Sunshine, light winds and a flat field!

A nice morning down at the field today with myself, Graham and Bob P flying various models. Bob started off the flying, trimming his new dlg (sorry, I never remember the names of models).

He very skilfully tree'd it, looking so hard at the model he forgot to look where it was going!

Graham got his very sleek-looking own-design electric soarer in the air smartly and even given the early hour he managed to find a small weak thermal and got away for a good ten minute flight.

I spent quite some time walking up and down the field, sorting out my new bungee. I'd done the joints bvetween secions of silicone tubing as recommended - file a barb into each end of a dowel, insert it in the tube then get a cable tie tighly around it. 

On first stretching, they gave way! So I just tied the various lengths of silicone together and that worked fine.

Once the relative lengths of rubber and fishing line were sorted out, Graham showed his true colours and tirelessly helped me out with several launches. Thanks Graham - it was a hot day and the help was much appreciated.

I still need to practice my thermal turns, but got some good launch practice anyway.

Bob then got his ASW28 out and Graham once again stepped up to the plate to maiden it for him and help trim it out. After several flights and some adjustment, the model went very well.

In the meantime, I had brought the Minimoa along and decided to give it a test glide. This was extremely nerve-warcking as I'd been given the model by a friend on the proviso I got it flying. It's taken me 5 years of on-again/off-again refurbishment, including recovering the wings and empennage, installing spoilers and spending hours on a nice new paint scheme.

The model has always seemed a bit heavy to me and I feared it'd glide like a brick.

In actual fact, that's exactly what it did! With full 'up', it flew pretty-much straight ahead down to the ground with a prodigious sink rate.

But to be fair, i think the cg is a bit too far forward and the tailplane has too much positive incidence as a result of my modifying the attachment system.

One great thing, it went dead straight.

So this evening I've decreased the tailpalne incidence, replaced the battery with a lighter one and increased the elevator throw.

I await a further opportunity to try her again.

During this time the wind had swung 180 degrees so I spent 20 minutes setting up the bungee in the other direction. This gliding lark keeps you fit!

Graham had sorted Bob's ASW nicely by now but I wanted to try some solo launches and declined his offer of further help. I tried a low-power launch, handling the bungee and the glider on my own. It went very well and I'm keen to try further solo launches, with more tension.

But by that time, it was home-we-go for all so we packed up and headed out.

Nice flying with you guys, Graham - you were a star! Thanks for the help and advice.

As a post-script, I felt i knew Bob's face from somewhere, but couldn't place him. Turns out he works at one of the companies i was delivering to when I was working for Johnson's Apparelmaster - as soon as he said it I thought "oh yeeeess! i recognise you now!" funny how you don't recognise someone when you see them out of context!