Well we finally got a break in the weather on 12th March. It was sunny and calm and ideal for flying.
There was plenty of training going on. In the top left picture, Russel’s friend Chris got a few flights in and was progressing well. Here we have Nigel heading to the patch with Justin. Nigel also did very well and bagged his first landing.
John’s Extra/MX climb’s out after take-off
Alan’s cub taking off. The calm winds really favoured this light little plane. Some of the larger machines were struggling to slow down for the landing.
Pete was sporting a P38 Lightning recently acquired from the Romsey auction. It flew nicely from the first launch.
Alan was up and flying with his Majestic Major.
Well, there have been some good flying days over the past month with quite a lot of really rubbish ones too. Many thanks to Paul and Rob who supplied me with some great pictures.
Here’s a picture from one day that turned out beautifully calm and sunny but started with a bit of rain, hence the cover over my plane in the foreground and Pete scanning the skies for any further signs of precipitation.
Paul was working out the niggles with his recently acquired Ultimate Bipe.
Although the power was adequate, it wasn’t quite up to Paul standards. So maybe we’ll see some changes up front.
Here she is flying and you’ll notice that this shot is from above. It is a movie-still taken by one of Rob’s planes.
Rob managed to catch quite a few fleeting moments of other aircraft passing through his camera’s field of view.
…And here is Rob getting ready to start his WOT4, which he can usually manage with a quick back-flip of the spinner. This is a trick I first saw Russell do with one of my planes.
Alan just getting his Majestic Major ready for lift off. This is a lovely thing to fly and we had some great goes with it.
Sadly, it did end up in the tallest tree at poplars and required a local tree surgeon to rescue it.
This recovery cost was £50, so not cheap but usually better that losing the plane. Should you need this service yourself at some point, I took note of their contact details.
Ethan Ford: 07545 759773 (Mobile)
Email: ecftrees@gmail.com
Website: www.ecftrees.com
They are Romsey based but one of the employees lives near the Cricketers pub.
Here’s my Dewoitine coming in to land. I like flying this plane but it does have a vicious stall. It will enter a spin almost instantly and nearly caused the loss of the plane at one point.
The finished all-up-weight for mine was 4.9Kg (with battery). I suspect that a 4.5Kg AUW would make things much better. That said, mine does fly slowly, you just have to be very careful not to go too slow or when turning at low speed.
I did keep bending the original undercarriage because it was very soft metal. I now have new undercarriage made from 5mm piano wire instead of English cheddar.
I must thank John H. for helping me sort this out because he loaned me his wire bender which was simple to use and extremely effective.
Here’s a picture of the wire bender (the black coloured item). I believe john said it was inexpensive and I can tell you it works really well. 5mm piano wire is not normally easy to bend even after annealing.
I was so impressed that I decided I wanted one for myself. The larger and rather grotty looking copy I made is pictured below John’s one. The U shaped wire was a test piece I bent. Bending such a short piece would be very difficult with just a vice and pliers etc.
The wire is bent around the central 9.5mm post and may be coiled up the post until you run out of height. I made a test piece having multiple coils, like a trainer’s nose wheel, with ease.
Having flown quite a few times at Poplars over the past month, I can bear witness to the fact that both myself and others have commented on how great the strip is.
I don’t think Pat is keen for me to put him in the newsletter but I think it’s important to mention the effort that he, Dave and the other committee members put into keeping the place up together so we can fly.
Gentlemen, we salute you.
