Indoor November 2009

Saturday 28th

What a night, the largest turnout ever 36 turned out to fly and I even had to turn one gentleman away due to too many on one frequency? Only eight flying on 35 MHz (sign of the times) but two using/sharing channel 66 when another flyer turned up on 66, so with nobody having any spare crystals I had to sadly turn our newcomer away, I do hope he returns, with different crystals next time.

With the large number the early slots were very crowded, particularly the first helicopter slot even with a few regular fliers sitting the first one out knowing that due to attrition and lack of batteries there would be plenty of space on the floor later, as it happened, the last helicopter slot only had five fliers.

The mini slot again attracted many models into the air, with I think about a dozen mini models in the air at once. The popularity and the availability of these small models has made the mini slot very popular and the sight of so many models orbiting together is superb. I had two midairs' in one mini slot within a minute of each other, little damage though.

Jamie Cole helicopter pilot extraordinaire turned out  with a fixed wing model and two helicopters. His Ikarus Extra 300 is one of two flying (no- pics though Phil). Jamie also gave a superb display with a little T.rex 250. We have a few heli fliers in the club who can do all the manoeuvres but none can put them into flawless and incredible smooth show that Jamie does. The set up of the T.rex 250 is perfect, it just flies with a gentle smooth hum, at no time does it struggle or seemed stressed.

One victim of Jamie's flying (we think) was Rob "rip it apart" Blake who clattered his 450 into the side wall while trying to fly and watch at the same time. Sorry Rob but only my wife can multitask that well, or so she claims. Fortunately she doesn't do hand eye coordination otherwise I would be at home doing the house work.

Sadly I will be missing next week (flying home courtesy of Air France) so hopefully Darren will be back keeping an eye on things.

Chris B.

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A few models from Bob Steels Air Force.

Above, Kyosho Minum - Christen Eagle.

Above right & right Bob's own design ultra light shock flier.

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With Mike Brinkworth-Bailey on camera, Phil puts his Twister 3D Storm through its paces.

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Pete Wolfenden, and Ben Kirby with there E-flite Blade mSR's.
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Above left, Brian Boucher's Parkzone P-51 Mustang. Who's going to be first to fit retracts to one of these?

Above, Brian Rawnsleys Pitts Special, had a midair and was damaged when it hit the ground.

Left, Reg Streets FreeBee, not sure who this one belongs to, but nice to see these and the smaller version are catching on as superb indoor models.

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Left, Jamie Cole's T-Rex 250, inverted, nose in and close up. Jamie's smooth flying inspiring confidence/stupidity (delete as applicable) to get close with the camera. With most (all?) other fliers in the club the picture this short of shot would require a very good telephoto lens, a very thick sheet of armoured Plexiglass or the use of "Photoshop'.

Note we don't allow Photo shopped pictures on this website as we have cameramen who are stupid/fearless/clever (again delete as applicable)

Right Jamie's 450 size model which I think is Furrion??

 

 
Saturday 21st

The autumnal weather continues 17 mm of rain falling during the day with the promise of more on Sunday meant that the weekly indoor session was about your best chance of getting in a flight.

Having missed last weekend because of work I also failed to make it until late into this session, but I have a good excuse that my wife had taken me shopping to buy me a late birthday/early Xmas present of a new light weight laptop for me to carry on my travels, and to prove the point I am writing this piece on it as its first proper use.

One model that must now take the record for the shortest amount of flying time per crash and the most regularly crashed is Clive's Beech Staggerwing. Converted to three channel radio from a CC Lee free flight kit, so long ago nobody can remember when it first flew. But every Saturday night since it has flown and crashed, to be fair it has put in some rather good flights but I cannot ever remember it going home in one piece. Considering the number of models in the CC Lee range you would have thought Clive would have had a new airframe by now.

Darren was for the second week running the slots and a very good job he was doing to. It was nice to see more new faces coming to see what we were up to and give it a try. Very nice to see an old face from the past Fran Oakley who was a member many years ago came along to have a chat and brought with him an amazing Tri-copter. Although he didn't fly it in the slots during the evening, I persuaded him to give a demonstration after flying had finished.

It's a quality piece of engineering all built by Fran with off the shelf electronics providing the control and stability. See Phil's pics below. Hope Fran will bring it along for all to see it flying, he has a Quad-copter as well?

Chris B.

 

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Pete R-H's   SJM400

George struggled a bit with his shockie

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 Beech Staggerwing, Clive increased the amount of stagger shortly after take off

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Pete's SJM180/215

Andy flying his profile

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New Guy

Pigeon 500

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E-flight MSR

Mike's Sumo

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What the ..... is that?

Paul's Lazy Bea

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A very stable flying machine, fitted with 4 gyros

3 servos tilt the the motors to control yaw

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Much interest was shown in this unusual hovering machine
3 motors, 3 speed controllers, 3 li-pos, 4 gyros and 3 servos. 
The transmitter is set to 120 degree 3 servo heli, a buffer amp supplies a signal to the three servos from the yaw gyro

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Saturday 14th
A good turnout, 27  of us; more new faces and some new models.
 The mini session was the most popular, 21 in all, the fixed wing slot had 9 models in the air at the same time without incident. 
Paul's Lazy Bea acted a little dement, wanting to prop hang instead of fly,  some down thrust, nose weight and little exponential tamed it.    

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Bob Steel's Pogo, vertical take off and landing, lit up by a row of LED's

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Ben's Mcx

Bob's Piaget

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Jon with a 400 heli

Paul's Lazy Bee

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Brian's Mustang

Lama

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Light weight bi-plane

Bob's Christian Eagle

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newcomer's shockie

Paul with a lively heli
Saturday 7th

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Mike's Sumo, made from a plan; Mike came very close to landing this on its tail Rob's T-rex 250 made a loud clatter on its last flight

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Mick trying to kill me with his Vapor

Colin's cheapy Heli

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Duck or grouse or maybe a Fox

Richard's Blade 

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Steve's Apache 

Chairman's Bi-plane Youtube see video
By Brian

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Brian's Storch

Coaxial

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Paul's Lazy Bea

Minium

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