Monday 29 September 2014

Digging it on East Lomond!


The promise of a brisk south westerly wind saw me heading over to East Lomond on Saturday to meet up with Dave and Peter. Dave was planning to fly his new Pitbull for the first time and it looked like a perfect day as I drove up the access road. Bright and quite sunny too. When I reached the car park there were so many cars already there I struggled to find a parking space! I did manage to get a reasonable space when a car left but when I got out of the car I was amazed to see a fairly large group of people standing on top of the hill and right next to where we fly. Dave was already in the car park and was as perplexed as I was. A bit of questioning of people already there revealed there was an archaeological dig going on under the management of the Living Lomonds project. Flying from our usual spot was just not going to happen today. Peter arrived shortly afterwards and we thought we should be okay flying from the shoulder of the hill just short of the fence and gate.

The wind was a bit crossed when we got there but Peter soon had his model in the air and proved it was flyable although not ideal. I headed up to the dig (Mr Nosey) and spoke to the very helpful Sarah and was reassured to hear that they were only going to be there for another week and should be gone before out next scheduled competition on 11 October. The actual project looks interesting and is basically trying to involve the local community in local archaeology. Quite fascinating to think that in Iron Age times people lived their lives on our slopes!

I got back to Dave and Peter just as Dave’s Pitbull was launched for the first time. It looked very smooth and lovely. Quick too.
Dave's Pitbull gets away for the first time.
On my second flight the wind straightened up and my Precision was soon going really well. Yippee! Unfortunately the crossed conditions returned so we gave up. Peter and I nipped over to check out a low coastal slope at Buckhaven. The slope looks promising but a bit daunting for the first time. The actual slope consists of a strip of huge bolders which have been put there to prevent coastal erosion. There is nowhere to land out other than the sea so I would want to try the slope with a foamy for the first time. Next timeJ

Sunday morning saw me up Pole Hill with my Stinger. The wind was still south westerly and increased from about 15mph when I first arrived to 30mph+ when I left. This gave me a good chance to try different amounts of ballast.

 
The Stinger goes really well and maintains speed in the turn. It seems odd on the climb-out because it needs flap to gain height without a lot of back stick although once the nose goes down without flap and it gets up to speed it is off!
 
Home in time for a late lunch followed by some family time :-)  

 

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