A good morning at Itford Hill, and two maidens...

Hi again all.

Seems I'm posting more here since I moved to Pevensey Bay than when I was a member, lol!

I got to Itford Hill rather later than planned on Saturday but Paul and Ian were still there. As I walked up (for the second time - I got 200yds up the hill before I realised I'd left my hat in the car...) I could see two M70's really going for it - the lift looked great and I picked up the pace as I walked up the hill.

50yds later with pounding heart and heaving lungs I was reminded of how unfit I am and had to slow down again...

 On my eventual arrival I was greeted by Paul and Ian who'd now switched to their big mouldies (Ian's was a Euphoria - sorry Paul didn't remember what yours was) - both fully ballasted and showing how these very slippery aircraft can conserve energy and momentum. Awesome, huge loops and stall turns were the order of the day and I felt rather sheepish as I got out my trusty old Stargazer II - bless its little cotton socks. This was the first flight after I'd reattached the tail. Yes, all of it, the whole tail... see my previous post.

Amazingly she flew pretty straight and pushed out into the lift with no big surprises, just a lttle down trim and right trim. I remembered the old saying - "if at first you succeed, try to conceal your look of complete astonishment..."

I then proceeded to have a lot of fun with Ian and Paul - they were charging around with their mouldies - and shortly afterward with their M70's - while I stooged around trying to chase them (ahem...) and/or avoid them. The conditions were marginal for the Stargazer, if I fed in some up-trim I could actually fly backwards!

Paul was on FB Live for some of the afternoon - search him on Facebook and scroll down his posts to see the video, or try this link...

https://www.facebook.com/100008218785550/videos/1918755715075036/

The day before, I'd maidened my Sirocco, bought second-hand on Ebay. This arrived in a terrible state having not been packaged properly but I was never able to track the blighter down again. Both wings had holes punched in the covering where the fuselage had been packed alongside them with no padding between. Not evident from the photos, the fin was seriously off-vertical and I had to cut that off, straighten it up and install a new rudder-post to keep it that way. Both the rudder and elevator had required repair but I knew about those.

You can see from the photo I don't have any yellow solarfilm...

In the end she was ready to go and on a very windless, hot and humid Friday I went up to Butts Brow to try her out. There's a long field along which you walk to get to the main slope and this is flat and level enough for some nice test-glides. The CofG was much too far forward so I swapped the Rx and battery in the fuse. This brought a much better flight and I tried her off the back of the slope (the wind being from that direction). In hardly any lift she gained some height and I could see she'll be a great thermal ship or on the slope on a calm day. 

Unfortunately I discovered I couldn't turn left, but only right, which made for a slope-bottom landing (my second one recently!). A nice, hot, humid walk later I decided to call it a day. Turned out the servo had stripped a gear - I was lucky I could at least turn one way.

All in all a successful couple of days' flying.

A word to the wise - when buying on Ebay, make sure you ask the vendor the appropriate questions - who did you buy it off, has it ever been repaired, are the wings straight and unwarped, are the tail surfaces vertical/horizontal etc. etc. you probably already do, but I was a little naïve and just trusted the other bloke was honest...

Cheers all.

Roger.