Some flying and other projects

I had a great 5 hour session on my club slope at Burton Dassett this past Sunday, with 3 aircraft flown.  Booming lift, but very bumpy close-in (the trees at the base are the cause, I'm sure) and massive thermals once pushed out from the slope.

CeePee and Mini-Blade Carbon

Mini-Blade and Valkyrie

The Mini-Blade performed as well as always, but could have done with some ballast I feel, but I flew so many high powered aeros from altitude, I'll forgive it's lightness. I really don't think I've ever flown so many non-stop aeros with any other airfraft as I did with the MB that day - spectacular.

The Valkyrie went well, but it was trying my patience when rigging.  It's probably 2+ years since I'd flown her last, and I'd forgotten just how fiddly the assembly is - she might visit the workshop soon for some mods!

The new CeePee...well, it was blustery.  I managed to push her away from the slope and enjoyed the responsiveness and speed across slope, as well as a few simple aeros.  Alas, the blustery bumpiness took its toll, and she was rolled over close-in on a pass that I couldn't recover from.  The fuselage took a big crack nearly around it's circumference, ending it's day.  All repaired now, just need to add some black solarfilm over the repair.

Onto new stuff, then.

I've committed to a 150% Jet Provost build, which should be a great size for the slope, and have already modelled some cockpit parts.

I've drawn up a 56" Gloster Meteor (Meatbox) F4 plan that I'll be getting laser cut shortly.

And I've started build on something else - another "century series" fighter, that Matt Jones and I are building one off each.

More to follow!

Sunday night Pike flying at Burton Dassett

I braved the M40 on Sunday night to go over to my local club slope at Burton Dassett country park, and was surprised to see I was the only flier there.  The wind was around a bit westerly for the SW slope, but the Pike and the newly-refitted Carbon Mini Blade went well.

Arty HDR shot

Fly with right hand, phone taking pics in left hand!

Some big clouds came steaming through - lots of knobbly lift.

Sunday's flying

I had nice 3 hour or so flying session yesterday in the normal Burton Dassett bumpy air, giving the Pike WR, B52, and the Hawk a bit of an airing.  The Buff was not enjoying the bumpy air so much, and the Hawk wasn't too impressed either.  The forecast wind speed was 16mph with 25mph gusts - on the edge of the hill, at the compression point, I measured 17mph on my Vavuud...pretty terrible really, showing that there is no great amount of power in the hill at all.  As a comparison, on the Orme a 16mph ground-level speed would easily give mid to high twenties on the edge!

The bumpiness is getting worse over the years too - I think we need to visit some trees at the bottom with a chainsaw one night!

Shona forgot the camera, so we only managed a few stills from my phone, this is about the best of them.