Weekend 21-22 Sept East Lomond and Kilspindie

I wasn't able to go to the Welsh Open this year :( but I was determined to get some flying in if the weather cooperated.

On Saturday the forecast was for s/w winds so I headed up East Lomond for the first time in ages and it still looks just the same! It was pretty gloomy on the slope with heavy overcast skies but it stayed dry and the wind was around 20-25mph. An early start saw my Extreme in the air by 10 o'clock and at that point the wind was well south of south-west and my Extreme was going well with most of the ballast in.

Extreme and gloomy skies

I had to be home for lunch and my last flight was just before 12 by which time the wind had swung more south west and had become quite bumpy with not a lot of lift. It confirmed my opinion that East Lomond works best in south, south west wind. Once it swings round and comes over Bishop it gets less lifty and quite bumpy.

Sunday morning saw me head for Kilpsindie and it was a lovely day up there. Quite warm and a 25-30mph sw wind swinging round to west by the time I was once more heading home for lunchtime.

Self portrait of me and Extreme.

I spent a bit if time tweaking the aileron differential and elevator throws but don't seem to have made much difference!

Low cloud on East Lomond. Just as well I stayed away on the low slopes at Kilspindie!

Update:-
When I got home I had time to put the Precision together for the first time. Needs receiver fitted and then it will be test flight time. Paint will follow. Later!!

Looks ok from a distance!

F3F called-off. Sport fly on NW slope at West Lomond

Peter called the first reserve F3F competition on but unfortunately only four of us turned up at the Craigmead car park so not enough people for a race. The weather forecast looked promising with a dry sunny day and light north west winds predicted and so it was. On the slope the wind started out about 15mph and rose to about 25 and the air was just silky smooth. Fantastic!

Peter's Freestyler off on test flight

Peter was able to try out his recently repaired Freestyler and it went as well as ever. He pulled some very tight turns illustrating he importance of getting the cg in the correct place! Peter's Stinger also got some airtime in the fabby lift. It really is a great slope and well worth the longish walk (no significant climb though!).

Robert getting ready to launch Dave's Cyril

Cyril away

Dave flew his Cyril and it went like stink as usual; this model seems a great all-rounder and always goes well. Aerobatic too!

This was Robert's first visit to this slope and he was well impressed and compared it to Bishop after he had been tearing up the sky with his P3.

Robert's P3

I flew my Ascot with 450g of wing ballast and it went really well. EM style turns seemed to work best but I need to learn how to string 9 turns together.

We few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers

I would have been a great day for a competion with nice smooth predicable air.

Carrot Hill in very light south easterly

I took my DLG out for a walk from Carrot Hill to Dodd Hill and had fun trying to find light slope lift off the gentle slope looking towards the river Tay. With some thermal assistance I had many enjoyable flights although not all landings were very elegant!

 

Just after I arrived at Dodd Hill I heard a distant roar and saw what I assume to be the Red Arrows departing Leuchars after the display on Saturday. Could be the last time they are there?

 

Distant view of Red Arrows taking off from Leuchars

You can just make out the planes having turned off their smoke.

 

Longshot having a rest.

 

Leason learned. I discovered that if you fly the Longshot for more than 90 minutes the rx battery gives up!! Thank goodness for nice soft bracken/heather!

Scottish National Championships 31 August/1 September

 

Two days of F3F racing? Excellent!

The forecast had been predicting good westerly winds all week and that was what we got. This did mean that we were on Bishop Hill both days and with the usual easier access not available we had to climb up the front of the hill both days. Phew!

I deliberately arrived early on Saturday and made the climb straight up from Kinnesswood with a few stops on the way. When the slope came in sight I discovered Mark Redsell already there and flying his Freestyler in the big air. Just as I got to the slope Mark Abbots appeared over the edge having climbed up the winding track below the main slope. It turned out he had been up on Friday night for a fly too. Three climbs up Bishop Hill in one weekend? Keen!  

Abbo and Mike discuss tactics

 

I flew my Ascot both days and it was going pretty well and flew very smoothly but I need to tighten up my flying. Having flown my Ascot a fair bit now one thing I noticed early on was that when I dived onto the course from a big climb out and banged aileron over to turn the roll rate was slower than I thought it would be and some adverse yaw apparent. There are fast Futaba 3155s servos on ailerons and I suspect their relatively weak 2kg torque isn’t enough in big air. Time for a change of servo. I managed a few sub-40s so was quite happy. My best over the two days was 35.xx. Over the weekend if you weren’t below 35 in a round you were not in the running. I remember when sub-40 was remarkable!

Robert's P3 get the heave

 

The second day we walked up from the church car park and it was a little easier than the path straight up from Kinnesswood, especially on the way back down. Having said that when I got to the top on day two I was cream crackered for the first half hour or so and needed a seat to recover because I was feeling a bit queasy.

Abbo and his Caldera

 

The wind was stronger on the second day and the shipping forecast was correct in predicting the strength would rise to gale force 8. The shipping forecast is for sea level and at 1300 ft it was at least gale force 10! We had to abandon flying around 3 o’clock when the wind got well above the “legal” limit for competition. I was well pleased because even standing still on the edge of the slope was almost impossible such was the strength of the wind.

 

Trophies

 

Third place Peter

 

Second place Paul

 

 

First Place Mark

 

Fastest time of the competition.

 

It was a great weekend although Peter damaged his Freestyler on Saturday and Tom Foreman was unfortunate enough to badly break his Stinger on Sunday and also damaged his Artist later on:( I hope they can all be repaired and are back in the air very soon.

 

It is Tuesday today and my legs are still aching!