Big air at Bo-peep 17th September 2020

As the title suggest it was a Big air flying session at Bo-peep on Thursday the 17th September, I had a few days off in the week and this day looked perfect with a NE ENE 20 mph + wind and warm 20'c temperatures.

I put the usual announcement on the what app group and had some interest to join me, I meet new member Gordon, but missed Chris C on the slope but I set myself up, beside four other guys who I've meet before but cant remember their names other than Lloyd from Essex, over on the slope east of the car park.

The models I could see on this day were my F3F Big bird, Xmodels swift and two Aresti 2.0.

The two Aresti's were carrying out every aerobatic maneuver you could think of, then the 7 kg swift was given the slope to itself and was tearing up the sky, the lift was immense, the swift was using the lovely wide ridge to its advantage, producing long slow rolls across the width whole slope, followed by large vertical stall turns, massive loops, flick rolls and many many more, it was pleasure to watch.  

Then it was my turn, chatting to Lloyd, he then suggested I will need my ballast on a day like this, I loaded the 1 kg of full ballast, my Big bird can take, preflight checks and launched.

It flew away perfectly and I eased myself in to the grove of flying my model, after not flying for a month, plus not this model since May.  

It was such a blast, as my confidence increased I too started to make use of the lovely wide slope, tearing up the sky, the model just carried so much energy, high speed runs, large loops, stall turns were possible with ease.

Finally I took the time to setup my crow elevator compensation in air with the Mike Shellims Adaptive program, it again worked a treat, through out the whole crow mix range.

With that done I made the decisions land, first attempted was to get the feel for the approach and the second I landed with a big smile on my face the crow worked perfectly.

This slope has to be the best slope, I have flown on the south downs so far, as long as the wind is strong enough it will keep the paragliders at bay and it's lift is mega, a very wide slope, large landing area, just don't go too far back.

So overall I left with a larger smile on my face and look forward to future flights here.

  

Flying from Ian's field in Wales

 Ian who many of you probably know through our club Slope Soaring Sussex moved to Wales over a year ago, lives in a most beautiful and rural part of Wales close by to the Brecon Beacons. He has some lovely paddocks for his horses with still some room left over top fly his models from. 

After our slope soaring on The Bwlch we met up at his home for some DLG flying and bungee launching of his West Wings Slingsby Skylark. There wasn't a lot of sunshine but later in the day the wind moved round onto a small slope directly in front of Ian's house. The slope provided some light lift as well as thermals. Ian has had many decent soaring flights with strong thermals being kicked of this slope when the wind was a little stronger and with the heat of the sun.

He has made up a very small bungee with light weight rubber and fishing line. Probably about 75ft when stretched out fully. He built his Skylark from a West Wings kit over the winter and the bungee provides a very efficient method of launching from his own land.

Finally back on the slopes

During a weeks break in Wales, I met up with Ian and went slope soaring at The Bwlch. This was the first time out slope soaring for nearly eight months. We waited for a cold front to go through and the wind swung round to NW and after the cloud lifted and the air dried out we were left with a wonderfully clear afternoon and great conditions. 

It was a real pleasure to meet up with Ian again and enjoy barrelling along the slope with my M60 and my Merlow F3F. Ian brought along his scratch built AR-1 which had its maiden and flew really well for an eighties vintage glider. He also flew his euphoria which as ever eat up the sky well given its age and condition.

Here are a few videos taken during our flying session.

Chris Foss Phase 6 finally completed

Here it is finally completed, my Chris Foss Phase 6 sport, I started the project last year in January and posted up my build ideas and progress. I took the chance in March and April this year to finally finish it and Maiden it at Itford Hill in June.

The results are its kitted out with 4 savox sh-0255 in the wings for flaps and ailerons and New Power XL-17HMB and 17MB which I had spare for the elevator and rudder.

2000mah eneloop 4.8v battery, Frsky X8R receiver.

The first flight went great, nice and level from the launch with very little trim, only nose down elevator but soon discovered it would not roll, I had setup the aileron deflections at the trailing as per the instructions.  

I landed the model safely and after discussions with other Phase 6 owners I needed far more movement.

After a successful maiden, I made the adjustments at home and had my second flight at a later date, at Mill Hill Shoreham by sea.

It now rolled fantastically and I progressed on to seeing how the crow setup worked, I soon discovered I needed more elevator compensation at full crow.

Long story short I spent a few further flying sessions adjusting the compensation and was nearly spot on, but shortly after I decided to install Mike Shellim https://rc-soar.com/  active elevator compensation program to my model setup and now I have inflight compensation which works amazingly and have implemented for other models now too.

Further setup mixes have now been added to try, Aileron and flaps mixed plus snap flap.