Well the spell of great weather fizzled out to be replaced by prolonged spell of windy weather, in fact with the trees in full leaf it looks/feels like winter gales.
Hopefully the weather will settle down and we have some great flying days.
Club Training
We are fortunate in our club that we ‘Trainers’ who are willing to instruct new starters so they can go onto achieve the BMFA ‘A’ certificate which is required for you to fly solo at our field.
These trainers are volunteers, they don’t get paid, they give up their time for free.
Many of the trainers are still working although there a few retired trainers. Many of the trainers are married and have family’s and some have grand children, in other words there is balance between hours available for training and other things.
The normal training sessions are Wednesday evenings (During Summer) and Sunday mornings/afternoons.
The club will always try and ensure there are a couple of trainers available on the designated training sessions. There may well be an odd occasion due to other commitments as mentioned previously and holidays that no trainers are available. Things crop up and even though a trainer might have said they are attending they cannot get there.
The club has a messenger chat line dedicated to all things training here you can post questions with regard to trainer availability, arranging suitable dates for a ‘A’ test and general trainer/trainee topics, there is a separate club chat group for anything non training related so please respect that.
Every trainee will have their own favourite trainer, this is normal but please do not let this be a barrier for not flying if he is not there.
Do not be afraid to ask other trainers to instruct you.
Every instructor is there to get you to a standard that is deemed acceptable to be put forward for the BMFA ‘A’ certificate. How long this takes will be down to the student. I have taught people to fly who picked it up very quickly and I have also taught students who have given up as they could not progress and it became a chore for them which is not what its about its a hobby at the end of the day.
If you are not happy with any of training aspects in the club then speak to any of the club committee who can feed back to the committee to discuss.
One last thing to consider is the trainers will normally have their own planes with them to fly so don’t feel put out if they want to have a fly in between training flights.
Club Trainers :
Chris Vernon, Jason Reid, Jake Reid, Mark Conlin, Andy Harrison, Anthony Ollerton, Dave Hindley, Kev Watson
Upcoming Events
See poster below about our fly-in on July 20th
No competitions involved just an event to come and fly your aircraft and maybe meet fellow flyers from other clubs
Might even be a BBQ kindly provided by JR catering !!!
Tuesday 24th June
One of our club instructors (dave Hindley) is being assessed to become a club examiner. In order to do this Dave has to do a couple of mock A & B tests on pilots. If you are available or are interested in taking you part please speak to Dave Hindley to establish what the procedure is and what time the event is happening, I am lead to believe it is the afternoon but please chec
Committee Meetings
Have you ever wondered what goes on at the committee meetings ??
Well I can only assume that photo below is some kind of ritual that goes on to make decisions.
New Charging Facility
Anthony Ollerton has completed the solar panel charging system and fully up and running. What a fantastic effort in getting this done. Anthony has very kindly done and article on the system and on how to use it.
Main points form the article are:
You will need your own chargers
DO NOT plug lipo’s directly to the system
One from me is that if there are any issues/faults with the system please contact Anthony do not attempt to fix the issue yourself.
Don’t forget the club rules states that charging of batteries in your car or in the car park is not permitted.
If you need any advice on purchasing a field charger to use on the system speak to Anthony. I looked at his field charger recently and was really impressed with the features on it for such a small charger, I also noticed Jake Reid had a similar unit but a different make, I suspect they all come out of the same factory just different badges on them.
Field Charging Facility
TLDR: Put table up, switch on both isolators, plug distribution panel in, plug your charger in, Charge!
As some of you may have noticed, a large cabinet has appeared in the hut.
After a few requests for the facility and the kind donation of solar panels (Thanks Tim Caswell!) it was decided by the committee to make use of the batteries that were sitting dormant in there and create a 12v supply to power chargers at the field.
The cabinet has the following features:
- Battery indicator – this has a few functions using the buttons it is possible to display Voltage, Current or State of charge % using the button on the unit.
- USB charging plugs – USBC PD and USB Type A. When the PD port is in use it will display the current and voltage being delivered.
- Main battery isolator – Isolates everything. Including the Anderson socket. Needs to be switched on to enable charging.
- Anderson socket isolator – Self explanatory. Isolates the supply to the Anderson socket on the outside of the hut. Needs to be switched on to enable charging.
The second isolator is slightly redundant now. The circuit was changed slightly to reduce the chance of damage to equipment if the batteries were disconnected.
To connect to all this I have made a distributor panel, which plugs into the Anderson socket on the outside of the hut.
You will need your own charger to connect to this.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PLUG LIPOS DIRECTLY!
In order to connect your charger you will need to make a lead with a male XT60 on one end and the appropriate plug for your charger on the other end.
The outlets are fused at 30A which should be good for around 300W of charging power each.
The Main fuse feeding the Anderson socket is 80A which is good for around 800W. please bear this in mind if multiple people are charging large batteries simultaneously.
Thanks again to Anthony for the facility
Trainers/Trainees
The list of club trainers has been refreshed and their names are below.
If you are a trainee please bear in mind the vast majority of these people work during the day so if you turn up at the field on a Thursday morning for example please don’t get annoyed that there are no trainers there.
A couple of the trainers are of an age where work does not get in the way and if contacted may be able to accommodate mid week sessions.
As a trainee get to know these trainers if needed ask for their phone numbers or use the Clubs messenger group to make contact with them.
Don’t rely on the same trainer all the time, all the trainers will offer the same amount of training and to the same standard/goal.
Trainers :
Chris Vernon, Jason Reid, Jake Reid, Mark Conlin, Andy Harrison, Anthony Ollerton, Dave Hindley, Kev Watson
Upcoming events:
Keep an eye on the club chat lines, email and social media for upcoming events.
Regards Chris V