Another great day at Wolstonbury Hill

Hi all,

Sorry no photos - I was too busy flying!

We had a great session today at Wolstonbury. When I arrived, Jim, John and Graham were already there, but not in the air. If you know Wolstonbury then you'll know that the first part of the bowl is very sheltered if there's a lot of East in the wind.

As I walked up, it seemed dead calm, and with everyone's gliders on the ground I was thinking  the wind was not present. It was very misty as well and gave the impression of a windless, misty day.

As it was, the sheltered section of Wolstonbury tricked me - there was plenty of wind and it was just coincidence everyone was on the ground at the same time.

Jim had his trusty 'Whisper' polyhedral model, a bit light for the conditons and struggling to penetrate. John was flying his Phoenix to great effect, alternating with a nice little flying wing - sorry John I didn't get the name.

Graham had several models - the Hacker Vagabond is the only one whose name I remember!

I really must take a notebook if I'm going to blog regularly. 

John's flying wing was showing some nasty tendencies to 'tuck' in turns - John said the c of g was a bit too far forward. I don't know a great deal about flying wings, but I've heard that the c of g position is absolutely critical. John made some adjustments, bringing the c of g back towards the recommended position and the model seemed to go a lot better - anyone able to comment more on this?
 
Jim's Middle Phase went a lot better today, now the battery is back in its proper home! He's thinking of building another wing for it, with a little more dihedral, after having a go on the Stargazer. Jim had some really good flights, cruising back and forth along the slope, practicing the art of letting the wind drift the model back towards the slope, rather than the dreaded 'slopewards turn'! He made some good 'saves' today - good one Jim!

Graham had some excellent flights, the Vagabond's elevator travel was quite a surprise for me! It moves to nearly 90 degrees! Some very interesting manouevres ensued...

Graham also pointed out that Jim's Middle Phase had a lot of aileron differential - just not the right way round! The ailerons were going down a lot further than they were going up, whereas they should go up a lot further than they go down.

While flying the Middle Phase I hadn't noticed any marked adverse yaw, but then I'm not really that experienced - Graham's call was a great one and I'm sure it'll help with the Middle Phase's handling.

We were joined mid-session by Marc with his 60" Wild Thing. This wing looked super in the air and flew very well in the variable conditions. Marc was joking that he was happy when he landed the model the right way up, but he produced a lot of great landings actually!

A little later in the session, some paragliders appeared on the more Easterly part of the hill - there really wasn't much lift there today so we were all a bit surprised when one of them (bravely I thought) launched. A slow and steady decline followed, with a long walk back up the hill. They paraglider guys tried a few times more but with little success - I considered going over and inviting them to fly on the same part of the hill as us, but was unsure of the protocol.

I had my Stargazer and the ever dependable Spectre flying wing. The Stargazer went very well and once the wind increased I switched over to the Spectre. I had over 2 hours on the sticks today, an indication of how nice the conditions were. When I'd been in the air for quite some time, Graham gently asked me "how big is the battery in that?". It made me think - I'd never flown the Spectre for so long. Nice one Graham - a very diplomatic way of reminding me I might be getting low... I haven't charged her up again yet, but it'll be interesting to see how much she takes.

A great day's flying again :-) Thanks to all the other pilots for some sociable aviation!