Saturday 31 October 2015

Mount Caburn in a South East wind ?

Hi All,
Well, we decided to try Mount Caburn this afternoon - it was forecast to be SE at 9 - 12 mph and Paul found out that the local paragliders were meeting at Beachy Head, so we were free to try the South East bowl at Caburn.
We met up at 13:00 in the lay-by and then walked up to the summit as usual, except we skirted to the Eastern side of the hill to get the best of any wind.
On the way to the top we felt nothing blowing (except all of us from the climb !) and we desperately hoped there would be some kind of wind at the top - but we were eventually rewarded with a moderate SE breeze which we felt would be good enough for a try.
We all had different models today -

Paul had his Omega with the electric motor,
I had my KA8,
Andrew had his Zagi,
David T had his Radian Pro with electric motor and a flying wing with an electric motor,
Scott had his Vagabond and newly acquired e Hawk (motor disconnected)
Graham U had his Vagabond, Libelle and ever faithful Orange thing with electric motor.

If you detect a theme here, it would be the 'electric motor' theme, it seemed that everyone knew (except me and Andrew) that we would require some kind of backup plan to keep our models in the air....

As it happened, I forgot my wing joiner for the KA8, so that was grounded.

I flew Andrew's repaired Zagi and then handed it to Andrew only to see it crash to the ground - we discovered that the new clevises I had fitted had stripped the thread on the pushrods, so one elevon was out of service. Entirely my fault and I will fix it for next time.

Paul had some great flying from his Omega but it seemed that the electric motor was necessary at times because the lift was questionable.
Graham flew all his models, but primarily the Libelle DLG (with great skill) and the Orange thing with electric motor which was required a number of times to keep airborn.

Scott flew his Vagabond which Paul had trimmed for him and then Paul flew the eHawk just to get it set up correctly.
David got me to fly his new flying wing with electric motor, but after a lot of trimming, battery moving and servo reversing, it just wouldn't fly properly (even with full power), so we need to put a bit more effort into working it out.
I also flew and trimmed David's Radian Pro (with electric motor) and after quite a lot of fiddling and trimming we got it flying really well.
David then took over the controls and had a great time with the Radian. I think David had one of his best flying sessions with us today and I'm really pleased for him.

So to summarise, the lift was minimal, the weather was brilliant and the company was exceptional (as always !)

Thanks guys !!
Rob

1 comment:

  1. A most enjoyable time, a bit of fitness training included :) But even better, good flying with much assistance from Rob (thanks) and an education in setting up and flying. Looking forward to next outing.

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