Well we cannot complain that it was not hot enough last week, to hot on some days !!! and the forecast is for it to get warm again but not as hot, I have said it before that we must live in a corridor that gets all the wind !!!!, I know it is a coastal area but we do seem to cop here.
The recent weather meant there was plenty of activity at the field which always makes for a good day/evening.
There a couple of photos later on of a good turn out
Training
We are very fortunate in our club that we have a good of amount of club recognized trainers and examiners.
These people do this to further the club and hopefully turn the students into safe flyers and get them through the BMFA A certificate and B certificate if they so wish.
It is worth reminding members that if you do not have an A certificate you cannot fly alone you have to have somebody stood next to you who has got an A certificate.
This is nothing new its in the club rules which everybody agrees to abide by when they pay their subs.
Back to the trainers, these people do not get paid for being a trainer they do it to further the hobby and ensure that the trainees are taught to be safe flyers.
Now some of the trainers are still working, many of the trainers have children/grand children so this has to be balanced out with flying time.
Some trainers have reached the age where they don’t work but again may have to balance flying with other duties and other hobbies.
All the trainers fly their own planes so will want to have a fly themselves !!!
There will be the odd occasions where there will be no trainers available, this is normally in the summer due to holidays and visiting model shows (ie Weston Park).
The normal training sessions are Wednesday evening and Sunday mornings from about 10:30 onwards, these are weather dependant of course.
As a club we use the Messenger app and there is one setup called ‘Training’
This is where you should check to see if any trainers are going to the field, if in doubt put a message on the app, this will prevent you having a wasted journey.
If you are new to training make yourself known when you arrive and you can pointed in the right direction.
We are also lucky that we do have some training aircraft which Anthony Ollerton has recently done a re-furb on some of them. These aircraft are available to use for trial flights and for use until a student purchases his own aircraft. The sooner you get your own aircraft the better.
Weston Park Model Show 2026
I finally managed to get Weston Park Model show, its been on my bucket list for years but always clashed with holidays and a big scale glider event which used to be held the same weekend, anyhow I got there.
Well first of all what a great turn out from our club with wife’s, partners and friends, once we had our chairs set out we were out in numbers.
The show is a big show if you have not been set in the lovely grounds of the Weston Hall stately home, stunning location.
There were a good selection of trade tents and places to eat and drink (both soft drinks and beer !!).
You can take your caravan or tent and pitch up for the whole weekend, many of our members do that.
The flying display starts at 10:00 and continues right through until 6:30pm, plenty of flying.
As you can imagine there were a lot of large models like half size Hawk jets which were stunning and flown in a scale like manner, the commentator said one of the Hawks was £80,000 yes I have typed that correct !!!
Now I found (just my view) after a while I thought the non scale jets got a bit boring to watch they were all doing the same thing, hovering in front of the crowd and flat spins etc; different coloured jets, slightly different shapes but all doing the same routine. There were exceptions for example the Vulcan flying with two Red Arrow Hawks and a couple of Typhoons doing a scale like routine.
For me the star of the show was a half size Pitts special with a four stroke engine in it, he gave a stunning display of scale aerobatics as per the full size.
Its a great show and worth making the effort to go if you get the chance.
Parlick Slope Soaring
Sunday just gone a few members trekked up Parlick to do a bit of gentle slope soaring, I could not make it unfortunately.
Anyhow the word gentle soon went out of the window apparently, it may of started of as a gentle slope soaring session but soon descended into the normal attack mode battle with the flying wings taking a bit of a battering.
If I was to say to you all who do you think the attack ringleader was I am pretty sure that you could guess his name, I will give you a clue JR !!!!
If you have never been slope soaring its worth coming up next time there is talk of us going. I have built a classic 1970’s three channel trainer which you can have a go with if the wind strength is suitable.
Battle scar damage caused by deliberate undercut approach, good job they bounce !!!!
Photos of Good Sunday turn out as mentioned
Now there is always space for a good contribution in the newsletter and Andy Moore is always on the ball with a contribution, his latest adventure is below, I laughed my head off when I read this. I have not edited it you need to read it as he wrote it.
A Lost Drone Story:-
Sunday 14th June was a lovely day for flying, indeed apparently the club field was full. I, on the other hand had decided to fly a 5” drone I had recently built from scratch – Pilling Sands was my preferred location mainly because there’s never usually anyone there and its pretty scenic with Morecambe Bay & the Lake District in shot.
With my trusty spotter by my side I took off towards the sea with a large field behind me (note this bit). Fabulous FPV (First Person View – like you’re in the cockpit) flight around the sands and after about 3-4 mins I decided to bring it close in to try two new features I had added. The first of these is a newish Betaflight feature called Position Hold which, for the very first time, allows a Betaflight equipped drone to behave almost like a recent DJi drone by allowing it to simply hover in 3D space without having to give any inputs on the sticks. Well, I was amazed as it seemed to work just perfect and it did indeed allow the drone to be flown more like one of the recent DJi drones.
The second feature I then went on to try is Betaflight `Rescue` which is intended to get you close to your arm point incase of something going wrong or you becoming disorientated in your goggles. It’s a very new feature with some users reporting it to be problematic & not to be relied upon. As soon as I hit the button (a green one 😊 ) the quad immediately shot directly up about 300 foot and fast by which time my spotter said they couldn’t see the damned thing. Unfortunately, I had a brilliant view of it in my goggles going into a barrel spin and crashing to the ground at a rate of knots in what looked like a large field. As I knew it was pretty close when I performed the ‘Rescue’ I guessed (hoped) it had landed in the large field directly behind me but despite us looking for a good period of time we couldn’t find it and the battery had clearly come loose as I no longer had a RC or video link – by this time it was around 7.30pm.
Later the same evening when I got home, I decided to have a very close look at the saved googles flight footage with all of the telemetry – one of which was the GPS co-ordinates. After advancing the video frame-by-frame right at the very end just before it hit the grass, I found the co-ordinates & ploughed them into Google Maps (see attached) which showed the drone had apparently come down in the large field and I strongly suspected it was the one behind me. After finding this, I decided to go back to Pilling sands later that evening in a 2nd attempt to find it but the grass in the field was simply too long and I was losing light fast so again, the drone was not found even though I had a rough idea where it was.
The following lunchtime (Monday 15th June) I decided to measure the distance on Google Maps from 3 sides of the field to the drone with the idea of pacing them out to better locate the actual position it had gone
down. With this information in hand, I setoff back to Pilling Sands for the 3rd time in less than 24 hrs. This time, after pacing through the thick grass the GPS co-ordinates took me virtually straight to it buried deep in the grass as it had fallen over 300 feet. To my surprise, there was zero damage to any part of the drone although the battery will need replacing.
I intend to fly the drone again in the next few days but maybe this time I will stay away from the ‘Rescue’ mode 😊
Thanks for reading !
Andy Moore – ageing Fixed-wing & Drone pilot
You have to admire Andy for pushing the boundaries
Trainers/Trainees
The list of club trainers has been refreshed and their names are below.
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.
Training sessions are Wednesday evening and Sunday mornings weather dependant of course
Trainers :
Chris Vernon, Jason Reid, Jake Reid, Mark Conlin, Andy Harrison, Anthony Ollerton, Dave Hindley, Kev Watson
Regards Chris V