February Blog 2007

Last weekend of the month, 24th/25th.

Good indoor meeting see report.  

Not a particularly nice weekend, cold north easterly with occasional showers. 

Dropped into the field Sunday mid afternoon to find it deserted! 

So rather a sad end to the month. March in a few days and the nights are getting longer, so roll on warmer times.

Perfect conditions (as usual) and further flights of “the creation” where sort of in control.

Richards Annular Monoplane perfect test flight Monday 19th.

Weekend 17th/18th.

Following two good weekends the good weather did not coincide with the third weekend.

Do to work I only made it to the field late on Sunday 18th to test fly my latest “creation”. The weather was a bit overcast with a light south-easterly wind but there were a few regulars out. Unfortunately due very poor light and the lateness of the day I did not get any useable photographs. Paul got a video of the Bye Yak but again poor light spoilt it a bit.

My latest creation did fly if not well, first flight with elevators reversed (don’t ask) was better and seemed to offer better control than having them working in the right sense!

Weekend 10th-11th February.

Not a great forecast for weekend, no reports of any flying on the field on the Saturday.

Saturday Night great indoor session see report.

Sunday dawned calm and relatively warm, but by the time I got to the field the wind had picked up to a cold south-westerly.

I will just leave you with some pics of the electric Radio Queen flying. I will cover this model in the model section later in the year, as I’m sure it will be out more once the weather gets better.

Saturday/Sunday 3rd/4th Feb 2007.

A large area of high pressure over UK brought the classic frosty/foggy morning but sunshine by lunchtime with light northerly wind for both days.

Clive has done the first light cut of grass of the year, but the ground is still to soft to roll despite nine days without rain. Clive has also given a make over to the pegboard to bring it up to date.

Most interesting model of the weekend was Ken Mattocks Old Bill, a bit like an angular Magnatilla it pre dates the Flair model by many years. Dave Boddington designed it back in the late sixties as a semi scale trainer.

This model has flown before with a variety of engines, but this was its first flight with a vintage Taplin Twin diesel. The engine belongs to Paul Nind and is on long term lone I believe. Now with most diesels it is hard to get a consistent run with one cylinder two gives double the trouble, but when on song it sounds great and has more than adequate power. After an overnight mod the engine performed excellently on the Sunday even landing with the engine running.

Ken also flew another old Boddington design on Sunday when his Barnstormer had an airing.

Brian D. had a new flying wing, which was well and truly tested with all members present adding their opinion in the end it flew rather well.

Many other members tempted by the sunshine flew a variety of models over the weekend. We also had a sneak preview of the Gloucester “Skunk works” formation team practicing their formation flying.

With newly modified frequency board Paul B. was the first to use the 2.4 Ghz frequency. I believe their are two other 2.4 Ghz sets in the club it will interesting to see how these work together.

A great weekend lets hope the year continues like this.

Vintage Taplin twin diesel. Mounted in a classic "Old Bill" airframe circa 1970.

Great smell & sound.

Ready to go.