Met up with Rob and Jim up on Ditchling Beacon around Midday today (Wednesday) to see if the rarely used SE facing bowl behind the main ridge would be working.
The weather was lovely with a rich blue sky and a warm 10mph SE breeze. Rob flew his Dream-Flight Libelle DLG and flew my Blaster 2 DLG and my Dream-Flight Weasel. Jim brought along his new Elf DLG but unfortunately technical issues kept Jim on the ground.
The bowl is shallow with lots of bushes and bends through South to virtually an Easterly direction. The lift can be variable but produces some good thermals. We have found the more you move around the bowl (to the West) the better the lift gets but this puts you behind some lower level trees / bushes which produce some hideous sink as you will see from my video. Once you push on past the bushes the lift improves and smoothes out.
The good news is that Rob is back to his 'full of life' self. He flew really well given that the lift was variable at times and turbulent behind the trees. I had a real hard time when trying to land the Blaster as I just couldn't get out of the lift and the landing flap just kept the model stationary but didn't help the model sink to the ground.
We did get to see and fly near two beautiful Buzzards which were calling and chasing each other around the sky.
Cheers Rob enjoyed the company!
I can't believe that the Libelle just floated to earth unharmed. It had left rudder and slight up elevator (last commands before the battery fell out !)
ReplyDeleteThat was a flash landing at the end Paul, very impressive. Would have liked to join you today with my Versus dlg, maybe next time.
ReplyDeleteNice little write up with some good video. Looked like an enjoyable session in nice weather.
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