D-Power Streamline 350 - Part 2

 A week ago I headed up to the top of Meio with the Streamline 350 and a Bird of Time. The weather was cloudy and grey with a light breeze which I estimated to be 10 - 15 mph, ideal conditions to try flying the Streamline from the slope for the 1st time. And that was why I bought it, to fly from the slope when the wind was marginal and up to about 15 mph when a conventional slope model would be more comfortable flying. 

Fortunately all went well on the 1st flight with flying buddy Clive doing the honours giving it a chuck off the slope. The streamline flew away nicely and didn't need any assistance from the motor at all. I had a 2nd flight where I launched it myself also and once again all was well. I will make another video after I've flown it more to give a more comprehensive review of this model.

I also took along a Dynaflite Bird of Time ARF which I'd bought a couple of years ago 2nd hand and had been mostly completed but never flown. Clive said that it wasn't too windy to fly it and so that's what I did. Clive told me to allow a good distance for my landing approach as this model has a tendancy to float on, but that wasn't the case in this instance and it landed way further back than I expected. 

This video is quite long at about 22 minutes so grab yourself a cuppa tea and a biscuit and enjoy. Please leave any comments on the video and subscribe to my channel.

MPX Heron & Radian Pro on the slope in light conditions

 Following on from my last post where I was flying the MPX Heron, Josh his Radian Pro & Clive his Manta. A sea breeze began to pick up and Clive went home so Josh and I stayed on and decided to fly off the slope. Here is the video of how we got on.

Radian Pro - MPX Heron & Mantis

 Three weeks ago the Welsh government released Wales from COVID lockdown #2 and so plans were made by the local slope fliers to have a days flying on the following weekend. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and any plans to fly were scrapped, and so we waited for that all important weather forecast later the following week. 

The following Sunday the weather was lovely with sunshine and barely a breath of wind, which isn't good for slope soaring but very nice for a spot of themal soaring, and with that the guys decided to fly on the top of Meio.

Now I hadn't flown Meio this year as in February the weather was attrocious with heavy rain and localised flooding, and the road leading up to Meio had been all but washed away, and then we went into lockdown #1. 

The last time I was on Meio the flat top of the hill was about 3 feet deep in ferns and other rough vegetation but, according to one of the guys, this had been mostly cut down and there was a very nice landing strip as long and as wide as you like. Even I couldn't miss that runway! 😂

When I arrived Clive and Josh were already there, Josh flying a Radian Pro and Clive a Mantis and I had brought my MPX Heron. The Mantis is a old design with a 3m pylon mounted foam wing with flaps, a carbon tube boom and Clive had made up a fuselage pod to house the motor etc. 

There was very little in the way of thermal activity and any we found were weak and only allowed us to maintain height. We were only 30m from the slope and did manage to get a little lift from the tinyest amout of breeze there was.

We did have a good couple of hours flying and Clive decided to go home. By this time a sea breeze had picked up and so Josh and I decided to move over to the slope and fly from there.

Check out the following video of the thermal soaring section of the day. Part 2 of the video will be available soon.

Banging Slope Soaring session on Mickey's

What a fun days flying that was!

I arrived at the lay-by at The Bwlch at 10 AM on Saturday and waited for a bunch of other guys to arrive and, they duly did in dribs and drabs over the next 30 minutes or so.

The forecast was for a NW breeze of about 16 mph at Bridgend, so I was expecting about 20 mph in the compression zone on the slope as we marched in single file along the narrow track to our flying spot. On arrival the wind was slightly more westerly than we'd have liked, and it would come and go a bit, which was fine for flying foamy models but no one wanted to risk launching an expensive moudie. 

So after about an hour a couple of the guys decided to head off to Mickeys, the westerly slope to see if that was any better and, after about 30 minutes we received a phone call to say that Mickey's was flying very well and so we packed up, decamped and trundled over to the far westerly slope.

This was a good move with the wind being bang on square to the slope and about 18 mph, so all the big guns were brought out, including a 1/4 scale ASW20 belonging to Mark, one of the two visitors flying with us that day.

Check out the video of the days flying activity and don't forget to subscibe to my YouTube channel.

New Glider Project - Part 3 (Streamline 350)

 Light north to north east winds were forecast for last weekend and so I put the call out on Facebook to see where people were intending to fly as I wanted to give the Streamline 350 its maiden flight, and flying buddy Nigel came back and invited me along to fly at the Eglwysilan model flying club near Pontypridd, so how could I refuse. 

Sunday was bright but windier than expected although the forecast was for the wind to ease during the day as I assembled the Streamline. One thing I did notice with the assembly was connecting the aileron servo wires together using the JST type connectors as the servo wires are too long and are difficult to tuck into the wing cavity. I could just cut the wires short and reconnect but it may actually be easier and a neater finish to replace the JST's with the MPX 6 pin plugs & sockets.

Eventually the wind eased and I couldn't put off launching any longer. Nick was volunteered to do the honours and I asked him to perform a power off throw, just to ensure that I hadn't got the all flying tailplane, (horizontal stabiliser), position terribly wrong, or anything else for that matter. And just to ensure the 1st throw wasn't a fluke, the 2nd throw was equally as good. So without further ado Nick launched the model and I fired up the motor and away it went, albeit a bit sluggishly, and she struggled to climb so I gave it full throttle, which it didn't like at all and the prop was making one hell of a racket, and after climbing to a safe altitude I turned off the motor and managed to gain a little extra height using natural lift before bringing her downwind and into base for a landing. I had plenty of room so I didn't have to worry about using CROW braking at this time and she landed well.

After chatting with the lads we decided that the 13" x 6" propeller was too big so I fitted a 12" x 6" and we did a ground run for about a minute, which was much better and with no sign of the ESC even getting warm, so with that we launched her a 2nd time. This was much better! She climbed steadily but was no rocket ship, which I sort of expected because I wasn't using the recomended motor, just one that I had spare in my box of bits that had been bought for another project, trying to save a few £, and this model is quite a heavy lump, (which reminds me that I need to try and find a way of weighing it). Anyway, I flew it briefly, testing the controls and concluded that my control settings weren't far out with only minor elevator compensation adjustments being required for the speed and thermal flap settings and CROW braking. On my landing approach I came in a bit high but CROW soon brought that down to land just a few meters from me. 

I made some adjustments to elevator compensation and also added aileron differential, something I'd forgotten to do on my initial setting up on the transmitter and launched her for one final flight. Everything went to plan this time and I managed a good flight. For such a heavy model she doesn't lose height too rapidly at all, and although thermals helped her to maintain height, she wasn't climbing away in the thermals. Whether this was because I wasn't locking in to very strong thermals or because there weren't any strong thermals at this time in the afternoon, I don't know? I'm sure future flights will shed more light.

So the question at the end of the day was, do I splash out and purchase the recomended motor, along with the recomended 6 cell 5000mah LiPo to help with the climb outs or, do I leave it as it is? After all, I bought this model with the intention of flying it from the slopes on light/marginal wind days, and the motor is a get out of jail clause. But if I want to fly it on slightly windier days from a flat field then the extra pulling power of a bigger motor would be advantageous.  After watching the video footage I took I decided to purchase the motor and battery pack. But this also meant I've had to also purchase a new battery charger as mine only charges up to 4S packs, but hey, it's only money, right! 

So check out the video, hit the LIKE button and please subscribe to my channel and hopefully I can produce some more videos of this fine bird. 

New Glider Project Part 2

 It's been a few weeks since I've done anything much on the streamline 350, partly due to me being side tracked by completing the Bird of Time and partly due to other commitments, but I did manage to get some work done to it a few evenings ago after work.

So, I soldered an XT90 LiPo connector to the ESC, (I'd had to order that connector) and fitted the ESC into the model. I'd also ordered a RX and fitted this temporarily and then came the job of setting up a new model on my Hitec Aurora 9 TX. Now if you're not familiar with this TX, when you set up a new model the TX asks you what kind of aircraft it is? I clicked on glider, then it asks how many ailerons & flaps it has, whether it has spoilers, retracts, a motor and whether it has a normal tail or a V tail, then once that has been completed it automatically asigns a channel for each control. I then needed to bind the RX to the TX and that was all done.

Then I needed to calibrate the motor so I switched on the TX and pushed the throttle stick all the way to the top and plugged in the LiPo to the ESC but all I got was a continuous beeping, which was not what I was expecting. I checked and I'd plugged the throttle lead from the ESC into ch8 of the RX instead of ch7. Doh! I switched it all on again and I then heard four beeps, indicating the 4 cells of the LiPo, but nothing else and it didn't calibrate.

I did a lot of head scratching and then decided to look at the TX programming for my Multiplex Heron, which should be the same. All appeared OK. More head scratching. I then clicked on the monitor funtion on the TX which shows sliding bars whenever a control stick, slider or switch is moved. The throttle on ch7, (throttle) moved OK so I then checked this on the Streamline program, but when I moved the throttle stick (J3) nothing happened and the bars didn't move. So I went back to look at the channels again and saw that the throttle had been allocated to ch7 but, the TX didn't automatically allocate the stick. Once I selected the left stick (J3), the sliding bar in Monitor was working so I tried to calibrate again and bingo, it worked, although the motor wouldn't turn, so I swapped two of the wires around at the motor end and the motor turned, and in the correct direction also, hooray 😊. All I needed to do then was set the brake and that was all done.

My next jobs are to connect the rudder and elevator control rods to the servo arms, fit the wings to the fuse and work out which of the wires already pre installed from the Multiplex connector in the wing root into the fuse controls which aileron and which flap, if that makes sense, so I can plug them into the RX. I then have to set up the control linkages on the wing servo's with power to the servo's and attach the servo covers, then I think that's it apart from setting up expo, dual rates, crow or butterfly. All I will need then is a suitable day to give it a throw into the wild blue yonder. 

Soaring Mickeys & Valenta SB9 Crash

 Hi all and welcome back. Here is my latest video which was filmed during a weekend afternoon session on Mickeys slope at The Bwlch. Weather wise it wasn't a bad day although when I 1st arrived the slope lift wasn't great although there were lots of thermals working through, but an hour later the slope lift had improved enourmously.

Nick flew his Valenta SB9 for the 2nd time but unfortunately by this time the slope lift had begun to deteriorate, and then he flew into a huge patch of sink and it tip stalled, and then a little over correction of the controls didn't help although Nick did manage to regain control quickly. He decided to return to the slope asap and decided upon a downwind landing. Unfortunately he deployed the spoilers and a wing tip stalled again and he crashed. Fortunately the damage was minimal, but watch the video all the way to the end to see how it all panned out.

Dynaflite Bird of Time ARF

 A couple of years ago I picked up a second hand Dynaflite Bird of Time from a guy down in Paignton, Devon with the intention of fitting a motor to it. Well I never got around to that and then it got lost in a cupboard until a few weeks ago when I was having a clear out. 

The model had already been fitted with a rudder servo with linkage and a elevator servo and linkage. That elevator servo had been positioned just behind the rudder servo up front instead of at the base of the tail fin (vertical stabiliser) as per the instructions, with a bell crank taking that servo's place. The wing joiners had already been assembled also. I had to modify the control rods a little to make them the correct length and solder snap clevises on. I found a 5 cell, 6V NiMh battery pack in my box along with a switch and took a receiver from another broken model, then when it came to balancing the model I had to add another 50 grams of lead into the nose. 

So now I just need to find the time and a suitable light wind day to fly this from a local slope, because that is where I am intending on flying this, on those days where there is marginal slope lift and I can hunt out the thermals. So hopefully it won't be too long before I can post a Bird of Time maiden flight video.

New Glider Project

I've been wanting a large electric powered glider that I can fly from a flat field or in light conditions from the slope. I already have the Multiplex Heron which is pretty good at what it does and is fine flying in a breeze of less than 10 mph, but I just wanted something larger than its 2.2m wingspan, something with a bit more presence in the air. The kind of model that other flyers look at and go, "oooh that's nice, what is it"? And also it is true that larger models fly so much better, (and easier?) than small models. 

I did a lot of on line surfing and it soon became clear that a fully moulded F5J type of model was going to be well out of my budget, particularly when having to add all the other bits and pieces I would need to complete it, like servo's etc. So it was going to have to be a model with a composite fuselage and obechi veneered foam wings, and so it was that after looking at the manufacturers such as Horizon Hobby, (primarily Staufenbiel), Robbe, Topmodel etc, I decided upon a design from the German manufacturer D-Power, the Streamline 350. 

The Streamline 350 is supplied as what they call a ARF+, so it has all the servo cables prefitted and all servo control linkages are also supplied, as well as a propeller spinner, velcro to hold the LiPo in place, and a roll of clear tape to tape down the 4 x wing servo covers. There are options for ordering the recommended motor, ESC and servo's, and I did order the D-Power servo's as they were competitivly priced against the KST servo's I otherwise would have fitted. It'll be interesting to see how they compare performance/life wise. 

I already had a 4 MAX motor at home which I thought would be suitable and had been purchased for another project a couple of years ago and then I never got around  to using it, along with a new 60A ESC and another pre used 60A ESC I had lying around in my box of bits, so I'm hoping the motor will be man enough for the job, but I'm sure it will be, and I've bought a couple of Turnigy 4S 5000mah LiPo packs to run it off. 

My 1st impressions upon opening the box was that it had been packed well and everything was taped down so that it couldn't move during transit. The wings are covered in Oracover and will need me to go over them with a heat gun as there are a few largish bubbles in places, but that's no big deal.

The asembly instructions are only provided in the German language, but they are available in English on line although the experienced modeller shouldn't really need the written instructions as the black and white photo's are enough to go by. 

I began by fitting the motor and all 6 servo's, which was easy enough. There I came to a halt as I needed an XT90 connector for the ESC to connect to the LiPo. That has now been delivered but I don't currently have the time to continue due to other commitments I have made. Lockdown meant I wasn't able to see my family who all live 200 miles north and south of me, so I've had to arrange to visit them. There are also quite a few events which were postponed during lockdown and have now been rearranged, so they are taking up modelling time. I also thought I had a 8ch RX spare that I could fit, but it turns out I haven't so I'll be ordering one of the Hitec clones from FRSKY https://www.t9hobbysport.com/frsky-v8fr-hitec-8-channel-2.4ghz-minima-compatible-receiver

 


















So check back and later and see how I'm getting on with this project. Even better still, hit the follow button so you will be notified when I make updates. Please also check out my YouTube channel and subscribe to that also. https://www.youtube.com/c/SteveHoughton/featured?view_as=subscriber

Finally out of lockdown & flying again

Hey guys. Here is my 1st slope video of this year. In Wales the government have finally removed the 5 mile travelling restrictions and so I am now able to drive to my local slopes. Hooray 😁

So check out this video of my 1st session which didn't go to plan due to a dodgy weather forecast.

Lockdown Flying Blues

Hi Guys - take a look at the video which explains why I went flying last week and why I will continue to fly during lockdown. Unfortunately slopes within a 5 mile radius of me, (the distance I'm now limited to drive), are extremely limited with only SE available, so flat field soaring is the name of the game.

Emjoy the video and please subscribe to my YouTube channel

It's been a long time and now it's all gone to pot!

Hey everyone. It has been a very long time since I posted anything on here and I will tell you why.

I think we had probably the worst winter, flying wise, that I have ever experienced. We didn't have any particularly cold weather, no frost or snow but, what we did have was rain, and lots of it. From October right through to some brutal storms in February which caused nationwide flooding.

I was keeping a really beady eye on the weather forecast throughout this time, particularly on weekends when I knew that I would have some time on my hands to go out flying but, more often than not it would be raining or there was so little wind in the forecast that I felt it just wasn't worth the effort or fuel to drive to the slopes and scratch around for lift in a 5 or 6 mph breeze.

About three weeks ago I did head up the Meio for a short session when we had about 10 mph but we only managed short flights between rain showers so, it was really nice to be able to head up to Manmoel Common with a brisk easterly wind blowing. This was just prior to strict government restrictions coming into force regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, but the four of us up on the slope did keep well apart from each other.

And now, with some spring weather heading our way I'm going to be stuck indoors with no flying for the foreseeable future.

Here is some video of me flying my L215A and a F3F machine belonging to Clive.

Weekend Forecast is pants!

I normally wouldn't be looking at the weekends weather forecast until Thursday, however, Nick and I had planned to pay a visit to our slope soaring friends at Slope Soaring Sussex this weekend, and so with hotel rooms to book and a three hour plus drive down there, we've been keeping an eye on the forecast all week.

The forecast isn't great with light winds of 8 - 11 mph from the south ish, and so Nick and I have discussed, and spoken with Paul down in Sussex and we have decided to postpone our trip and look at some possible dates, probably towards the end of September, when hopefully the autumn winds will have kicked in.

The forecast for S Wales this weekend isn't any better really but, it's much worse for those taking part in the PSSA fly in at the Orme in N Wales where the forecast is for a variable breeze of 1 - 3 mph, a final decision on this event will be made on Thursday. It maybe that I can get a couple of hours on Meio on Sunday for some thermal flying from the slope, we'll see. I hope so because I have a very busy August and may not get a chance to fly at all at the weekends due to running a half marathon, visiting my parents and international rugby games, Wales v England and Wales v Ireland which are "friendlies" prior to the Rugby World Cup in Japan this autumn.

So here is a video I made the last time I made the trip to fly on the South Downs of Sussex. Happy flying wherever you are.

Slope Soaring can be a lonely existence

I put a shout out on the Slope Soaring in Wales and South Wales Soaring Association Facebook group pages last Friday to see if anyone was going to be about on Saturday to join me in a spot of flying.

The forecast was for cloudy with sunny intervals and a westerly wind of 16 - 18 mph. This would give me three slope options, Rhossili which is a 90 minute drive but the best slope I've ever flown, Mickey's at the Bwlch, (the 2nd best slope I've ever flown), and Eglwysilan Common near Pontipridd. Meio also flies on a westerly, although not very well as the westerly part of the slope is where the slope transitions from south westerly to north westerly, so its curved and has a very narrow band of lift, so I was going to discount this slope straight away to fly from.

The only response to my Facebook shout out was from Nick who asked where I was going to fly although he wouldn't be able to join me anyway. My response was that if there were a few of us then I would head to Mickey's but, if I were to fly alone then Eglwysilan Common would be my choice.

There is very little in the way of car parking on the Eglwysilan road, without having to park a long way away, which is why I tend to head there if I'm flying a westerly alone, but I managed to pull in on a wide ish pull in with two wheels on the grass verge and only a short walk ahead of me. Upon arriving at my favourite spot I checked the wind speed and it was smack bang straight onto the slope and showing 16 - 20 mph. Perfect!

I launched the Genesis foamie wing and that flew fabulously with no sign of any turbulence or buffeting, so I was then glad that I'd also brought the L213 with me as I haven't flown this in weeks due to the lack of wind.

I assembled the L213 and threw it off the hill. It climbed away and there was just enough wind to perform a few aero's and feel confident that I wasn't going to have to retrieve it from the bottom of the hill. I've never weighed this model but it is quite a lump, and it will cruise in a 15 mph breeze but I don't usually like to fly it unless the wind is blowing about 20 mph, preferring to opt for something smaller or lighter for the fun factor in lighter conditions.

Many of the TX settings for the L213 were way out, so I used this session to constantly take off and land and make adjustments to CROW, Thermal and Speed flap settings, and I now think I have these dialled in just about right now.

It was very peaceful on the hill, all by myself, and sometimes the solitude can be nice. There was a couple of walkers who came along and saw me flying but I didn't realise they were there until I brought the L213 around on the base leg for finals and I saw them directly behind me, right in my LZ. Fortunately I had plenty of height and I went around again. Obviously I wasn't going to be able to land directly behind me, and the couple were obviously wanting to watch me land, even though they were completely oblivious of standing in the "danger zone", so I walked over to their left in the hope that they wouldn't move with me, which they didn't, but I took the 213 too far back on the base leg due to a lack of concentration, (keeping one eye on the model and the other on the couple), and I lost the lift. I thought I was going to tip stall and hit the ground with a bang but as fortune would have it I recovered and brought her in OK. Phew!

All in all it was an enjoyable session of flying and I managed to iron out a few of the settings bugs I had with the L213. I do enjoy flying this small, slope and it's perfect on a westerly if there are only a couple of you having to park cars. In fact I'm the only person I know who does actually fly there, others seem to go to Meio and put up with the wind being well off the south westerly slope face.

So check out my video, hit the Like 👍button, share it with your friends on social media and subscribe to my channel, pleeeeeease 😊

Featured Post Update and last weekends flying

Hey guys, I've changed the Featured Post to a post from July 2016 called Ballistic Lift on Mickey's. Now this is where we should be flying by now, on Mickey's Meio or Rhossili with westerly and south westerly winds. Last Sunday Nick, Dave & myself met up at The Bwlch with the intention of flying Mickey's, however there was a very low cloud base which was just skirting the top of the slope so we made the decision to go to Meio.

What a difference Meio was compared with dark, cold Bwlch. The sun was shining and it was definitely warmer. Once we'd walked up the side of the slope to the top there was a really good breeze blowing but, upon chucking a model off we discovered that it was really bumpy, turbulent air and not much fun to fly, which is unusual for Meio.

I was flying my Ballistik chevron wing and went to perform a reversal but in the bumpy air I overcooked the maneuver and in the process of trying to recover the model I lost it completely and it went down. Fortunately the only damage was a bit of dented EPP foam which should easily be repaired.

Dave flew his Mini Blade and he also went down after he zigged when he should have zagged. Again there wasn't too much damage and I'm sure that will be back in the air in no time.

Nick had brought along his now completed Graecalis but we all thought it wise that he didn't send it out on its maiden flight as trying to trim a new model in those conditions wouldn't have been easy or fun. I'll leave you with a few pictures of it anyway.

As for this weekend? Saturday is currently looking like a light north westerly up to 10 mph and Sunday, well that's a day for the DLG's or power assisted models to do some thermal soaring.

Will the east & south east winds ever end?

It seems that we have endured easterly or south easterly winds for months now! Any of you who know the slopes of SE Wales will know that these are the two worst wind directions for our flying, particularly as we have lost the north easterly slope at Fochriw to fly since Caerphilly council erected a locked gate at either end of the road, effectively closing down this slope to us, and all because they haven't got the financial resources to police the fly tipping that has been going on. But if the council didn't charge businesses so much to dump their waste at official tips then they wouldn't have this problem. But that's me straying off the wind direction subject. I still find it annoying though, if you hadn't already guessed.

So I had last Saturday free to do a bit of flying, and the forecast was for sunny, warm skies with a SE to SSE wind of 7 - 8 mph, so I contacted Nick to see if he fancied joining me somewhere, as I knew he'd be wanting to fly his new acquisition, the E-flite Mystique for a bit of slope thermal flying. So the question was where to fly? I suggested the Bwlch but Nick suggested Blaen Bran at Cwmbran. Now Id forgotten about this slope which I haven't flown for probably a couple of years at least, and that does fly south easterly. It isn't the best slope, especially for landing as the ground is covered in long, tough ferns, and as I discovered, it's incredibly difficult to get your model down to land. More of this later.

I loaded the car with two models, the Multiplex Heron,

Multiplex Heron 

(just in case there was less wind than forecast and I needed electric power assist to fly), and my trusty old X Models Whisper.

X Models Whisper

Now the last time I went to fly the Whisper, one of the flaps wasn't working, so I'd looked to see if it was just a loose connection but the servo still didn't want to work, so I assumed that the servo was kaput, but on Friday evening I thought Id try out the servo and if it didn't work, then I had a mini servo spare I could use temporarily but, lo and behold, the flap worked when I tried it, so I guess there must be a loose connection somewhere and I decided I'd take the Whisper and chance the servo.

It was a good hike up to the top, and there was a guy up there flying a powered model, some E-flite pylon type racer, so I joined him and he introduced himself to me as Paulo, originally from Brazil but has lived in Newport for ten years. The breeze was gusting to an estimated 10 mph which I knew should be enough for the Whisper to keep airborne, and then as long as there was thermal activity I should be able to stay up quite well. So I assembled the Whisper, switched on the receiver and yes, the flap was still working, so I launched it off the slope. The wings wobbled a bit initially but I pushed out and the model found some slope lift and thermal activity and it wasn't long before I had enough height to feel comfortable.

I'd been cruising around for a few minutes, flying from thermal to thermal when I caught Nick walking towards me in the corner of my eye, so I decided to land for a chat. This was when I discovered how difficult it was going to be to land. I had good height and flew the down wind leg and lined her up, pushed the nose down slightly before activating CROW braking, but it didn't seem to slow down and I was struggling to lose any height, so I went around again, and again, so I walked further back and I knew I just had to be more forceful with it and I finally got it down. Phew! I later found that there was some great thermal activity going on in the landing zone, so much so that on another landing I was caught in a thermal and circling very quickly, almost DS style with the sound of the wind over the airframe, as you get with glass models.

Nick flew his Mystique and encountered the same difficulty in getting his bird down that I had, and as I had to leave at around 3:30 PM he flew his Flip and had some cracking thermals by all accounts with him reaching an ASL of 1200 feet.

So all in all it was a good session but, by now we should really be having winds coming from a SW or westerly direction so that we could be flying from Meio, Mickeys or Rhossili. However, if the forecast for the coming weekend remains the same, then those westerlies should make a welcome return and hopefully I can get some flying in on Sunday.

PSSA Fly for Fun meet

Hi all. This is just a reminder that this weekend, 11th - 12th May the PSSA will be holding their annual Fly for Fun weekend at the Bwlch. This weekend has become a firm favourite of PSSA members offering different slopes, flying conditions and scenery to the usual events held in N Wales.

If you are intending on attending this event, please be at the Ice Cream Slope car parking lay-by before 10 AM on both days for a briefing, otherwise you may not know which slope we will be flying from on a particular day.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Visitors from Slope Soaring Sussex

Sunday morning was beautiful, as the weather had been from the beginning of the Easter holiday on Friday. However, there was very little wind, which we had anticipated from looking at the weather forecasts so, when Paul and Ian of Slope Soaring Sussex told me that Sunday was their only available flying day of the extended weekend, we told them to bring light wind models with them, with also something that could fly in a slightly stronger breeze, just in case.

Paul and Ian had only arrived at The Wrecker lay-by at the Bwlch  just a few minutes before me and the weather forecast was accurate so far with a cloudless sky and a very light north easterly breeze, so we began flying from the Wrecker. They unpacked and assembled a couple of F3J models, Paul an Xperience Pro and Ian a Nan Shadow, which flew very well in the light breeze. There were some good thermals beginning to show also but, very quickly the wind began to shift around to a south easterly direction as had been forecast. We had anticipated this and moved over the hill behind us to the Back of Wrecker slope, however, at this moment there didn't seem to be enough slope lift to risk launching even the F3J models, so we gave them a throw from the top of the hill between the two slopes and managed to pick up thermals to give us some altitude. I cheated and used the motor on my Multiplex Heron to gain some initial height and quickly got into a thermal that took me way high. So much so that I had to bail out of the thermal and use crow braking to bring it down to a reasonable height.

The wind did pick up a little with an estimated 6 - 7 mph on the edge. The F3J models didn't have a problem with this at all but, as the lift was coming and going, and there being huge patches of sink being left behind by the thermals, when the lads tried to fly their F3F models, they would have to make a hasty retreat back to the grass for a landing, as landing out is definitely not an option on this slope.

The weather could only have been better if we'd had another 10 miles of wind to play with but, we still had a lot of fun. Check out the video below.

A strange wind day at Manmoel

I met Nick at Manmoel at around 12:45, it was a cloudy day with sunny intervals and a very chilly wind blowing in from the east. I walked the 200 metres or so from the car to the slope edge where Nick was already in the air with his SAS Mamba and I measured the wind speed at 18 - 22 mph, but it was north westerly and Manmoel is definitely an easterly slope. At least it was flyable, it just meant that our models would be a bit slow when traversing from right to left.

We were joined by David who had brought a couple of models with him just as the wind began to change direction to a full blown easterly, and the lift was fantastic as Nick and I raced each other along the slope, he with his M60 and me with my Ballistik, I think I had a slight edge speed wise 😉

 Nick walked back to his car to fetch his 3 metre B4 and I assembled my Valenta models L213 A. This would be the first time I've flown this since last autumn so I was a little nervous about it being chucked off the slope. I needn't have worried though as it flew away nicely, in fact it was absolutely rocking in that superb lift.

I made two passes to gauge the landing zone and then came in for an attempt at landing. The crow and spoilers slowed the speeding model down nicely, in fact so much so that with it still about 4 metres above the ground I closed crow and spoilers and landed sweetly without them. Nice 😌

We were joined by another couple of guys but shortly afterwards the wind just died off and we were reduced to flying our light foamie models and scratch around a bit for lift. It was strange how the wind and lift varied so much in the space of four hours.

Featured Post - foamie fun on Blaen Bran

Hi guys, check out the featured post on the left which goes back to 2016 and a fun, foamie model flying session we had on Blaen Bran, Cwmbran.