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.