July 2008 Blog

Wednesday 30th A pleasant calm evening, 3 fliers on Minchinhampton Common, plenty of room to fly but very restricted landing Phil Tuesday 29th It's official, summers over. Breezy day with frequent showers. Darren and Paul decided to give flying a miss and went to Weston for a day planning to spend their money on the pier, they were disappointed to find it no longer there! So as a consolation spent the morning at Model Discounts and probably spent just as much, thoughts of sweet shops and children come to mind. Not a bad evening, visited field, caravans for weekend already moving in. A few members where there for one last fly before our summer break. No reports or pics though. CB Me and Clive had a couple flights in gusty conditions with poor light. Darren presented me with my Seagull Xray, the quest for a F3A practice machine goes on. I am still amazed by the performance of the Formosa., speed and precision from a piece of polystyrene The fair ground attractions arrived and we had a look at one the racing cars powered by two motorbike engines, The Boss agreed to run the roller over our strip to take out the wheel marks made by the big tractor. Phil
Monday 28th Another very hot day, thunderstorms late afternoon some heavy in places. Visited field to returns Colin's model to him. Conditions calm but didn't have anything to fly left by 7.30 pm. No reports of anybody else flying.
Sunday 27th Hot, very hot, in fact hottest day of the year so far with the temperature not quite through the 30 degrees C (85 F) mark. Little or wind. Only a few members ventured out during the day. Paul B. again flew his large Mirage 2000 EDF Jet. I had done a short test flight with this model for him sometime back, problems with the speed controller cutting the flight short, sadly I have not seen it fly since but from the pictures and reports it now flies well. Still has fixed undercarriage though, call me what you will but I think jets just don't look fast until you get rid of the wheels. By early evening the usually crowd had assembled and in the cooler evening air much flying was done. I had a bit of a mishap with the Byp Yak, heat causing the links between brain and fingers to malfunction, but it will fly again. I brought along the original Telnik Pogo VTOL, have just swapped it over to 2.4 Ghz, bit out of trim but managed a vertical take off and landing first flight, so put it back in the box! There was a discussion about the pictures on this site, many believe they are mostly clever "Photoshop" work. Many are cropped, but only to get the model in the centre, and a few have had the contrast adjusted. But there are to my knowledge were only two actually "Photoshop" jobs. One is in Mays blog and is clearly labeled thus, one is in June and is pretty (I think) obvious. However a third has appeared in the batch below! With the quality of photo's that Phil and others take I personally think that we should point out any "faked" pictures. And yes we do get some fantastic sunset, all year round. CB. Entry 28/7 after discussions original (Un Photo shopped) picture has been restored. Complete with original caption. CB.

Paul's EDF Mirage1000 watts into the motor and it gets hot. 3rd photo

Paul's little electric model, the first victim of the fence	Chairman's Pogo, 3 vertical landings pleased the crowd. 2nd photo

"Look I can do that"	Clive's New Timer, as usual flying at sunset 2nd photo

Saturday 26th Yes summer is here! Super day warm sunny light breeze late afternoon calm evening. A rather stout fence has appeared around the no fly area, it's there for the grass track racing, as it defines the clubs no fly area members should have no problems avoiding it! George Ford turned up with a prototype low wing Super 60. A bit of remodelling around the cabin area and this should be a very attractive low wing trainer. Ken M. brought along his home made petrol engine, although the engine ran faultlessly it proved insufficient to get even the lightened Old Bill airborne for more than extended glide. He has now acquired a Super 60 airframe which will be a far more suitable home for this engine. I'm sure it will be airborne soon. Finally got my Phantom flying, again on four Lipo cells with a Hobby lobby Little Screamer motor in the Phase-3 55mm fan, providing the urge. Very quick. Also flew Mike B's Mig 15, also pretty quick, Phil at last managed to get good photos of both during slower passes. Phil also continued to try for the best sunset shot, this time getting no less than three models into shot on at least two occasions.

Chairman's Phantom running 4 lipos	Mike Bond's Mig15 flashing by

George Ford flying a prototype low wing Super 60

Chairman's Bi-yak, Derick flying a Miss Eurupa and Adrian's Big Ben

Friday 25th Another pleasant evening with more talking taking place than flying. Darren looked very confident with his Xray, but a worried look came over his face when Paul, tied it in knots, doing spins and flick rolls so fast it was hard to see what was happening

Ken's Old Bill, powered by 6cc petrol engine made by Ken except for the crank and cylinder. The motor turned an 11 inch prop at 6,000 RPM and would not take off in the long grass (come back Clive all is forgiven)

Gordon's high wing trainer, a little under powered by a forty	Darren's Xray, way overpowered but great fun

Wednesday 23rd A perfect summer's evening, but not a lot of flying. Stan lost the canopy on his Extra on its second flight, it effected its flight and did a bit of damage when it hit the hedge. Four magnetically held canopies have come off in in the last week! Mike and Cookie looked happy flying Mike's electric Super 60 . Darren's Seagull Xray had a lot of time in the air, I managed to get a go with it after Paul had left for work, It is a great model capable of smooth aerobatics as well as Paul style sticks in the corner extreme 3D. Phil

Mike Bond's Mig15 on the way down, with no wind it was not possible to get it up to flying speed, a catapult launch was suggested, Mike is prolific builder, I expect we will see this model again

Tuesday 22nd Another warm and sunny but breezy session. Bit of a different blog today as its going to be about people who broke things!!!! Stan ripped his under carriage off his exclaim (again). CB's ultra fast EDF powered buzz went in nose first at high speed into the ground, the excuses are starting to wear thin Chris!! CB also sat in Darren's newly acquired wide boy chair, obviously the chair couldn't have been wide enough (see pic). whilst we are on the subject of CB, he also put a lovely Cessna belonging to Mike Bond into the field, breaking off the nose wheel. Steve crashed his extra large Wot 4. Paul N was flying his Raptor 30 x-spurtly until he went into the ground inverted. Phil "the fridge" unexpectedly "stuffed" his Acromaster after loosing his bearings. If I've forgotten anybody let me know and you will be included in the next hall of shame.

Paul's Thunderbolt	Darren's broken chair

David about to take off	How many does it take to set up a model?

Our chairman and Phil trying to pose their lumps of EPP knife edged past the setting sun

Darren's Seagull Xray a great model, extreme everything

Monday 21st Could this warm weather be the start of summer? Fairly good turn out for an evening session. We arrived at the field to find that "someone" had run a combine harvester over the strip! Cookie was running a vintage diesel plane tonight, slow and simple (Cookie or the plane-you choose!!). Marley Jnr flew 1 of 2 GWS Formosa's round getting more confident with each circuit. Paul and David were flying the control liner and a new Gurr special trainer, David's 1st untethered plane. Darren flew his EP trainer and he had the new Seagull XRay ready for its 1st flight. The 1st flight consisted of 3 club "X-spurts" trying their hardest to rip the wings off and decided that it flew well!!!!. Phil flew his GWS Formosa and AcroMaster, no advice or compliments tonight. Stan turned up with his new Aquila and his re-engined Alley cat. Clive turned up late and flew his normal trio of planes. Mike B flew his planes faultlessly. The high light of the evening was CB trying to organise himself and Paul G to fly 2 old planes (vintage please CB.) in formation. Organise and brewery spring to mind!!!! The formation they used was the new chaos formation!! Paul AKA red 2 was soon removed and replaced with Phil AKA red 3,and this proved very successful, meanwhile red 1 -CB was shouting his manoeuvring orders.

Phil's Formosa, needs the thrust line adjusted	Cookie's underpowered diesel

"The Chairman's Mini Eros and Kiel Kraft Gypsy fly past holding tight formation (left) before breaking away (right) to carry out solo displays".

Darren's Seagull trainer	"Cookie having control issues with Hydroplane".

Maiden flight of Seagull XRay.	Electric powered R/C Kiel Kraft Gypsy.

Sunday 20th Warm and sunny with a little too much wind. We watched Jim flying F3A patterns the big shadow flew through the strong breeze OK and gave Jim a chance to land without running off the end of the strip. Stan flew his multiplex twin jet and Darren flew his Raptor. I Did not stay long, if you have any details of Sunday I will add it to this entry Phil

Paul Butcher's EDF Mirage Jet running a 4500mah 5 cell lipo.

Paul's Mustang did not mind the wind, looks good on the ground and in the air

Jim's F3A Shadow coming in for a landing, this model seemed it ignore the wind	and Jim's smaller electric Aspera F3A practice machine

Saturday 19th A strong breeze during the day dropping to give a pleasant warm evening. I was the only flier Paul and Darren arrived and gave the usual advice and compliments Phil Wednesday 15th The only two people flying tonight were Stan and Darren. The conditions were not very good, blustery and overcast. We feel we must warn people their helis are back!!!!!.Stan had brought out a fantastic example of a Hughes 530 scale heli, based on a Raptor 60 and Darren had his trusty Raptor 30.Paul appeared a bit later and took charge of Darren/s Carbon Falcon, this is proving difficult to get airborne.
Tuesday 14th Another dry but breezy day, no reports from anybody flying.
Monday 13th Bit overcast but dry with a south westerly breeze. Ideal evening for circuit bashing. Clive flew his old reliable Park Zone Stryker. Made a bit of a strange sound due new unbalanced prop. Balancing props on electric model is essential due to the small diameter of the shaft, no massive shaft as on an I/C model to absorb vibration.

Another try with Stan's Ally Cat, change of prop didn't help, general consensus of the "x-spurts" present that the motor is a "bit past it use by date" (not quite the phrase used but far more polite!) If anybody has a spare OS 61 then Stan could be interested.

	The Chairman's Mini Eros. Built over ten years ago from a Dave Boddington plan. This model lay forlorn, covered in dust in CB's attic until rescued a few weeks ago. A wash and clean a new more modern power set up and it's flying again. The idea was to add a very light motor/ESC/battery to get it to fly better? Instead used more powerful motor, bigger ESC and largish Lipo of same weight. Result, it still flies superbly except now it should stay aloft for over 30 minutes.
Sunday 13th
Warm sunny day with light winds, good turnout with quite a few new models. The wind actually picked up during the evening and by 7.00pm the field was deserted.

Paul B's Electric Mustang.	Marley (Jnr) GWS Formosa now with a bit of colour added superb little model.
A good day for maiden flights with all of the next four models making there debuts. Nice to see a couple of old timers built from that conventional, old fashioned material, balsa wood. All pictures taken during maiden flight.

Paul N's new Ben Buckle Falcon landing dead stick.	Marley (Snr's), Ben Buckle Galahad, unusual low wing rudder/elevator vintage design.

After many years in gestation the Chairman's ducted fan powered Multiplex Twinjet takes to the air.	Stan's Cermark Alley Cat breaks ground CB at controls. Despite a .60 up front performance was not quite there different prop needed?

Paul with his full size SHK, dropped in on us after running out of lift crossing the Severn valley on his way from Talgarth (Wales) back to Ashton Down

Saturday 12th
Little breezy doing the day but by early evening the wind dropped to nothing to give a superb evening. Marley (Jnr) flew is little GWS Formosa. This is a really lovely little model, when it appeared on the market a couple of years ago it got rave reviews rightly so. Being a small "F3A" model it does very smooth aerobatics, and makes a very good aerobatic trainer.

After a few teething problems the "Hyper" Buzz Lightning finally did what it was built to do, fly fast. With 300 watts 50,000 + rpm and 20 oz. weight it really should do nought else.
Tuesday 8th A pleasant evening but sadly getting dark too early, "why did summer go so quickly, was it something that I said?" Neil had two flights with his Telemaster, flying well apart from the landings. Jonathon had the first flight with his Swift, getting on better with this than his Tiger Trainer. Stan's 120 4 stroke engine would not run on his recently purchased scale model, we look forward to seeing this powerful model fly There was a Puffin Dingo flown but I did not get the name of the pilot. Phil
Photo Neil's electric Telemaster; claims to be the world's best trainer. Takes off on its own and glides to a landing and is very docile in the air. This is a big model at 73 inch wing span and needs a 40 class electric motor and a an expensive battery
SUNDAY 6th A day out at the Woodspring air show Two cars left Gloucester at 09.30, their occupants talking about what they were going to spend their pocket money on. The rain was falling heavily, were we mad - definantly. We arrived at Woodspring and basked in the sun, no sign of rain. After a walk through a muddy field we found our selves paying for admission. Not sure why but Paul G got turned down for a child's price (if only they knew him)!!!!!!! Stan and Darren disappeared to the trade tent, whilst Paul, David, Cookie and Mr. Cole went down to the flightline. The quality of the flying was fantastic Ali Machincy put on his normal immaculate display with the jets. Steve Holland flew his glider tug taking some very flimsy looking gliders to the cloud base. Annoyingly a 10 year old lad flew an Extra 540 round the sky flying a full 3D routine. Bristol panic display team had 8 biplanes in the air at the same time each trying to cut the others streamers; just to make it difficult all the planes looked the same. The highlight of the display (for me) was watching a 4 meter glider flying, this glider had a jetcat turbine attached to the fuselage. We met Gordon, Marley and Jon wandering around the trade village looking for bargains. Cookie seemed to spend most of the time annoying the traders!! We all look forward to next years show, who knows I might even remember my camera! Darren

An extra large Extra, this coped with the wind More photos	The wind sock nearly horizontal more photos

Friday 4th An evening of showers and more talking than flying. My Giles 202 did not like the elderly OS 40 I have just fitted and failed to prop hang or knife edge. The fluorescent orange made Darren's new Phantom stand out on this dark evening. Stan had a couple of flights with his Texan and a walk to the corn field when the engine cut on tick over Phil
Thursday 3rd Some flying took place, but nothing to write home about
Wednesday 2nd The showers cleared up and wind dropped to give us a fine evening. Darren had brain failure while landing his flouro orange Phantom putting down in instead of up, the model survived but one of the servos didn't. Paul helped Neil with his Telemaster this is a large electric trainer in the style of a Hi-boy. Phil

Clive refused fly his Formosa in any sort of F3A style much to the disappointment of the crowd. Clive flies mode 3 so Paul could not have a go at breaking it	My park flier, Neil also flew this although the slight breeze knocked it about a little.

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Gloucester Model Flying Club