So here we are in sunny July, the longest day has passed and the days are now getting shorter !!!!
I promised myself I would not mention the wind in this newsletter but come on has this been the windiest period of time we can remember ???
This brings me nicely onto Jakes Jet day he organized, it blew an absolute gale and I mean a gale, the sun did come out but my oh my the wind !!!!
The net result of this was a lot of cake eating, standing around and talking.
Eventually some brave souls ventured out with their little Arrows EDF powered jets and gave us a co-ordinated demonstration of flying backwards and landing vertically
A real shame that the weather spoilt the day but the cake was good
I am assured Jake has pre-ordered sunshine and calm weather for the upcoming general fly-in, lets hope his order delivers
Will Sparrow
To say it has not been Will’s year is an understatement. Following on from his his unfortunate fall from the hedge and ankle breakage he ended up back in hospital with a heart issue. Will has undergone major surgery and as I write this newsletter is currently still in Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Will’s recovery from the surgery has been somewhat up and down with recovery taking longer than expected. I speak to Mrs Will Sparrow daily to get updates.
As you would expect keeping a sparrow penned in for a period is not good and he misses the opportunity to flutter wings and visit the field
I am sure you all join me in wishing Will a speedy recovery
BMFA (North West) Scale Day (10 th July)
Sunday 10th July our field was loaned out to host a round of the BMFA Scale competition. As a club have done this before and it is an opportunity to promote our wonderful flying field, secondly it is an opportunity to see some scale models.
I have to say the turnout was not as good as previous events, perhaps fuel costs (we have had people from Scotland in the past) contributed to the reduced turnout.
There were some splendid scale models with a 50/50 split between electric power and glow/petrol power.
One observation I made is the quest to fly the models at a scale speed which in my opinion lead to some heart stopping moments when turning the models and indeed take offs. They appeared to slow and dangerously near the stall speed.
There was one model which has appeared several times at the event this being a FMS Tigercat twin. This model is approx; 2metre span and flies of one 6s lipo.
It flies great and looks and sounds the part. A quick google on my phone at the field revealed that to you sir £703 !!!. That’s a lot of money for a foam model.
It does come with all the servos and electric retracts but never the less its sign of how much things are increasing in price, apparently a foam Wot4 is now £220
I have enclosed a couple of photos from the event
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
Reminder of up and coming events this summer:
Please support these events if you can even if you just visit the field for an hour to show support to Jake and the work he puts in to organize these events
Annual Club Fly- In Sat 23rd July
Our annual club fly in, open to all clubs with BMFA membership, a day to relax and enjoy flying. The whole family welcome to come, refreshments available on the day along with a raffle.
Aero Show Trophy Sat 17th September
Our annual club aero show competition. Fly a simple scale schedule.
Litter Reminder
Not a moan but can we all remember to take our litter and debris home and
don’t leave it at the field or in the hut please
Photo Quality
As I have mentioned before photo quality and indeed photo size (pixels etc;) embedded within documents is a complex subject and always a trade off with quality v size. Thanks to Anthony Ollerton this month I have tried some different software for creating the newsletter, this software allows you user to control the compression of the photos better which means bigger images can be used. The images this time are bigger and clearer with a moderate newsletter size of 2.2mb, in this day and age not a big file size
Hope you find the images better
Stay Safe
Chris V
A few bonus pics of the Scale day that didn’t make it into the Email version 😁.
