So last newsletter I said that spring had sprung, well it did for a few days, we have had a couple of days of sunshine as well but in between there have been spells of shall we say cooler conditions along with wind and rain.
Surely things have to improve soon ??? its only a few weeks off June !!!
As many of you will know we sadly lost Harold Dowbekin recently. Harold was an excellent aeromodeller and a fantastic old school engineer. I am awaiting a write up on Harold, once I have it it will go in the newsletter.
Harold was friendly with big Dave for as many years as I can remember but boy could they argue will each other, many times over utter trivial things with neither of them backing down.
Egg Drop 16th April
So the egg drop event took place, the weather could have been kinder to be honest but never the less it was a reasonable turn out.
For this years event Jason/Jake had changed the rules and scoring procedure. He tried to convince everybody it would make things simpler and would make for a more balanced competition.
They had obviously come up with this theory on the way home from Wetherspoons !!! (Other drinking establishments available). It would have been easier to explain how the government works out the cost of living.
Fortunately And Moore ( ex bank employee) was at hand along with John Smith to do the scoring.
The format was to drop your egg/bomb nearest to the target area, spot landing competition and a flight of two minutes duration with the pilot having to decide when the two minutes were up.
Now in the interest of transparency I feel I must point out that during the spot landing competition I missed the field and my two minute flight turned out to be a tad longer, I will leave it at that.
I am not going to dwell on the results because Jake won with his dad coming in second, a bit suspicious you may well ask, indeed it is.
To top the day off there was a BBQ laid on expertly cooked by Jason and fresh cakes baked by Mrs V.
Very strange but farmer Tom must not have had his BBQ radar turned off as there was no appearance from him. It was strange not hearing ‘Are they going spare’ coming from BBQ area.
I have included some images from the day
Flying Field Report
As I have mentioned beforehand we had had a couple of good flying days recently with some new season models making appearances. Spotted were a brace of small Valiant aircraft, one with an Evolution 10cc petrol engine and the other fitted with Saito four stroke. I can confirm that the petrol engined one did take to the skies for a small flight which was curtailed by a very loose silencer. The second one was subject to a prolonged period of time in the pits with screwdrivers galore around the engine bay. It was not happy at all and the more adjustment (fiddling) that took place the worse it got. The decision was taken to retire back to the workshop and re baseline the engine.
Duncan turned up with a very nice model that Justin had donated to him. Duncan had done a lot of work on the model and it was his first attempt at covering model. The result is a very nice looking model in red and white chipmunk type colour scheme.
The first flight was a bit interesting (I flew it) which felt like a wing incidence issue, after re-seating the wing and adjusting a few things it flew very nicely. I since seen Duncan flying it himself, it looks really well in the air.
I mentioned last newsletter that Jake had won a ducted fan SAAB Grippen model, this had its first outing recently. It was very interesting with Jake landing it after a couple of minutes flight due to some strange flying characteristics. Subsequent flights appeared better. It runs off a 6s Lipo which after four minutes was shouting to get out of the plane. The battery was very hot and had only a very small percentage capacity left in it.
Now that the flying season is getting kickstarted could I remind everybody about taking their rubbish home at the end of their flying session please.
Electric Fly-In
Sunday the 14th May is the annual electric Fly-In
Bring your electric models along and fly them it will be a great day.
Jake might of cooled his battery down from the SAAB Grippen by then !!
Please make every effort to attend
Trainers
Below is the list of current trainers for the club. Get to know these people if you are learning to fly. Ask them for their phone numbers so that you can ring them to check availability. This save’s wasted journeys which can lead to frustration for trainees.
Jason Reid, Mark Conlin, John Higgins, Brian Holdsworth, Chris Vernon, Andy Harrison, Jim Sheldon, Paul Cusworth, Justin Goldstone and Kevin Watson.
The vast majority of these trainers are in employment so their availability is governed by their work. Please bear this in mind when arranging a flying session
Don’t forget the main training session during the summer is Wednesday nights, weather dependant of course
Chris V