Its all about change

Well, in case you were wondering, I didn't get to fly the Ember when I was on holiday, the wind was far too strong even early morning and late evening every day. The strongest wind for flying it in is a light air movement, and we had more than that. (understatement).

Today...

A 180 degree turnaround in the wind direction today meant changing to the other side of the runway - twice. When I arrived we were on the South side. The wind soon increased in speed and the direction settled in the South East. All change, pick it all up and move to the North side. By the afternoon the wind changed and steadily moved to a Westerly direction. At around 15:30hrs the wind dropped to zero mph for about 10 minutes and I managed to get a flight in with the Ember. (Designed for indoor flying). Then it quickly built up speed from the North West to about 15 mph. Then it was time to go home. But I did fly all the aircraft I took up there today, and brought them home safely. Others weren't so lucky. Clive brought along his Harmony,a nice twin engined job which had an engine synchronising unit on board which used sensors one on each engine to monitor rpm.

Clive Halls twin engined aircraft met its demise on the tarmac - what a shame, nice plane.

Ian arrived later in the afternoon and flew this beautiful example of an F15 Eagle. Powered by a single Jetcat gas turbine it has bifurcated jet tubes to simulate twin engines. Also there is retractable under carriage with synchronused doors, wheel brakes, air brakes, flaps, and a canopy that opens using compressed air.

A fine example. This photo shows the wash-out on the wing tips.

A side view

I nearly forgot, I flew the Pico Jet today as well. First time since...must be last year.

I'll post more later...

Home again

Been away for a break on TQ, thoroughly enjoyable but the weather has been awful so I've not been able to do any flying at all. We were on the River Severn last Sunday and ahead of us at Upton-on-Severn was a glider, two, in fact, so there must be a club site nearby. That Sunday was the best day of our holiday weather wise, but I was unable to find the time or place to do any flying. The weather today is still pretty appauling so lets hope next weekend is better. No pics today, however I've got a new camera so I'm dying to try it out at the airfield.

Another great flying day

The fly for fun went really well. No-one knows where they came in the competition, but everyone enjoyed themselves. All I can say is I think I came second in the climb and glide event with 4 minutes and 52 seconds of glide from a 30 second climb. Not bad in my book! The events were Pylon Racing, Climb and Glide, Touch and Go in a minute, Spot Landing, and Loops in 30 seconds. Thanks go to Mike Clark and Niel Hincks for organising and running the event.

Another highlight of the day was this Piper Cub built by John Wright and flown by Paul Mancini. The pictures say it all...

Well thats it from me for the next three weeks as I'm doing this instead. However I may just slip in a post or two as much to Lins disgust I'm taking the Ember. Cheers for now!

Fly for fun today...

...and the weather forecast is good. This is a club day where we fly as individuals in competition events such as Spot Landing, Climb and Glide and Pylon Racing etc. I'll be flying my Sunbeam trainer with the Super Tigre 40, and the other Sunbeam (Irvine 25 powered) will stand by in reserve. The Yak would be useless for this as its a bit of an animal.

I'll blog again later today if I can find the time as we're doing this for the next fortnight. If not then I'll write it up when I'm doing this.