Firle Beacon 25th November 2021

I made a spontaneous decision this morning to flight test my SAS Wildthing after its mid-life update and re-covering. I met Robin A on the slope at our usual launch point. Visibility was great and the wind strong, but it was very cold indeed. The temperature here in Sussex has dropped significantly over the last few days and is expected to drop further. Robin A was away flying his Mefisto 1.9-meter slope soarer but he had also brought along his Chris Foss Phase 6 and the Bugatti that he has built from a plan.

The view from Firle Beacon looking West

I had a few trial launches with the Wildthing just to set the trims. Then away she went. Again, I attempted to practice my landings with a 50:50 achievement rate, not sure if it was luck or judgement or possibly a combination of both. More practice needed me thinks.

The view looking North

Robin A however, flew the Bugatti really well in the smooth conditions and pulled off a very impressive landing. It was without doubt the highlight of my day and I think Robin A was very proud of his achievement. I look forward to seeing it fly again soon.

Robin's Phase 6 and Buggatti

One of my inverted landings un-stuck the fin so I decided to call it a day and return home. Leaving Robin A still flying his Phase 6 in the great but cold conditions.

Tony's SAS Wildthing

Slope Soaring Sussex Annual General Meeting (AGM)

 I am very pleased to say that we have recently convened our club Annual General Meeting (AGM). The first date we selected had to be postponed due to the fuel shortage crisis. However, the second date selected was a success despite low member numbers at the actual meeting. We did in fact meet the lower amended quorum as noted in the Club Constitution.

We are also pleased to announce that we now have 39 members which is an increase of 14 members over the past year and a bit.

It was decided that “Event Days” would be organized using the flat field site and maybe competitions may also be run. The Chairman had resourced all the equipment required to fully exploit the use of the field using both winch and bungee. The field being totally waterlogged earlier in the year prevented us holding a flat field training day.

Discussion was had about encouraging members to strive towards achieving their BMFA “A” certificate in slope soaring and this was well supported by all. We will investigate the training program required for this in the New Year.

Student training continues a pace with the Chairman taking on the lion’s share. Obviously, Covid-19 has had a major impact on the backlog of our training pipeline. We have had some students being allowed to fly solo this year and we have also appointed a new club instructor who will take the students to the next level.

Several proposals were brought to the table, one being setting the fee for the 2022 club subscription. Another was lowering the junior membership fee to encourage more younger members to join the Club. Also, we have decided only to charge 50% of the senior membership fee after 1^st July as we felt it was not fair to charge the full amount later in the calendar year if a potential member wants to join.

The date for the 2022 AGM would be held in October. Venue yet to be decided as we now have a lot more members scattered around the South of England and not only just based in the 'mid-Sussex' area, we may need to change the venue to accommodate the geographical needs of our members.

Sunday 7th November - Itford Hill

 Today Rob S and Kevin M met up at Itford Hill to try out Kevin's Wildthing and Middle Phase.

On arrival at the top of the hill, there didn't appear to be too much wind (or lift either), so Rob launched the club Wildthing to check out the conditions.

It turned out that there was sufficient lift to enable the club Wildthing to fly for a reasonable time and at times there was also slight thermal activity which lifted the model to a good height.

It was decided the there was insufficient lift to try out the Middle Phase.

We were briefly joined by a guy from Newhaven who had an old Secret Weapon model, but that too wasn't getting a lot of lift so he decided to go home and come back with a 4 mtr glider.

We tried Kevin's Wildthing but despite a lot of trimming we just couldn't get it to fly correctly, but by adding a small amount of weight to the nose it became much better (despite the C of G being exactly where it was meant to be), this made the model much better to fly and enabled it to penetrate a lot better. Kevin decided to leave the Wildthing until he could adjust the C of G at home. We then both flew the club model for some time.

During our session, we were joined briefly by John I, who chatted to us and explained that he was going to try the NW bowl , so off he went and we never saw John again but hope he had a good flying session.

A mediocre day's flying but it did teach Kevin how to keep the model up despite a lack of lift, so all was not lost.

Rob Stanley