Rain

Saturday. Rain so no F3F competition :o(
Sunday . More rain and no sport flying :o(
Summer? Huh!

Purin Hill Saturday 9 June

Not enough time to walk to the much better north slope on the way to West Lomond so I had and hour and a half with my Race M on the backside of East Lomond. Not exactly my favourite slope!

It was blowing about 5-10mph but lots of sink and not a lot of lift. After several climbs and fast passes along the slope I was caught out by a 90 degree change in wind and no lift and ended up landing out just to one side of me. After a chat to one of the three paraglider pilots who turned up I launched again and found some nice thermals and soon had the Race M very high. One of the paragliders decided the lift looked good and launched for about 15 seconds of flight before landing down the slope. Tee, hee!! Never seen the parrot-chutes on that slope before.

Typically the forecast was for the wind to swing to the east but about 11 o'clock it swung north west which put paid to me doing any more flying. Despite the light lift I flew the Race M with full ballast and it never felt heavy! Landing speeds were brisk though! 

After stripping a gear on a Hitec 5085 last week I spotted someone selling HS 85 BB gear-sets (all plastic) for £2.99 on Ebay. The metal geared 5085 (and Multiplex Polo) has a small plastic gear at the start of the gear-train and it is this one that usually strips on the metal geared servos. Odd that a metal geared servo has a plastic gear as a weak point. You could argue that it protects the metal gears but then you still have to buy a full set of metal gears to obtain the weak plastic gear which is part of the set. The small gear in the set for the HS85 BB appeared identical so I bought a set and I was correct! A perfect fit at a quarter of the price. Two more sets on order as spares.

Sunny afternoon at Kilspindie

My plan to do some diy in the morning and go flying in the afternoon didn’t quite go to plan because it took me until 3 o’clock to get the painting done so I abandoned the mess, packed my Race M in the back of the car and headed for Kilspindie for some fresh air fun.

 I had a very pleasant hour and a half zipping my Race M back and forth along the east slope in a good 25mph wind. Full ballast and lots of different style turns but can’t seem to get to grips with the EM style. Maybe I need to contact T9 for one of their £600 P3s! I wish :o(

Flying high and thermal hunting was out today because that bl**dy buzzard was not happy to see my Race M in the air!! I gave it a few scares by chasing after it but with an infinitely variable wing and full telemetry the buzzard has an advantage in those conditions. A 10mph increase in wind strength would redress the balance!!

I had to head home earlier than I planned because a nice safe landing on top (unlike the arrival in the hollow behind the slope earlier) saw the left flap servo with a stripped gear. The flaps were away on touchdown but a grassy tussock gave the flap a good thump. 15 minutes to replace when I got home (after tidying up the mess I left in the house after diy earlier!!. It is a pain that Hitec don't sell the single plastic 5085 servo gear that is the weak link and always strips and you have to buy a complete set for £11. I fitted a new servo instead!! Almost as cheap to buy an HS85MG and remove the gears.