materialised was a few large drops of rain.  So, out with the Bell Hops and check them out.

 

I flew the yellow and red one first.  I noted that the CG was towards the front of where I would have placed it.  Once airborne, it needed some up elevator but no aileron or rudder trim.  As I'm used to flying F3A aerobatics I found the power on this one to be a bit below par but the prop being used was on the small side so there is room to increase prop size and thus release more power.  It will need a check with a Wattmeter of course and that might mean a change from the 30A ESC to a 40A one.  After 6 mins of flying around relatively sedately although I did fly 2 or 3 largish loops, the flight pack showed it was still half full.  So, 8 mins might be achievable with this setup.

 

The red and blue one was next and flew a bit better especially on how the ailerons felt.  But the power was well down on the first one.  I will need to check the motor and ESC to see if any more power can be pulled out of them.  I suspect though, that in order to get nearer to 200 W /lb I will need to change the motors and ESCs.  We shall see!  Talking of seeing, in the grey skies that were there for these flights, the small size of the Bell Hops made them difficult to see clearly!

 

The biplane in the photo is a 2 m Citrin, a Wolfgang Matt design from 2013 I think.  It looks fabulous, to me(!), which is why I still have it.  It doesn't have quite the same aerodynamic refinement of my current 2 m mount, the B J Craft Anthem but still flies very well.  The difference between the 2 smaller models and the Citrin was like chalk and cheese.  Once I've sorted out the CG on the little ones they will fly a lot better but in comparison, the Citrin was rock steady in the slightly gusty conditions - you can't beat size!  I managed to get in 4 practice flights with the Citrin but none of them was really acceptable.  The Citrin needs a dedicated trimming session with some minor tweak to side thrust and some minor tweaks to the knife edge mix and a tad more down elevator to make the inverted spin entry a bit more positive.

 

 

Peter

 

 

[leccyflyer]

7 hours ago, Nick Cripps said:

Arrived at Loch Earn this afternoon for a weekend's waterplane flying. Already experienced 3 of the 4 seasons today but managed to get a couple of early flights under my belt while conditions were favourable. Not expecting to see summer anytime soon though.

 

Looks like you've a braw day dawning this morning Nick, it's glorious just at the minute- hope you have a great weekend on the water.😎👍