Taking Advanatage of the Dyke

This morning I was unable to join the group who were flying, but took advantage of some last minute found time this afternoon.
I arrived to find a constant NWW wind of around  16 mph, which I think is a perfect strength for my SAS Wild thing 46 and a handful of hand gliders.
I've found my wild thing struggles below 12mph and you have to work the best of the lift you can find to make it fly at its best.
These conditions were perfect for me, I did my pre-flight checks and found my elevons were out of position, this is an issue I am having every time I flying this model, but with the advantage of dx7 I quickly made the required changes.
I had installed some cheap metal gear servos from ebay (tower hobbies, probable fake) during the build, I was suspect about them and before installing them, I had done a function check and made sure they centred.
The strange thing I had on a previous flying session, was I  had to use some sub trim to make corrections, but this flight had to take it all out to centre the flying surfaces. I plan to replace these servos in the future.

I launched the model, trimmed and had a great time, there was loads of lift, joined by the local birds of pray I had the best flying session with this model yet, carry loads of speed I was able to run low passes, rolls and it would just soar straight back up to do it all again.

I am finding Devils dyke is one of my favourite flying sites, when its not busy with Para gliders and people, it has a nice wide open slope so you can see all around you and a large flat landing zone.

 

Good lift but rough at the Dyke.

Paul and I met at the far end of the Devil’s Dyke car park where unusually for him he had only brought along his recently completed Phase 6 and I with my Wildthing. We made the short walk to the ridge and I started to unpack my transmitter while Paul assembled his glider. It was at this time Paul noticed that he had inadvertently left the battery switch on after charging and therefor had no power. No flying for Paul. This shows it can happen, even to our most experienced member of the club and maybe a valuable lesson for us all here to re-check our equipment before we set out to the flying site so as to avoid any disappointment. Along then came Scott with his Me163 Komet and we started to fly. The lift was good but rough and cold with gusts of 21 mph. I continued with my glider while Paul instructed Scott on inverted flight with his model. Paul decided to leave us at this time, so Scotty and I continued to enjoy the mornings flying. By late morning it was getting busy with ramblers and dog walkers and a few fast-moving model gliders just above us, so we decided to return home. On the way back to the cars we noticed that apparently it was not only Paul who had battery problems this morning up on the Dyke. Only joking Paul.