East Lomond 30 January 2011

Peter Gunning suggested meeting up at East Lomond today and I was so keen for a fly I beat them all to it and got to the slope before the rest arrived.



The wind was blowing about 20-25 MPH but the temperature was minus 2 C in the car park so probably minus 3 or 4 on the slope. It felt much colder!! Windchill was quite significant although not as bad as the last time I was up East Lomond a couple of weeks ago.

I flew my Vikos with all the brass ballast fitted which is about 2/3 of the full load and it was going well although the right aileron servo arm needs moving on it’s spline. I knocked this servo loose last time and it has obviously not gone back in exactly the same position and I have run out of sub-trim throw on the transmitter. An easy fix in the workshop but not on a sub-zero hillside so I put up flying with some trim on the aileron. It was still nice and fast.

Peter flew his Extreme and it was going as well as it ever does. Extremely swift! Peter later flew his Cyril and had a moment when he launched the model with the transmitter still set to his Extreme. Woops! Inverted landing but luckily no real damage done and Peter then had a brief flight with his Cyril but cut it short because the cold was getting to him.

Mike flew his Voltij aerobatic model and it was liking the good wind although Mike wasn’t liking the cold much. I think Mike’s Ascot stayed in the cosy bag!

Craig flew a Rico-she? foamie before giving his Spark F3F model a flight which went well after it (and Craig) recovered from my limp wristed launch. Sorry Craig :o(

After over 2 hours we had had enough and headed back to the cars for a heat!

Gallow Hill 23 January 2011

With only light north-westerly winds forecast but keen to have a fly I set out early and walked up to Gallow Hill near Tealing. I parked near the huge Angus tv transmitter mast and yomped north over the moor which cleared my fuzzy head from the late night the previous evening!

The wind was pretty well bang on the slope and only about 10-12 mph but I gave my Skorpion a good heave from the slope “edge” and my model was soon gaining height. The lift was quite variable and with no defined edge on this hill close-in F3F practice was interesting. The best slope lift was about 50 yds out from the edge. Occasionally the lift died almost completely but always picked up again so no long walk to retrieve was required.




Camera balanced on top of my rucksack.



I managed to fly my Skorpion into some good thermal lift at times and was testing my eyesight to keep it in view. A few near-vertical dives saw my Skorp howling low over the moor and terrorising a couple of buzzards!

Brill!

16 January 2011 Kilspindie

With another F3F winter league event cancelled yesterday and keen to get a break from revising I went up to Kilspindie today. The walk up was a bit soggy after all the rain on Saturday but the wind was pretty well bang-on the south-west slope and blowing a good 45-55 mph! Getting my Skorpion to the launch point was a real challenge but once away it was fair shifting with most of the ballast in. Ian Simpson arrived not long afterwards in time to see me land which was ok if a little scary. Only a dab of brakes needed to dump height and then aim for the ground!

Ian’s Furio was quickly loaded up with ballast and it was soon scorching around the sky too. I put all the ballast in my Skorpion and launched again. Yippee! The lift in this strength of wind was excellent. Big lift!! I have to say that I felt the lift was much better than East Lomond in similar conditions.

In that kind of wind landings are a bit daunting but with a bit of commitment not too bad! Great fun and cobwebs well and truly blow away!!

Monday 3 January 2011.
I joined Peter and Mike up at East Lomond today but the walk up from the car park was a challenge. A lot of icy snow meant walking over the springy heather to avoid the treacherous frozen snow and I found it really hard going. My poor legs! I considered giving up at one point!

A good wind was blowing, unfortunately it was crossed a little too far west, but my Vikos was going quite well although I need to reduce the aileron throw for windy days. I find it a little too fast to accurately roll into an F3F turn. I need to dial it into my refurbished Futaba 9ZAP transmitter which has fully definable flight conditions.

With the air temperature about 2 deg C the wind-chill was significant today. Mike gave up not long after I arrived and headed home to warm up. I only had one half hour flight because I undershot and landed on a large patch of concrete-like snow and broke a servo arm on an aileron. I had some spares in my bag but by that time I was happy to head back to my cosy car! Peter had had enough too!

Friday 31 December 2010
Finally, and after a five week gap and after some encouragement by Ian Simpson, I managed to get out for a fly at Kilspindie for a fly. The road up was still bounded by snow, I got stuck briefly on the way up, and parking was restricted to the hard frozen snow at the side of the road.

The wind was well round to the northwest but still flyable. Ian spotted that there was some lift away to the north which was good fun although a bit too far away fro my eyesight! With light winds and bright sunshine it was quite pleasant and fantastic to be out at last.

I took a few pictures of the snowy landscape.

Some freezing fog can be seen particularly away to the south over the Forth.

I recently managed to buy a Futaba 9ZAP transmitter at a pretty good price and the dismal weather has given the opportunity to do some refurbishment to it.


From the start it was obvious that the eight cell NiCd battery was not holding a charge so I bought a pack of Sanyo Eneloops and fitted them. The battery in the 9ZAP is in a cassette so that it can be unplugged but this requires removal and dismantling to get at the cells. The cells themselves are wired to a circuit board so the old pack needs unsoldering and the new one fits right in.

There was a broken switch which I was going to put up with but Steve Webb Models can get the genuine replacements from Ripmax. These switches are much easier to replace than the ones in a FF8 or 9. Once the back of the case is removed the small section of the case holding a pair of switches can be removed and unplugged. The switches are soldered to a small circuit board and after a bit of unsoldering and resoldering they are easily replaced. One small gripe is that I don't really mind paying £7.99 for a sub-miniature toggle switch but think it a bit mean it doesn't come with a new nut/bezal to secure it in place. No problem using the old one I took off but stingy not to supply a new one!!

Before and after shots.




Done.



All I need now is for the snow to go away and I can try it out for real.

Snow and very low temps

No flying because of the heavy snow and poor access to the hills. Minus 11 C one day so very cold too. Tempted to try Gallow Hill in the Sidlaws on Sunday but light NW winds put me off plus I guess the roads and parking will be difficult.
The last F3F competition was 23 October and that seems a long time ago. The weather has a lot to answer for.

I am being kept busy at times refurbishing a Futaba 9ZAP transmitter that I bought cheap secondhand. I originally intended buying a Futaba 8 or 12FG tx but can’t decide if the 8FG is good enough or whether I should save (hard) for a 12 FG. The thought of having to buy all those 2.4 mHz receivers is a bit daunting too!

The 9ZAP needed a new main battery so I have fitted some Eneloop cells which should give a significant increase in operating time. This job did require a bit of work in that the 9ZAP battery is inside a removable cassette which needs dismantling and unsoldering the old pack and soldering in the new one. Not difficult but not a two minute job.

There is a broken switch which I was going to leave knowing how difficult it is to change one on a FF8 or FF9 but it turns out that it isn’t too difficult to do on the 9ZAP so I’m waiting for new switch to be delivered. I hope it is the correct one but it isn’t too important because I can re-assign other switches.

The 9Zap is a much more capable tx than my FF8 and it has the big advantage of flight conditions which the FF8 doesn’t really have. Yes, you can have speed/launch/normal settings on the FF8 but that only presets the aileron/flap reflex or droop and elevator compensation. No ability to vary aileron or differential throw between conditions whereas the 9ZAP lets you do almost anything. (Once you work out the programming!) I can have the snapflap setting different for each condition too as well as have the snapflap on a curve to come in early.

Ready to try it out next time we get some good weather. My racers are still going to use my FF8 but the 9ZAP is programmed for the Spark I got from Dave Watson.

Sunday 21 November Purin Hill

With no F3F competition yesterday and no flying at all because of rain I dashed up to the back side of East Lomond on Sunday morning where I managed about an hour or so flying my Race M. There was only about a 10-15 mph wind blowing but at least I got a flee. Mike McCracken and his pal Craig and another whose name I didn't get turned up as I was leaving. I hope they didn't get wet because I could see the rain heading for me as I packed up! Drove through heavy showers on way home.

Got a text from Pete that he went for the long walk up to West Lomond but it was no better there!

Hope we get a competition this Saturday although if the forecast is correct we may end up trudging through the snow! If we can get up to the car-park in the first place that is.