Wednesday 30 November

A week off work decorating was getting to me so I headed up to Kilspindie for a break. The wind was 25mph sw and pretty well straight on the slope. Less windy than forecast but pretty good.

I took my repaired ex Dave Watson Spark out for a test flight and it was going well. A dive test showed a tendency to tuck under but easily manageable and no doubt due to weight added to rear of tailboom where the main repair was. Double layer of 2 oz carbon cloth over an old war wound seems very strong.

New front fuselage keel and glass fibre nose and elevators came from Robert Carson and made the repairs much easier. Thanks Robert. Without those parts my Spark may have been left in the corner of the shed for a while longer!

I spent a bit of time tuning in the butterfly elevator compensation and landings are now less frantic.

I flew the Spark with my Futaba TM8 2.4 GHz transmitter module and FrSky FASST compatible receiver and had no problems with it at all. Oddly when the sun disappeared and the cloud cover rolled it the air got quite thermally and I deliberately flew my Spark way out from the slope and it got high (very!) at times. No probs with range even when I deliberately turned my back on the model and put my body between the tx and model.


One interesting thing I notice with the Spark is the weight of those glassed blue foam wings does mean that rolls are slowish to start and stop compared to a hollow moulded model. The roll rate is fine but it is a wee bit sluggish and feels ever so slightly ponderous at times. Still a good hack model though :o)
Grand day out

F3F Winter League 1 Sat 19 November

The first F3F Winter was flown in some great weather considering it was the 19th of November. Twelve degrees Centigrade and light southerly winds which increased a little around the middle of the day and saw everyone adding ballast. Times in the early rounds were pedestrian (70 seconds) but steadily decreased as the conditions improved. Peter flew well and won the competition and also had FTD with his P3. Peter is really to grips with his P3 and it looked fast all day. Well done to him :o)









Dave Watson managed to cut four times but still finished in second place.









Mike flew his Ascot to good effect and even hand caught his model when landing towards the end of the day. I took pictures of his model all the way down to land but didn’t realise his intention and missed the catch :o(

I had a rubbish day and never got my Skorpion going and flew consistently long :o(






Better get some sleep before the next competition!


Tea and cake at the Pillars on the way home rounded off a great day out.

I took some mediocre pictures which can be seen here.

Kilspindie. Low cloud.

The wind direction looked changeable all day Saturday so I put off going out flying until today. An easterly was forecast with mist first thing but clearing mid morning. Well, the wind direction was correct with 15-20mph easterly straight on the slope but the visibility was hopeless and never got better than 20 metres horizontally and 10 metres vertically. That is the slope edge in the above photograph looking south along the edge.

Being an eternal optimist I took my Skorpion up to the east slope but it hid in the bag all day and could not be coaxed out. My Weasel Evo got some airtime though and I had fun keeping it in sight. I flew several flights but they were limited to scooting back and forward low along the slope edge and turning before I lost sight of it. There was enough visibility to squeeze in a roll before a turn was required. Trying two consecutive rolls was nearly my undoing when it got to the point where I could barely see it! Loops saw it disappear at the top before diving out of the low cloud again. Had an interesting flight when practicing low inverted and the fin fell off and blew back behind the slope and took a few minutes to find. The Weasel flies ok in level flight without a fin but a more than 30 deg bank sees it heading for the deck sideways. Managed to land it ok though:o)

Mad, quite mad!

Saturday 5 Nov. Northern Winter League 1

The forecast for the first Northern Winter League F3F event at the Hole of Horcum had looked dodgy all week but things were looking more promising by Friday until early evening when it looked less encouraging. Jon Edison sent out a cautious “On” email suggesting it may not be wise for competitors to travel a long way in case the competition didn’t happen. I called Peter and after thinking about it for a while Peter thought it worth the journey and with Mike equally keen the three of us agreed to give it a go.

I was at Peter’s house for 4am and we headed off to collect Mike on the way. Yawn!

A stop at Purdy Lodge for breakfast (egg roll for me) and we arrived at Horcum to see low cloud and poor visibility. Oh oh! Richard Bago and Paul Middleton were confident that it would clear. After half an hour of chat and banter the weather indeed seemed to be improving and we all headed for the trudge to the north-west slope. Course set-up, more banter, and the locals were proved correct and we were able to fly. We had to stop for 15 minutes after the first round when the low cloud made a re-appearance but after that we flew another uninterrupted 8 rounds.

The wind was blowing about 20-25mph, crossed from the right, and lift was very variable. Getting ten laps of good air required some luck. Skill helped too and the best guys were very lucky as usual and finished at the top!

Peter was flying his Predator 3 and coped with the conditions very well finishing in fourth position. The rarity of the P3 caused much interest and discussion. The unusual colour scheme received many words of approval. I thought the predominantly white model stood out exceptionaly well in the misty low cloud. NOT!











Mike left his Ascot in the car and only flew his Extreme and finished in eighth position. I finished in eleventh, I never managed to get my Vikos below 50 seconds all day:(

Interesting to see three Skopions being flown today, finishing second, sixth and ninth.. Next time I may try mine!

Mark Redsell flew his Freestyler 3 consistently quickly all day and was a convincing winner.

Paul Garnett had his hastily put together “bitsa” Skorpion going well too after his return from foreign climes and took second place. Paul got some fantastic air at one point and it looked like a very fast time til he cut! His Skorpion was ballistic!

Paul Middleton flew his Vikos very accurately and ended up in third place

Full results:-

1 Mark Redsell
2 Paul Garnett
3 Paul Middleton
4 Peter Gunning
5 Keith Wood
6 Paul Foster
7 Richard Bago
8 Mike MacCracken
9 Dave Wright
10 Ronnie Lampe
11 George Young
12 Jon Edison
13 Mark Treble
14 Egon Lewin

Thanks to Jon and his helpers for a great day out.

Scores and write up should be available on NYMRSC website.

Scottish Winter League starts in two weeks. Yippee