Sunday 5 February 2017

Ditchling Beacon 5th Feb

Hi All,
This morning Scott, Bob P and I met at the Beacon car park in the swirling mists. The wind was pretty raw and blowing straight from the NE allowing us to fly from just the other side of the road.


Scott brought his Wildthing, Bob had his Wildthing and Middle Phase and I had the Moth.
But nobody brought a camera, so there's no pictures I'm afraid. Anyway you all know what we look like !
We all flew quite a lot in the very strong but blustery wind. The lift was good a little way out from the hill, but very blustery near the hill and for landing. We all spent the time doing circuits and practising our landings which all went very well in the conditions.
Bob then tried his Middle Phase with some spoileron setup but that left him with too little aileron authority, so it landed a bit heavily, but all OK thanks to rubber band wing and tail surface fixings.


We spent just about 2 hours up there before Scott and I decided it was too cold to continue, but Bob decided to stay on - he was using his transmitter mitt.
At the car park we met two of the Mill Hill regulars who were just setting up their mouldies for flying. I don't know if they joined Bob or not.

2 comments:

  1. The middle phase is a joy to fly, I can see why its used as a trainer and it looks good in the air. I built mine with rubber banded wings and tail, the wings are a good idea but I might glue or screw the tail on permanently. When it landed hard it flipped up side down and the fin hit the ground causing the tail to move, this broke the control horn and the control snake, I'm sure that wouldn't have happened if it had been fixed rigid. Two servos in the wings are a must, the spoilerons definitely worked to slow it down, maybe convert it to 4 servo ailerons and flaps.
    Had a good morning but a little chilly, the transmitter mitt works well but it needs to be used from the start, while the hands are still warm. I left it a bit late and once my hands were cold, the mitt didnt warm them up, just kept the wind off.
    Bob

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  2. Useful commentary Bob. My 4-servo wing is currently set up with the Tx mixer to achieve crow braking, but I wonder about simply plugging the flaps into the throttle channel and spring-centring the throttle stick.

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