Christchurch & District MFC

Last Tuesday, whilst I was on holiday in Dorset, I encountered a very friendly and welcoming group of guys on the slope overlooking Ringstead Bay. They turned out to be the Christchurch & District Model Flying Club, slope soaring section. There were about ten members present with a splendidly diverse collection of models. I admired their well-organised approach to model flying and general camaraderie, just after midday they all landed and gathered their folding chairs into a circle in the lea of their parked cars to enjoy a communal picnic and wide-ranging chin-wag. With a 15+mph SW wind on the slope and steady sunshine members gradually peeled off to return to general flying and landing tuition.



The group presented me with my first (and quite possibly last) encounter with a 35mhz 'peg board'. I took the no. 64 wooden clothes peg, attached it to my TX aerial and joined in the flying fun. Mine was the only telescopic aerial on site, and I only needed it for two out of the five models in my roof box (the others have 2.4ghz receivers), so it felt like the end of an era...
At times there were up to half a dozen models in the sky - all at the western end of the slope, the east end is reserved for hang gliders and 'jellyfish' who like to fly off over the neighbouring cliffs. The discipline of each group of ground-based and aerial pilots was generally pretty good, although at one point a non-flying member of the para-glider group came over to apologise for one of their pilots who had strayed into our airspace - apparently he was a visiting Russian flyer who hadn't understood the briefing properly.
The C&DMFC Facebook page gives a good indication of the group's membership profile and their aeromodelling activities - I can think of worse ways to spend my retirement...

Happy landings

Russell