Summer 2023 is here, who has been flying then?

[Eric Robson]

Maidened my latest build today, a Chris Foss Acrowot, built from a kit that had been cannibalised, no undercarriage or cowl decor trim missing but the essential parts were there, good buy for £50. 

Great flyer, a little aileron and elevator trim and a successful days flying OS 55ax up front. 

[leccyflyer]

Good day flying today, sunny, warm, moderate wind, but with some stonking thermals -though I wasn't flying any gliders the other guys were logging some excellent times for the monthly thermal soaring competition. Flew my PZ Spitfire, EFlite P-47D and F4-U4 Corsair, really enjoying the landings especially. There was a rare outing for my Flightline FW-190A8, which looks fantastic on the ground and in the air. The Butcher Bird was fair slicing up the field and really motors on 4s1p 2200mah packs.

Also took delivery of an unwanted PMP Wanabee EPP slope wing at the field, which I'll recover and return to flight - kind of like a Wingbat but 60" span and with a vestigial fuselage and fin.

[Peter Jenkins]

Flying at the end of the day does have it's compensations as the wind usually drops.  However, our strip is E-W and we were taking off to the East, before the wind packed it in(!), so we had to dodge the Sun when landing - not as much of a problem as when flying as the Sun was just off the end of the aerobatic box!  Really do need to get a sun shield sorted before the next evening session.

 

[Ace]

Very pleasant yesterday here in the vale of York, with the four of us taking advantage of the clouds shielding the sun after grass cutting.

 

[Adrian Smith 1]

Managed to get down to the strip today in near perfect conditions. The only issue is the buzzy things attracted to my orange reflective gear. 

 

Gave my 91" Slick from Goldwing an airing with a Dualsky GA8000 motor (70-120cc equivalent) up front.

A few flights under the belt sent  me home happy.

 

A real smooth flier going through the aeros and a doddle to land too. She is worth the effort I had to put in with the assembly. 😀

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Adrian Smith 1

[Stephen Jones]

On 16/06/2023 at 21:53, David Ashby - Moderator said:

Yes, the cycle stand has other uses 🙂

 

Well, I guess you are Re-cycling Then 😉

Steve.

[Speedster]

Summer thermals

Going for touch and go to thermal 🤠

 

https://youtu.be/gU14P303pA8

 

Cheers

Soren

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

That’s some determined scratching!

[Stephen Jones]

Well I managed to get to my local slope today and get some flying in.

 

There was a great turn out too.

 

Some 8 meter gliders too.

 

 

I flew all of the models I took and successfully maiden my own design too.

 

Steve 😁

[GrumpyGnome]

Went out yesterday. Stiff breeze, in a poor direction for our field. Flew my newly purchased used ARTF Wot4, with a little 10cc petrol engine.  Was thinking I'd just make sure the engine ran ok, but decided to go for it!  Shouldn't have worried - the little Wotty was fine, so had a few flights with some nice cross-wind landings.

 

Also checked out the engine on my newly repaired Mustang............ discretion stopped me risking a flight!

 

John flew his Laser 3D with his usual excellence, and Old Kev threw his big W4 around as if there was just a gentle breeze.  

 

A lovely few hours in the sun.

 

Later, the heavens opened, so hopefully the field will be greener today 🙂

[John Muir]

I went slope soaring today for the first time in ages. I had a very nice flight with my old Phase 6 then thought I'd give the Wild Thing an airing. After about fifteen minutes I could see rain approaching so I thought I'd land. To lose height I did some aerobatics culminating in a dive towards the slope with a half loop and half roll off the top. Well I got as far as pulling up into the loop when there was a funny 'pop' and the battery departed the model through an access hatch I'd cut some months ago to make a modification and forgotten to seal up again. The Wild Thing flopped about a bit then thumped down not far from where I was standing, completely undamaged, being a Wild Thing, but I couldn't find the battery before the rain started so I went back to the car. Daftest thing I've done in a while. Still had a good time and it's fixed now.

[J D 8]

  Lovely calm evening as sun going down behind a cloud bank on the West Wales coast, just the job for the Parkzone F4F Wildcat to do some patrolling. 

  Ferry on its way in and the lumps on the horizon in the background are mountains in southern Ireland. 

[PDB]

Normal flying session this evening, on a low pass the plane suddenly dropped a few feet hitting the ground hard, bouncing back up catching a wing tip in the long grass at the edge of the runway then performing a beautiful cartwheel. 

 

However the damage looks worse than it is and it'll be back in the air tomorrow. 😁👍

Edited June 28, 2023 by PDB

[PDB]

As good as new, no one will notice 😏

 

 

[Colin Carpenter]

2 flights on my Sebart Miss Wind at 9 today b4 the wind got up. It flys superbly well but needs a bit of room ! Wind straight down the runway 👍Colin

[aidan mcatamney]

28 minutes ago, PDB said:

As good as new, no one will notice 😏

 

 

Great job with the Boomerang repair.  I wish you many more happy flights and landings.   I have one also, its a great flyer.   

[GrumpyGnome]

Flew my newly-acquired petrol engined W4 a few times - breezy bit fun!

 

Kev flew his W4XL in usual spirited manner; JM flew an old MaxThrust foamy like it was dead calm; Tony flew a flat foamy in wind far in excess of what you'd think possible!

 

Rumour has it JM also flew an ic heli but didn't like the noise.... of the gear train 🙂 

 

Kevs little spit had to belly land when a retract fell off...... no damage.

 

Lovely day in great company.

[aidan mcatamney]

I was out last night with my Escapade.   

[Zflyer]

3 hours ago, PDB said:

As good as new, no one will notice 😏

 

 

Just needs a bow o  the bandage!

Nice job

[leccyflyer]

My first thought was that the big new hatch at the back would be perfect for dropping a stick of paratroopers..........

[Ron Gray]

Flying buddy Mike's FMS Tigercat does out in firefighting livery. Apologies for poor quality pics, taken from vid

 

 

 

Vid of it flying (come back later for 4K version after it's uploaded). You may want to turn the volume down as it was quite windy and I didn't have my 'dead cat' with me for the iPhone.

 

 

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Ron Gray

[aidan mcatamney]

16 minutes ago, Ron Gray said:

Flying buddy Mike's FMS Tigercat does out in firefighting livery. Apologies for poor quality pics, taken from vid

 

 

 

Vid of it flying (come back later for 4K version after it's uploaded). You may want to turn the volume down as it was quite windy and I didn't have my 'dead cat' with me for the iPhone.

 

 

 

Love the colour scheme of the Tiger Cat

[leccyflyer]

Very nice Ron - looks windier up there than the windsock is indicating, the 'Cat seems to be getting buffeted about a fair bit. Lovely sounds from the twin motor set up. 😎👍

[Ron Gray]

It was very gusty yesterday and you’re quite right about the windsock being somewhat misleading at times! One of the main problems was the turbulence created as a consequence of the wind direction and the hangar, if you attempted to either take off or land in it you were tempting fate although it was a ‘nice’ challenge to try and fly slowly through it, no more than 6’ off the ground! I haven’t got any photos or vids of it but I flew my new Xfly Tasman and it was rather fun in those conditions, mind you I had to substantially reduce tyre pressures to prevent it trying to ground loop and I somehow managed to wreck a flap servo (but that could have been due to my vertical down line landing approaches!).

[PDB]

Had a few flights today but it started to drIzzle which put paid to any further flights. Very gusty and turbulent but having flown a lot on these conditions recently it was good fun as long as I stayed a little higher than normal which was smoother. The wind was diagonal across our strip which kept you sharp on takeoffs and landings.

 

My great repair pictured above turned out to be not so great, it started to lift and come away. I had this issue with this roll of covering before and it was diagnosed as insufficient heat to fully activate the adhesive, so I recovered it using some more heat.

 

Back out tomorrow with a lower wind forecast. 👍