Never mind the weather - who has been flying, then?

[Adrian Smith 1]

As I arose from my sleeping pit I saw that the weather was sparklingly sunny, but I needed to de-ice the car (+3c). Can't waste a day like this so off to the field sharpish.

 

Cracking morning and four long flights were had without incident. The wind picked up slightly from 3-4mph to 6-9mph which was just nice as it was coming down the strip. These sort of days make you realise why you do this hobby 😀

[Peter Jenkins]

I too managed to get out and after about 45 mins was on my own.  I've been trying to take on board what the Flight Coach trace tells me I'm doing wrong!  Of course, you do something else wrong as you fix one problem!  However, I can see that my geometry I'm flying is improving - not on every flight I have to say!  The Adverrun motor that I'm using in place of my late lamented TMCR does not have the level of braking when the throttle is closed and this is making landing easier to achieve.  Two of the four landings I made today fell into the greaser category.  Now need to make that 100%!  Dreamer!

 

The new Anthem has now accumulated 23 flights and trimming is almost there.  I am still trying to find a nice compromise with the rudder while the vertical climb is almost hands off.  Needs a gentle tweak on either down thrust or increased wing incidence.

 

[Jake Bullit]

Had a great session this morning though I was by myself and there's usually five or six of us. A few were away and it was raining as I set off and was still raining on arrival. 

Gave it half an hour and the rain started to ease. Mid morning blue skies and sunshine, then the wind started to pick up, but it was a smooth  wind. Got lots of flying in.

Bonus points if you can make the shadow 😁 

 

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Brad Pitt holding a Radjet ?

[Jake Bullit]

1 hour ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

Brad Pitt holding a Radjet ?

Correct! On both counts 😆

[payneib]

Just, just about, managed to get a new set of CL lines made up for our "speed trainer", and all three little OS engines (10/15/19) run up before the heavens opened this afternoon. Good forecast and three airframes ready to go for dizzy circles with my eldest tomorrow, and I'll take the Pup too just incase. 

[Merry Mark]

With the couple of recent worst/best engine threads over the last week, I took a rummage in the attic for the woeful RCV-58, thankfully it was not found but I did re-discover a forgotten BNIB Irvine 39 from about 22 years ago! Cinderella moment or what!

 

Quick ARTF build Friday night, into the early hours of Saturday morning.  
 

Purring to perfection after x3 tanks, lovely on a 10x6 and will make a great low wing trainer for the boys.

 

 

[Peter Jenkins]

Brings back memories of my Speed Air.  That had an Irvine 40 fitted.  I've still got the Irvine but the Speed Air is long gone. The Irvine 40 was also bored and stroked to make the 46 and 53.  The Mk Irvine 53 with the siver carb was, and remsins, a brilliant and powerful engine.

[GrumpyGnome]

At the field now. 6.5°, about 10mph wind. On my own. Big skein/flock/gaggle of geese flew over, worm casts have appeared. Must be winter!

 

Wotty doesn't care, likes the new starting table - as do my knees...

[Chris Walby]

Speed Air, first electric then post B cert it just had to be...Laser 70. Air frame was £70 new with the idea that if I broke it then another would be cheap. Pilot error caused its demise and I fell off my perch when I went to replace it due to cost! The Laser 70 then went in an Acrowot where it still resides, great model.

 

 

And yes the colours are correct...it was flown that much that the red went light pink and the plasticiser had been destroyed by the UV hence the extensive patches.

 

PS both wings had twists and people would comment that the ailerons were out of trim, but they were for level flight!

 

 

[leccyflyer]

Braw morning today - absolutely gorgeous first thing but them some very high overcast, breaking up into a lovely mackerel sky by mid morning. Cold but not freezing and with just a very light wind and nice enough to tempt half a dozen of us to the field, first flyable weather for about 10 days for me.  Flew the Martlet, Dooleybird P-51 and a couple of the wee fellas, plus my profile depron prop-in-a-slot Su27 Flanker, which all went smoothly,

 

Main mission of the day was a maiden flight for my wee EFlite UMX Messerschmitt Me262 - twin 30mm fans on 3s1p 800mah lipos and all the bells and whistles.

 

 

 

She went away lovely from a hand launch - made strictly according to my reading of the manual with SAFE enabled and low rates. I won't be doing that again, as despite having the SAFE on a switch and knocking it off the second it cleared the end of the strip the 262 just kept going and couldn't be coaxed into anything but the most pedestrian turn -😮very nearly lost it as it soared higher and higher, it got awfully small, awfully quick. Luckily Bob had a bead on it and I managed to get it round in an unfeasibly large circuit, with full aileron and a bootful of rudder, well beyond even the giant circuits that I normally fly, then got the rates up to high at which point if became more controllable and was able to bring it down to where we could see it.  Nice smooth landing and lived to fly again. Second flight with SAFE enabled on high rates was much better and nicely controllable throughout, the model has got quite a turn of speed, looks lovely in the air and is rock solid, with SAFE switched out. I'm impressed, but was cursing that instruction in the manual.

 

I'm mortally embarrassed to say that when I re-read the manual at home , the instruction is actually that you must launch with SAFE and HIGH rates - as I did with the second flight.  🤨 Sorry EFlite - that was entirely my own fault for misreading the very clear instructions. Nice model though and definitely a keeper. I've since swapped out the 4mm gold bullets that I'd fitted for some 2mm ones which are a better fit under the canopy/hatch.

[payneib]

My eldest boy did toy aeroplanes and it was fantastic! Need to stock up on props, we've killed another two today, across 5-6 flights. I really want to replace this absolutely knackered OS19 with a PAW 2.5cc (or maybe a 3cc), but it'll do for now - it was free. 

 

I had a few flights on the Pup with it's new, more convenient fuel filling point. Fuselage is suffering some hanger rash though, and she'll need more fettling soon to reinforce the longerons on the under side. 

[Merry Mark]

Cold but calm morning in Yorkshire land.  
 

Nice morning at the ‘local’ with the wee-man.  Loving the ‘marmite’ auto-gyro but thankful of helicopter experience.

 

Small mishap with the Wot4 and nice to catch-up with @Jolly Roger and his olympian glider catching skills! 
 

 

[Nick Cripps]

Oops, Mark.

 

Of course, the blame lies entirely with the instructor 🤣

[Futura57]

Another great flying day at Epsom Downs racecourse today with a good turnout of EDMAC club members. Almost dead calm for the whole afternoon, but sadly no blue bits. I added flashing lights to my Strange Quark which helped against the grey sky. I was enjoying myself too much to remember to take pictures. Unfortunately there were at least three casualties, two of which looked terminal.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EyN4fzj

 

 

The main page of our Billy-No-Mates website

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2024 by Martin Harris - Moderator
Futura - picture removed. Unless you can confirm that all those named on your list have given specific confirmation that they are happy to have their names publicised on a public forum you must redact their details before posting it again.

[J D 8 - Moderator]

   On a great flying day last Friday a club members model stopped responding to control and went AWOL in an area of deep high scrub [ jungle] that resisted attempts to enter it on foot so on Sunday using my Land Rover we were able to push even deeper into chest high growth and by standing on the roof were eventually able to spot a wing tip. Even then it took some effort to get to the model and return to civilization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[leccyflyer]

Beautiful conditions this morning - blue skies, sunny, flat calm. The car said it was 4 degrees and we had a ground frost, but it was very pleasant in the sun. With the indoor season approaching my main mission for the morning was to fly most of the indoor fleet to see if it was okay for the gym. The results were a bit of a mixture - the wee sub 100mah 1s cells are all pretty tired and in the cold the Sopwith  Pup and SE5a barely had enough power to get out of their own way. My rarely flown UMX Spitfire IX had a short flight -it's much more scale than my Volantex warbirds and fully aerobatic, but sorry, it's just not as much fun. The EFlite B-17 250mah batteries had completely given up the ghost and this afternoon I've replaced those horrible EFlite 1s connectors on the B-17 and Flyzone SE5a, to let them be used with 400mah 1s Volantex cells.

 

Bob flew his lovely GWS Tiger Moth and Two Bob had a maiden flight of his WM Groovy pattern ship e-conversion, which flew really well until an unfortunate meeting with the electric fence tore off the motor mount - readily repairable and the Groovy is bound to be a favourite.

 

 

Another outing for my wee Me262 which is now completely sorted and grooves around very nicely - pretty quick but also fully aerobatic. Bob and I took turns to fly the 262 whilst each of us had a stab at grabbing some pictures.

 

 

All in all a perfect morning,

 

[David Ashby]

Saturday was a day for the second Kent Interclub ‘2M Glider Free-4-All Challenge’ competition. It’s a very relaxed format designed to attract new flyers to silent flight thermal comps; Radians, bitsa models and F5L machines all flew. The weather just about came good and a very enjoyable day was had by all, so more dates will no doubt be allocated for some 2025 events. 
 

 

[GrumpyGnome]

Here betwixt and between the East and North Ridings of Gods Own Country, it was warm, sunny, with a very gentle breeze, which was undecided on its direction of travel.

 

Not used to the lack of wind, I damaged my Mustang, spending the rest of the day reliant on my dependable Wotty.

 

Morning session with Peter, ans Phil. Peter still learning on his lightweights; Phil put his Aeroscout and Viper through their paces - his Banshee edf seemed well down on power.... made a nice rc car though 🙂

 

Lunch time with Paul - maidened my Stearman. Unsuccesfully! Paul flew his indoor J10, and his e-Hawk.  His TS2 didn't maiden due to mismatched twin ele servos. Sensible decision.

 

I left Paul, Glenn, Andy and Ben to it.  Great day.

 

Couple of pics from early in the day.

 

Oh, and a member popped along on his ultra cool motor siccle, and forgot to put his stand down. Bike seems very heavy! Wish I'd photographed that.....

 

[payneib]

53 minutes ago, GrumpyGnome said:

 

 

Oh, and a member popped along on his ultra cool motor siccle, and forgot to put his stand down. Bike seems very heavy! Wish I'd photographed that.....

 

Was it kev, and was it the massive BMW that kneels down for him like an accessible bus? 😂😂

[GrumpyGnome]

BMW? No. Far cooler than that. Andd I can't possibly confirm or deny the rider....

[Simon Chaddock]

Remarkably calm today (Monday 14th) so I took the opportunity to fly my XPS Black Arrows Hawker Hunter F6.

Made from 5mm XPS laminate underlay with no reinforcement anywhere so at 16oz is light for its 33" span. It has a rather power hungry but super smooth QX50mm EDF and a modest 1800mAh 3s. Fortunately it flies well including loops and rolls at a good bit less than full power.

Easy hand launch, 3 minute flight, no damage.

[EarlyBird]

Nice day yesterday maiden time for the Robbe Arcus II 

 

Flew from dolly as if it had done all it's life 

[EarlyBird]

Then climbed to height using throttle adjustment. No trims needed, marvelous! I could become a Robbe fan. At £150 from model shop Leeds and truly PNP I am thinking I should buy another while they are on sale.

 

[Hangsegler]

3 hours ago, EarlyBird said:

Then climbed to height using throttle adjustment. No trims needed, marvelous! I could become a Robbe fan. At £150 from model shop Leeds and truly PNP I am thinking I should buy another while they are on sale.

 

Or from Lindiger. Or directly from Robbe. But be careful about the postage costs.

 

Lindinger

 

Robbe

 

Video as a decision aid.