Pole Hill Sunday 21 August

It was still good weather on Sunday although the wind was forecast more WSW so with my wife on a shopping trip to Glasgow I headed up to Pole Hill with my Race M. The wind was pretty much straight on the slope and blowing a good 20-25 MPH rising to 30 by lunchtime and my Race M was loving it. So was I. It is ages since I flew my Race M and I’m thinking it may well be a better back-up model than my Skorpion.

The good thing about Pole Hill is that as the wind rises the lift just gets better. Not something that normally happens on East Lomond. My plan to be home and working for 1 o’clock didn’t happen because I was having too much fun!! My Weasel got an airing too but the big air encouraged me to fly my Race M.

F3F East Lomond 20 August

After a string of cancelled F3F races nature finally relented and the weather was favourable for a competition in East Lomond. The wind was blowing SSW and after the course was set up and a test flight made we moved the course a bit more to the south. After round two the wind had swung a bit further south which entailed yet another moving of the course. Apart from that the wind blew fairly steadily about 20-25 mph with conditions at their best early afternoon.

Peter Gunning showed everyone a clean pair of heels and took round one with his Cyril. Dave Watson retaliated by taking round two and giving a hint to the final result. Ian Stewart flew his Strega and took round three and Mike McCracken won round four with his Extreme. Ron won round five with his bitsa Viking and David Loomes won round six convincingly with his Kyril. Ian switched to his Skorpion and won round seven and I fluked it and won round eight with my Vikos. Ian Stewart took round nine and Martin Gibbs took the last round with his Viking.

I completely messed up my landing after round ten and watched my poor Vikos get caught by a gust and slowly flip upside down breaking a tailplane joiner when it hit the ground. I wasn’t the only one having problems landing because something weird happed to one of Ron’s and we were all getting ready to run at one point but control was regained a successful landing made although not quite where it was originally intended to be!

Dave Watson had a great round 2 and held the fastest time for several rounds before David Loomes wrested it from him in round 6. Then in round 8 some jammy beggar (me!) got some great air and managed to hold it together to take FTD. Not sure how that happened because it didn’t feel that fast although it was nice and smooth air.
Looking at the results spreadsheet although Ian Stewart took three rounds and everyone else won one round, Dave Watson’s consistent flying saw him win the competition although it was always going to be close between him and Peter Gunning with the lead passing back and forward a few times. The scores were pretty close between Ron, Ian and David and also between Mike and me.
It was good to see some of the regulars again because it is ages since we flew a competition, the last one that ran was in June. This was only the third competition run this year because we have lost six F3F competitions and one aerobatics so far. Great to get some proper flying in at last though.
I hope we get some good weather again in a fortnight for the Scottish National Championships.

Sunday 14 August 2011. Good flying at last.

FINALLY!
After what seems like months (because it is) the weather was fine(ish), the wind was blowing straight on the slope, the Dagenham Dustbin was going and I didn’t need to be elsewhere so I was able to head for East Lomond with my Vikos and some flying.
I was so early I headed up the hill on my own but was soon joined by Dave Watson and Ian Simpson. It was ages since I had seen Dave and I can’t remember the last time I saw Ian!

My first flights of the day ware before Dave and Ian arrived which was just as well because I felt really rusty and it took a good 15 minutes before I got my confidence back and was able to relax a little! The wind was blowing about 15 mph and when the odd thermal passed through my Vikos kicked up its heels and was going well.
Keen as ever Ian had carried his Furio up the hill assembled and was able to launch as soon as he arrived. Ian soon found some thermal lift had his model at great height before sending it hurtling along the front of the slope! Yippee!
Dave’s first job when he arrived was to peg down his Sport-brella which I think is just the cat’s pyjamas! My birthday is in November so a few hints will be dropped!
Dave brought his repaired Vikos along and soon had it zipping along the slope very quickly. Dave’s Vikos always looks so much faster than mine.

An approaching rain shower saw us hiding behind Dave’s Sport-brella which proved an ideal place to hide from the rain. I got a chance to try out the new Fram-Bags on my Vikos and they worked very well and kept the model dry.

Dave had also brought along a really smart Shiva 60” racer which he had dug out of the back of his shed and flew it once the rain cleared and it looked good in the air although a wee bit twitchy. I recently revived my Phase 6 and was a bit disappointed with the way it went compared to any of my moulded models and I’m sure Dave felt the same about his Shiva. Nice, but hard to match the performance of a moulded model.

At times today the lift was pretty good and when the wind picked up later in the day the models were going well although not much height to be gained unless you could find a thermal. There is an F3F competition scheduled for Saturday so fingers crossed we get condition like today or better.
I forgot my camera today so only phone pictures.

Friday 15 and Saturday 16 July

Friday afternoon I left work sharp and headed up to Kilspindie with my Weasel Evo. Had a struggle getting there because the A90 was shut due to a serious accident but I detoured round it on the back roads. Me and 1000 other motorists! Narrow lanes are not the best place to meet articulated lorries or people who think their 4x4 is 3 feet wider than it actually is. Doh!!

Had to walk to the south cliff to get a slope with any lift and by the time I got there it had clouded over and was getting gloomier by the minute. I could see rain in the distance but convinced myself it would miss me.

After 20 minutes flying it dawned on me the rain was heading straight towards me. Time for another 10 minutes flying before I give up.

I gave in eventually and headed back to the car just as the rain started and it quickly became a downpour. I got well and truly soaked by the time I reached the car. Slow drive home (A90 still shut) in wet clothes wasn’t fun but hey, I had a flee!

No chance of an F3F competition today because of the weather so glad I went out yesterday even if I had to get changed when I got in.

Update on last post.

Wife on the mend.
Car fixed after new turbocharger fitted and my bank account became £919 lighter! FFS!

Not the best week!

My wife had an accident of her bike last weekend and is off work with an arm injury although it isn't broken.

My car took poorly on Wednesday and only runs in limp-home-mode. In at diesel specialists for new turbocharger to be fitted. How to blow a whole chunk of my modelling budget in one go!

No transport meant no F3F Eurotour event at the Hole of Horcum at the weekend.

Rained both days here so no chance of me using my wifes car for a quick slope fix.

Well fed-up :o(

EBay bargain?

Sitting at my desk at work on Monday I was browsing around the web looking at genuine Futaba 2.4 GHz Fasst receivers and worked out that the R6008HS was the one I needed for my good racers. The Orange/Frsky ones seem fine but I would prefer the genuine article rather than a “pattern part”. However the Futaba website confirmed that this rx has been discontinued and replaced with a R6108SB. The “SB” part indicates “serial bus” which could be a great way of eliminating wiring looms but it can be used as normal too.

A browse round the web shows it available for about £100 including postage. Pretty much the same as I used to pay for genuine 35 MHz PCM ones. The retailers on EBay were quoting the same kind of price. Except..........
I spotted one listed in the wrong category on EBay (“radio-controlled other” and not “radio-controlled accessories”). A Buy It Now price of £60 but open to offers. I offered £50 and then checked the price from Ripmax who quote £132.99. Ouch! I went back to pay the Buy It Now price only to discover my £50 offer had been accepted!

It arrived today and as advertised it looks brand new and unused.

A check of the connectors with a powerful hand lens shows pristine pins with no sign of having seen a servo/battery plug! Of course I’ll check it out in a foamie before I use it in anything less bouncy!

Pole Hill 19 June 2011

Headed up to Pole Hill early today and met-up with Ian Stewart and his Ceres. I had brought my 2.4 GHz equipped Phase 6 to try out the new radio and to remind myself of how the model flew.

It turned out that the Phase 6 didn’t fly as well as I remembered. I think I have become so used to the high performance of the hollow moulded F3F types and balsa/ply/foam struggle to compete. The light wind conditions didn’t help much and I had to do the walk of shame to retrieve my model from the bottom of the hill.

The walk back up was instructive however. I left the transmitter on the ground at the top of the slope and several times when I was carrying the Phase 6 back up the slope the fail-safe kicked in indicating that the signal had been lost. This occurred when I was close in to the slope and well hidden from the tx. Interesting…. Range in the air was fine with no problems and control when landing out was fine too.

Ian’s Ceres was going well and he found numerous thermals and climbed well up before a long dive and a screaming high speed. Yippee!


Ian also tried some extra special ballast under the tailplane of his Ceres. I have to confess that I thought it looked pretty crap!