Ireland holiday

Back from holiday on the south coast of Ireland. I managed to get a few flying sessions in. A local one in the meadow behind the relatives house on one of the warmest days of the year so far. A bit of slope lift combined with thermal lift from some of the local houses meant a couple of nice flights of about 20min each. I could have stayed up longer bit dinner was calling!

Second session was a trip to long strand beach in west cork (https://goo.gl/maps/C13ZE) for some dune soaring with the Elf (with 50gms taped onto wing) and Pegasus. Glider dog loved this one. She was able to run about daft chasing the model along the beach much to the amusement of passers by.

Third session was at old head of Kinsale (http://www.greenhobbymodel.com/slopesoaring/castle-kinsale-slope.htm) in a murky gloom. The Pegasus disappeared in the fog a few times, landing was the worst as it was hanging over the landing field. I thought it was gone a couple of times. The photos show it in a nice clear period which lasted about 5min!

I hope to get back another time when the locals are out flying and ideally with the Cobra and some sort of scale model. Perfect location and smooth lift, shame about the fog!

Long Strand

Old head of Kinsale

Test flying at Drymen Bridge.

Since the competition season has started there have been 7 thermal competitions scheduled to date.  These have been a mixture of F5j, ALES and winch classes. Only 3 of these have taken place and all 3 were electric launch. 

The forecast was for a rare 'good day' on the 24 May so I arranged to meet Rick and son Josh at Drymen for a bit of a testing session with winch and electric models. Thankfully the forecast held and a great days testing was had. 

I am getting the hang of winch launches, the franken-tracker (my mish mash Tracker 100) worked well and only required a bit of down trim to get flying nicely. I was able to get a number of good flights and even the flights with no lift still managed reasonable air time. I had a couple of flights with times well over the required 12min fly-off time for 100s class. Fingers crossed for similar in the remaining competitions! :)

Next model flown was the top model pegasus which i got as an airframe a motor deal. I completed the servo/esc and set up over the past few weeks. It is typical that no matter how well you plan you always end up with a last minute rush. I only finished balancing and setting up flight modes the night before. 

Rick gave it a test chuck and off it floated. It went smoothly and was heading towards the fence at the edge of the field. I throttled up and off it went at a nice climb angle. No issues to report on the set up, it flew nicely and I was instantly comfortable in how it flew. I had a few more flights with it throughout the day. No doubt I will carry out some minor tweaks as I learn how it flys. The only thing on the list so far is a couple of slightly heavier batteries. I had a to add 25g to achieve balance with the packs I have. Some 3s 1000 or 1300 packs with a 35c+ rating to be ordered. 

The last model for testing and flying was the Claymore (aka bumble bee). It is a secondhand model produced by Rick @ Lite Flite. I have only flown it at a few comps this year, I managed to win a round with it but the rest of the flights have been ok but not great. I was ideally going to tweak it so that I was more comfortable flying it. I have a tendency to over control at times and I was hoping to adjust so it was less susceptible to harsh inputs. It is also dropping the nose on turns so I was hoping to adjust the differential and tweak the balance point to keep it more settled. 

I sat in front of the model with battery an altis in hand ready to connect up only to discover that some fanny had left the ESC in the house. :( No flying for this model today.

All in all a good day flying a more practice under my belt. I am missing the next 2 competitions but lets hope there are more good practice days over the coming months before the nationals competitions. 

The finish line is in sight...

So our DIY projects are just about finished. Wood burning stove ready for smoke testing and commissioning. Door frames and doors nearly complete. I will then have some on going gardening to do which free's up more time for gliding. 

I am hoping to get out on the slopes for the first time in a while on Sunday. It's looking like a perfect conditions for Brownside Farm sloping and picking up the thermal lift when it comes through.

Both xc weather and windfinder have similar forecasts. Fingers crossed they hold true.

Spring is here

But someone forgot to flick the weather switch. No flying of late. Second thermal competition of the season was cancelled due to high winds. The 3rd competition is this Sunday.

Not sure if I will make it as I am in the middle of some major diy work. Wood burning stove install and stripping 6 door frames and doors. It seed like a great idea at the time. Its taking about 6/7 hours to do one side of a door and frame. Nightmare.

No practice time or flying time until its done. Fingers crossed the weather change predicted for next week comes and let's hope my diy gets finished soon. :)

Start of the competition season

Saturday was the day before the first thermal competition of the year. It was forecast to be a nice 10mph easterly wind which meant the local slope (Brownside Farm) should have been great. I was up early and out the house for 9am. Got there in 10min, climbed the hill with slope dog and David F only to find the wind gusting 2 - 6mph. 

We had a few launches in the stronger gusts but there was just no lift to get us to height and then cruise about until the next gust came trough. Thankfully it's an accessible slope because we had a few long walks down the hill and back. 

We called it quits just before 11, game was a bogey.


Sunday was an early rise to go to the first thermal duration comp of the year; 2m and open HLR. There were 9 hardy souls competing and a few others watching or dropped by. Some new models were tested and a couple of refurbished models took to the air prior to the competition start. The wind speed started at 6mph and steadily rose to 10mph later in the day. Once again, it was different from the forecast.

There were 6 entries in the 2m class. Standing on the sidelines our view was that the conditions never looked great. It ended up being good enough for most rounds have at least one flyer with close to max score. I lost all faith in the 2m foamie model I had last year after some trimming problems arising from design issues. (crap hardware and crap tail mounting system.) I am hoping to pick up another 2m class model shortly and hope to be out flying it soon. 

We had a quick break for lunch and some test flights then it was onto the open models.  I had a few nervous moments but with some guidance I settled into the 3 rounds ok. There was good lift in most slots and in some cases pilots were only a landing point or a few seconds from max scores. Not bad considering the freezing cold was numbing fingers and conditions were far from ideal.  

My new open model launches very well and I won't have issues reaching height/upwind with it. Some trimming and tweaking of the set up is required to get it flying spot on but it's a good starting point as the 10min flight I had in round 2 proved. My landings were poor, now I know the model is nearly set up I will get in as much practice and testing as I can. I will be using a frisbee as the spot landing marker and hope to have the nose in it on landing as often as I can. 

I will post up the details of the next comps and the results for this comp once I have a bit of time to decide on the format of things. In the meantime check the SAA website for details of events. Soaring contest calendar.

some pictures from Sunday.

Early morning flyers...

The wind looks good tomorrow morning for a short visit to Brownside Farm. Aiming to be there from about 9am with slope dog. Won't be there all day as things to do and Scotland rugby game to watch in the afternoon.

Campsies and Fairlie Moor now live.

I visited the Campsies last weekend for a few hours on Saturday morning before the rain came. There was a nice SSW wind about 16mph or so gusting to about 22mph. It tired slope dog out for the rest of the day which was good. :)

Slope dog at the Campsies

This afternoon I visited Fairlie Moor. Met another flyer on the slope which was the first time i have ever done so. He was expertly piloting some big F3F models and put my models and flying to shame!

Slope dog ran about mad chasing the gliders along the slope as per usual. The wind increased not decreased like the forecast was advising. The wind meter registered that it was gusting to 30mph. This was a bit more than the old Graupner and New Ridge Ryder can handle. They both flew but struggled to penetrate at times, both got blown back into the rotor which did not end well. Thankfully this never caused any damage to either models.

I definitely need a model that can handle wind and take lots of ballast. If only the budget would stretch to a nice new shiny F3F mouldie and gear. Hopefully The Dumbarton Model Club auction provides a good second hand bargain. Fingers crossed.



New content live: Fairllie Moor & Campsies