Slope Soaring Sussex: Ditchling Beacon Sunday Oct 7th

Hi All,
Today was forecast as a good N blow, so we had decided to fly at Ditchling Beacon West side.
I had arranged to arrive early to meet a prospective new member Paul Everett and together we walked to the normal site, but there was very little wind. I explained the controls on the club Spectre to Paul and how the transmitter works and also explained that I had to 'trim' the model after its rebuild. However, no amount of trimming would get it to fly level - there was just too much nose weight and even adding some tail weight didn't help - it just got heavier !
Luckily by that time, Paul H, Ian and Tony C had arrived and Paul H and I tried in vain to trim the Spectre but it was decided to leave it.
Paul H had his Ascot and massive Graecalis, Ian had the M60 and Jedi and Tony has his Wildthing and Tim's old Phase 6 with flaps (almost unflown).

Tony's Phase 6

However, because of the light wind conditions it was proving a difficult job to get most models away - Tony's Wildthing wasn't co-operating at all but Tony got some hill climbing experience recovering it ! Paul launched his Ascot (the old Will Attfield model) and it flew well, but the conditions weren't perfect. Ian flew his M60 , but after a couple of very short excursions and hillside landings, he put it away in favour of the Jedi which was brilliant as the wind had increased a bit. Paul H decided the Graecalis would stay in it's carry case - very wise... and I left the Ninja and heavy Phase 6 in the car as the wind was not enough for them.

Lidl Robin's DLG

We were joined by Scott and Robin with various models and Rob P who had his trusty Erwin.
Scott had his Wildthing and Blade, Robin had the 'Lidl robin' and a lovely small DLG.
Robin flew the DLG a number of times and it seemed to be doing very well unless the wind got too strong in which case he had to land and fly the 'lidl robin' was did a great job.
Rob P flew his Erwin a number of times and had some good flights and great landings.
Later, Paul helped Tony fly the Phase 6 which seemed to gain amazing height and the flaps worked brilliantly on landing - I think Tony enjoyed his first flights with it.
Paul E, Scott and I were unable to fly (Scott and I had heavy models), but Paul H let us all have a go on the Ascot and Paul E had his maiden flight on it !! - Many thanks Paul H for your faith (or stupidity)..

Rob P's Erwin

Paul H flew the Ascot amazingly well and had some brilliant landings.
Ian by then had the Jedi in the air and it too was flying brilliantly - Ian even let me have a go (which I enjoyed very much) - thanks Ian.
Throughout the whole 3 hours Scott was taking some great shots with his new camera and 300mm lens, so I hope he'll load up some of them here.

In all there were 8 of us and we all had a flight of something even if it wasn't one of our own models.

Paul E and I left at 11:30 but the others were getting ready to come away (I think) ?

Thanks to everyone for a lovely morning.

Rob

A few shots of the models flying this morning.