Monday 26 May 2014

Kilspindie Summer F3F league. 24 May Hole of Horcum 25 May

Saturday. Kilspindie.
I won an F3F competition!! Well blow be down!

Who got all the good air? Me!!

I was unbelievably lucky with the good air and managed to keep it together and fly a careful line most of the time and not cut (I did have few moments though!). All that practice at EM turns paid off.

Pleased? Absolutely!


Peter watches David Loomes and his Race M
Go on Mike, give it some welly!




Sunday. I didn't do so well at Horcum the following day. My excuse is I was tired and trying too hard. Cutting is not to be recommended. Still had a great day and so glad I was able to shelter behind my own SportBrella because we had several heavy rain showers. 


Mark giving Keith's FS the heave-ho

Paul about to launch Peter's FS3

View from behind the SportBrella

Tented village

Greg's Needle takes to the air.
Despite the rain it turned out an interesting day with some surprising results. Finished the day off with fish and chips in Whitby and a MacFlurry in Berwick!
Thanks to Peter once again for doing all the driving.


Monday 19 May 2014

Eastbourne F3F Eurotour 10 & 11 May


A memorable weekend in many ways.


I was at Peter's house for 8 am Friday morning and off we set hoping for an easy journey but an accident on the M6 saw us change to the other side of the country and head down the M1. A detour that I am sure worked out well but when we got to the M25 we were jammed up in the Friday evening traffic. Took us over 11 hours to get to the hotel in Eastbourne. Our return journey on Sunday took less than 9 hours! Thanks must go to Peter doing ALL the driving. Mind you, he had to put up with me prattling away for both journeys. A kin talk rubbish fur Scotland ye ken!!

The compensation was a great curry and a few beers with some of the other guys there for the competition.

Saturday was a hard day with winds strong enough to question the accuracy of the wind meter. That and our sanity!

I only have phone pictures because my camera seems to have died.
In the trench out of the wind. Flightline is out of the picture to the left. Landing is on that small flat area to the extreme left of the people in the distance. Flying behind the slope does not work!! No way back but to land out.
On the flightline it felt above the maximum limit all day. I had to scratch from the last round on day one when, after having trouble actually standing up in the wind, I questioned the windspeed. In the ensuing delay the left aileron on my Extreme got a belt and knocked the servo loose. Application of medium cyano soon fixed that although that servo is now permanently glued to the servo mount and to the wing. Oops! If it ever needs replacing it will take some Dremel action to get it out!
Peter chasing his wing bags down the back of the hill! Apparently he got a great view of the "Long Man" from there!
A lot of time was spent on Saturday trying, vainly, to keep stuff blowing away. The site is very exposed. 

Watching the action


On the course
Late afternoon there was a long halt caused by an ambulance having to rescue a walker from farther up the hill. Day one over we headed back to the hotel for a game of bingo (ha ha) before heading out for another superb curry.

Sunday
Birthday boy :-)
Sunday saw the wind direction change and a move round the hill to a slope that suits the westerly wind. Thankfully the wind had dropped to about 30mph and was much less wild.

Waiting their turn to fly

I was reasonably happy with my result and felt I coped with the heavy conditions pretty well although I now have some tungsten ballast on order for my Pike!

Thanks again to Peter for doing all the driving.



Sunday 4 May 2014

Low cloud on East Lomond

Saturday

I managed an hour with my dlg at Carrot Hill on Saturday and there was just enough lift to maintain height flying from the quarry on Dodd Hill. The odd thermal added to the fun. Had to pack up after an hour because I flattened the 350mah battery.

Longshot ideal for the 3mph wind


Sunday

Optimist

Being an optimistic was up East Lomond early to be met with low cloud on the hill. Lovely day everywhere else! I headed up the hill hoping it would clear. It didn't! 15-20mph wind straight on the slope but less than 50m visibility.

I sat around for a while and headed back to the car where I met local flier Mike who was keen to fly despite the weather. We were soon joined by Neil and I suggested we fly from the low slope just west of the car park which was, more or less, clear of cloud. Success! I flew my Ascot and Mike and Neil flew a selection of models including a Weasel and a bitsa mouldy!