Variable Itford

Mark and I met up at the top of Itford hill.  I arrived on the hill around 10.15 and there was already another flier there. He was lying on the grass and occasionally checking the wind speed with his anemometer.  The wind was only around 8 mph and veering between SSW and SW, not the ideal conditions for his overweight glider which only saw a couple short flights. 

Mark arrived with his glider (sorry I cannot remember the model) after walking the same “hard man” route as me up the side of the hill.  Unfortunately or fortunately depending how you view it, Mark was just about to launch his model and one of the servos decided that wasn’t going to take instructions from the receiver and did its own thing instead so Mark was unable to fly it!

Another flier arrived with a 2 mtr moldie and after some surveying of the wind conditions launched his model.  At this time the wind was a little stronger but as it had moved more SW the lift was not great.  The model flew a few times and made it back down safely but with some very shaky moments when the wind dropped.

Not wanting to be caught out I tried to take as many models as I could carry which included the Weasel, Vagabond and e-hawk.  I also took my Mamba but left it in the car as I could not carry it!  The Weasel was in its element in the not ideal conditions and probably saw the most flying.  The wind was a little light for the Vagabond and it had a few flights but nothing spectacular.  I was hesitant to fly the e-hawk as I had never flown it before and after the others had left I decided to give it a go, not wanting to take it home unflown!  It flew very well a but it is quite light and by this time the wind had picked up a bit.  As I had been on the hill for 3 hours I decided it was time to land the e-hawk.  It seemed to fly so well that it did not want to land and on my final attempt it got lower to the ground and a gust of wind caught it and it went out of sight down the hill.  I picked up all of my gear and went to find the errant model expecting to find a heap of scrap balsa wood.  As I got closer I could see that the tail was intact and then the wings came into view and they looked ok.  To my surprise it had nosed into the long grass which had saved it.  It wasn’t the cost that would have bothered me as it only cost £30 but would have been a shame to have had only one flight with it!

Scott