Happy New Year Everyone

I personally had a great 2016 and I hope all my soaring buddies did too. I hope you enjoy your new years eve celebrations and lets hope 2017 brings us lots of good flying and good health.
Enjoy all and hope to see a load of you when we go flying on Monday!

Onboard the Expro yesterday at the Bwlch

Kloudrider - finished

Finally found enough energy to get off the sofa and finish the Kloudrider. The basic build went together very quickly but the canopy, radio and covering really slowed me down but its finally done. I guess early radio and servos weighed quite a bit more than today's, I had to add 150g of air gun pellets in a plastic bag to get the balance right, the wing was mounted slightly further back than designed but it still need lead in the nose. The overall weight is 1.2kg which puts it about 100g over weight but considering the amount of extra ply and balsa addd I'm not unhappy, a fair bit of glue was used too.
Overall its a very easy plane to build (apart from the canopy) and they are still available on ebay as a short kit.

Light wind up at The Bwlch

Such a beautiful day up in the valleys of South Wales. Joined by Steve & Phil and enjoyed a few hours soaring in 4 - 6 mph at the back of the Wrecker. Here's my Xpro cruising the light lift.

Windless on Firle

Hi everyone. 

Well I had a pleasant hour or so on Firle yesterday morning. The forecast light N'ly was not really in evidence - what wind there was came from the NE. 

I had planned to take the Algebra down - she'll fly in as little as 4 kts of breeze - but even the light weather performance of that plane would not have sufficed for sustained flight. Fortunately I took my trusty old Cularis with me as a backup.

The Cularis has been a real "curate's egg" - parts of it have been very good! The build was simple, but some of you may know the Cularis' weak point seems to be the automatic conenction of the wing servos using servo plugs mounted in the wing roots, with their other halves mounted in corresponding locations in the fuselage.

This arrangement worked great for the first dozen or so flights but I soon began to experience problems with getting a reliable connection.

This has eventually been solved by installing over-long extension leads in the wings (which required some drastic surgery) and just connecting things up in the usual fashion. It's a bit fiddly since the extra length of lead, once connected, needs to be pulled back through the wing as it's offered up and connected to the fuse. This necessitated the cutting-out of recesses in the bottom of the wings to accomodate the slack.

Anyway, back to the point. The Cularis is now reliable to fly and although the performance has doubtlessly been affected by the hacking about of the wings, she still goes well emough for my skill level - and looks nice and 'scaley' into the bargain.

There was no real slope lift yesterday, but I detected a little thermal activity further out from the slope. This was very weak and not present close to the slope (the north face of which was in shadow) but definitely there. 

So, an opportunity to practice my themalling again.

Perhaps a more skillful pilot could have stayed up - but at least I was able to reduce my rate of descent on occasion! 

It was a very quiet day - a few dog-walkers and horse-riders, one or two people out walking, but I met no other rc flyers. There were a few hopeful paragliders sitting around on the hill in the place the rc flyers usually use, but no-one took flight while I was there.

Anyway, a pleasant way to spend an hour on the bank holiday!

As some of you will know, I've moved to Pevensey Bay - which is a bit of a hike from our flat field in Hassocks, so sadly I'll be leaving Slope Soaring Sussex when my membership runs out at the end of the year. However, I'll be joining the East Sussex Soaring Association, who seem like a friendly bunch.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all, especially Rob and Paul - but to all of you really -  for the companionship, help, advice and encouragement over the last 18 months. My first steps in slope soaring were made easier, more fun and more educational because of your input.

I have no doubt we'll meet up on the slopes regularly and I'll try to keep giving you news of slope soaring on 'the other side' - especially if Rob and Paul allow me to keep posting here! 

Cheers all - Happy New Year and may you have everything you wish yourself in 2017. 

Roger :-)

Off to the Valley's

Sorry about the lack of communication lately. Computer issues kept me away.

We had a good time on Christmas Eve with Jim, Mark and Kevin joining me up on Itford Hill. The wind being just about perfect for the slope. Lots of flying done and fun had by everyone, well it is Christmas!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas day and gorged yourself stupid on food, I know I did,

Just packing the car as I am off to the beautiful South Wales for a few days. Models going in as I am hoping to meet up with the guys down there for some festive flying. Be back on New Years Eve.

I see Roger might be going out flying today. It looks a cold one!

Anyway, enjoy your time off and see you all soon.

Paul

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Paul and Rob wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.



Hi all, just to say thank you for your continuing support and friendship throughout this last year, we both appreciate it very much. See you all very soon at the AGM on 21st January.



West Wings Aurora, review part 2

... the two-tone Solartex finish turned out to look rather seasonal!

Merry Christmas and happy flying in 2017
Russell H

PSS Event in southern England?

Hi all

For those of you who know me from my occasional trips down south, flying with Paul, Ian and a few others, you will know I fly PSS models as well as all the other types, and A470Soaring have hosted two successful PSSA events over the last two years at the Bwlch, and we shall be hosting another in May 2017.

The PSSA are keen to run an event on a suitable slope in the south of England, with a club keen to host such an event.

These events are, "fly for fun", with no competition to organise. Guys just turn up with all manor of PSS models, built from foam or balsa mostly, to fly, chat and have a few laughs along the way over the course of a weekend.

Is this something Slope Soaring Sussex would be interested in hosting?

If so, you can either contact me or Phil Cooke at webmaster@pssaonline.co.uk .

As well as Mays PSS event, A470Soaring are hosting Bwlchfest 2017, a slope glider festival for all types of glider over the weekend of 10th/11th June. There has already been a lot of interest from the UK, Germany and Slovenia, with a representative from the German modelling magazine, Aufwind already booked to attend.

This looks like being the largest slope event for 2017 in the UK and it would be great to see a few of you guys come and take part.

Keep your eyes peeled on line and in the modelling press for event details. Better still, keep an eye on my A470Soaring blog, as this will be the prime source of information.

And finally, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year from all of us here in S Wales and I hope to see you again once some warmer, spring like weather begins to show.

Happy flying
Steve

Christmas Eve Flying

So the big day is nearly upon us but I would like to squeeze just one more flying session in before Christmas day.
The weather looks ok and its currently showing W at 15mph at 9.00am on Saturday morning, so that's Itford Hill.
I'm up for a few hours of flying before blobbing out in front of the box. I will be off to Wales for three days so this might be my last flying session this year.
Any else coming out to play?

Kamco Kloudr

Kamco Kloudrider review

I recently bought this as a short kit from eBay, the parts have been in storage for around 30 years as the model was originally designed back in the 70s. The kit was £45 and the cost of additional stock balsa was around another £25. Comes with freshly printed full size plans and canopy. With the recent spell of low wind I decided to get this built and have thoroughly enjoyed the build process so far, as ive only built one or two balsa planes around 15 years ago and recently a middle phase, im certainly no expert but its gone together very well with no real drama.

The wings go together very quickly with only balsa spars, you need to buy some 4mm ID metal tubing for the wing joiners and 8 SWG piano wire joiners. 8 SWG is a smidgen bigger than 4mm so I ended up running a 4.1mm drill down the tube. They seem like a nice thin section wing with good rigidity and resist twist. Total wingspan is 97 inches.

The fuselage seems very basic and boxy, made from balsa sides with ply doubles front and back. I added a fair bit of extra balsa and ply around the nose and wing mounting area. The canopy is a little disappointing and I feel it wont be long before im replacing it with a much stronger solid balsa one with an access hatch to the servos. Talking of servos, standard ones only just sit low enough to avoid the arms from touching the underside of the canopy, once the clevis is fitted im sure that will rub. I plan to finish the model in orange and white 

Overall im very happy the design and like the look of it a lot, chances are the wind will pick up now and will have to wait for a balmy sunny day

Bob

Blaster 2 DLG for sale

Anyone of you guys Interested in buying a Blaster 2. Its a super DLG and flies on just a wisp of lift. Gets good height with a good throw and will do for the flat as well as the smallest of slopes. 1500mm wingspan and weighs virtually nothing.

Watch the video above and you will see a video of it flying yesterday. Dead easy to fly but you will be getting a top quality model. Not a cheap DLG but a good quality one. Can sell ready to fly as it has a Spektrum RX installed as well as a Smart Lipo. For those who don't know what a smart Lipo is then its a lipo that can be charged using most other Lipo's so can be charged at the field if needed. These aren't cheap either. Comes with protective wing bags as well.

All in all a very nice set up. Hoping to move on to a newer version of the Blaster family as I want to do more of the DLG flying as its so much fun and is a real challenge.
Call or email me for details - 07834 859018 or paul.hampshire@shelf-space.co.uk

Micro Slope Soaring

After yesterday's slope soaring of a small slope behind Devils Dyke I was searching for other videos of gliders flying tiny slopes. Here is a 2.7m glider flying a 600mm / 2' rise on the beach. Amazing how clean air gets pushed up over the smallest object.

Blaster DLG on the small hill behind Devils Dyke main slope

Long shot DLG on a tiny slope behind Devils Dyke main slope

Flying above the fog

What an amazing day. Set off from home in dense fog and this remained the same until nearly at Devils Dyke. When I arrived and met up with Ian and Rob the Downs were just starting to poke through the fog making little islands in the fog.

We all walked along the main bowl and over into the field behind. There you will find a very shallow bowl beyond the next field. The wind was blowing just enough and together with the sun that helped with some week thermals we managed to get in a few hours soaring with the DLG's. Rob unfortunately didn't have a good day and retired early but Ian and myself carried on till 1.00pm.
Superb views with the fog mainly staying over on the main slope but it did once creep up on us from behind.....

On the way back we both soared a small hump about 10ft high in the very gentle 3 - 5 mph breeze (if you could call it that).
Here are some more pics from the day.

Well worth the effort as at home it has been languishing in dull misty conditions all day.

A New Model From Kevin Beale

Hi All,
Kevin asked me to post this up for him -
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Here is my new slope model. My own design and build.

It uses my wings from my fast electric 2m model on a new fuselage and back end.
To make it took lots of work -

Made the wings on a special jig with carbon and glass on the inside of the 1.5 balsa skins and carbon spar. The fuselage pod is from a modified mould I made and was actualy a test I was doing on layups. Commercial carbon boom and sheet balsa fin and tailplane. All covered in solafilm. Total flying weight is 1kg.

I took it to the fields for a few hand launches to check all was well and is now ready for it's slope maiden.

May need a bit more wind than this weekend for the first flight.

Also have a model bag free to anyone that wants it, see picture.

Kevin Beale
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If anyone wants this bag, please leave Kevin a comment below and some way of him contacting you.

A Hobby King DLG is Born

Hi All,
I have finally built my HK DLG, after it was sitting in my workshop for just over a year and after seeing Ian's brilliant DLG flying last weekend, I just had to get mine put together.
I have got the trusty old Libelle which flies very well and my little Zulu, which didn't fly last weekend because the wind / lift was too light even for that. So, I decided that the HK DLG needed to see the light of day.
It was fiddly putting it together because when I first got it the wing was damaged so they sent me a new one, but originally the servos were factory fitted, so I had to put new servos in the new wing because I preferred to use my own, but with tiny holes for the wires, I had to cut the servo wires, thread them through and then re-solder them together ! The rest was the usual fiddly, small DLG stuff - the instructions were no use at all, but I just made it up as I went along.

Anyway, I'm hoping to test it in the next day or so and then I hope to use it this weekend in the light conditions.
If it works well, I will have the Libelle to sell if anyone wants a very reliable and useable DLG.
Here is the Libelle - now converted to right-hand launch of course...

Rob

BMFA 2017 Renewals

Hi All,
For all of you who have renewed your insurance through us for 2017, the BMFA paperwork arrived to me this morning. I have signed it and now posted it on to each of you at your home address.
I used second class post because at this time of year everything gets delivered pretty fast, so I'm hopeful you'll all get the papers this week sometime.
Best regards and many thanks to those who renewed through us once again....

Rob Stanley
Hon. Sec.

Itford Hill Wave Flying -Topped out at 670ft (204m)

What a morning flying! Soft and nearly no lift early on then bumped into strong lift in the valley which changed our day around. Thanks to Rob, Andrew and Ian for coming along. What a beautiful day for mid December.......

Watch in HD for the best quality video.

Bwlchfest 2017 - A little teaser

Hi guys, I hope you may be interested in the following.

So I had this idea about holding a slope soaring event at the Bwlch, S Wales for next summer and I created the following teaser of a video and popped it on YouTube and various Facebook groups, and the response has been amazing.

The idea is that like minded glider guiders come along to The Bwlch for a weekend of informal flying on a "Fly for Fun" basis.

It doesn't matter if you fly foamies, crunchies, mouldies, F3F, scale, PSS, aerobats or sport models, all are welcome.

A preliminary date of June 10th/11th looks likely, and from the feedback I have received already, A European contingent from Germany, Austria and Slovenia are already making plans to attend this event, including a guy I know from Germany who writes for a aeromodelling magazine there called, Aufwind. So this could become a truly international event.

I will look into organising this event in more detail once the Christmas and New Year festivities are over and finalise the date.

Watch this space.

BMFA Renewal Update

Hi All,
Thanks to your prompt responses to our emails, I have now sent off to the BMFA all our renewal paperwork for next year.
Hopefully, those of you who are country members will renew your own membership before the end of December so as to remain insured for next year. Some of our members are insured through other clubs and will therefore be covered through those.

I hope that the paperwork will come back to me fairly quickly so that I can send you all your BMFA cover-notes by the end of the year.

On another topic, I had a couple of successful meetings with our field landlord over the last two weekends and can announce that we have retained the use of the field for another year. This is dependant upon planning permission for the adjoining fields but even if it gets the go-ahead, we should still be okay to fly for most of this year. I will monitor the situation with the landlord throughout the year. I have agreed to pay him monthly so that we can stop paying if we are restricted in any way by development, etc... Hopefully we can make more use of the field this year if the weather allows us ?


I would also like to welcome Ian Dunlop as our newest recruit to the club. Ian has been flying with us for a number of years as a country member of BMFA and has decided to join us this year. We are pleased to welcome Ian into the club.



Finally , we will soon be announcing the date for an AGM to be held in January, please try to come along if possible - last year we had 99% attendance which is excellent.

See you all soon,

Rob Stanley
Hon. Sec.