Here is my Smack 60 (Thanks Paul for the name haha)

Name came about after it hit the ground at 150mph! These photos are after the impact. i haven't touched a thing!

Nice Vidio
Beautiful place to fly
We have 16" snow the past 24 hrs
-Ron-

Here is another Reaper I am almost finished.

Also putting a new fuse from the guys up north, onto the Windburner wing.

And two more JWs waiting to be built.

And the Beevo...

Here is a photo off all the Foam, apart from the Blue/Wihite/Red JW of Andrew Palmer's, that I have built the last few months:

Lookin good Alex.. Plenty of ds fur balls @ 200 in a few more weeks..
Hard to beat orange and black ...

Tim

Cheers, Tim. I hope we get most of them zipping around today. About to head up to Wainui

Originally Posted by ALEX HEWSON

Cheers, Tim. I hope we get most of them zipping around today. About to head up to Wainui

Run the high line.... Keep them in one peice.

Good collection Alex.

Is the big Green one a reaper.

I'm bringing my reaper but it's a light one. I like the way they fly light. You can really bang'em then.

Yep its a reaper, but lost the fuse AGAIN yesterday. Is only good up to 160 before it gets a buig shudder and shakes the fuse off.

We had a FANTASTIC day yesterday! Best DS day ever! about 8 guys up there DSing and several PBs!

Andrew Palmer got 198mph with the Vac Bagged Scratcho TWICE!

Peter France broke 150 with his Burner

Dave got 138mph with his new Reaper, his first proper DS (he has done a little before, many many years ago.

Will do a report later

Wow what a great day! We had the most guys we have ever had up the hill DSing before! We had; Neal Blackie, the most enthusiastic Modeller I have ever come across, back up the hill after a long absence, looking forward to seeing more of him up the hill. Dale Kerr, another enthusiastic Modeller who I haven’t seen up the hill for a while. Ever enthusiastic Ron Duff, who always has a new model to fly, this time was a modded Jazz 60 with Laminating film. Dave Griffin, an expert modeler who has been flying for years. Dave started Canterbury Sailplanes, and was a leading figure in getting me into flying. My good friend, Peter France, who got some great flying in! He must have been DSing that Windburner for over an hour, on a couple of occasions! And took it home in one piece =). Richard Knott, another enthusiast, who was doing some great laps with his newly rebuilt JW60. I’m not sure what speed he got to. Andrew Palmer was RIPPING laps with his Scratcho, still couldn’t break the 200, but was flying HARD and FAST! Scott Chisholm was down at his batch in Wainui with his family that weekend and came up for a quick look. He is a great flyer, and hopefully we can see him ripping some laps one day.

So 9 of us up the hill! WOW!!!!! I never thought I would see the day! I’m so thrilled to see so many guys enjoying some DS! =) =) =)

I had planned to head up later in the day as the wind would have been a bit strong earlier on for the new guys, plus some showers were forecast for earlier in the day. We got up there about 1:30pm to a howling wind! Man I wish I had a Kinetic and had gone up 2 or three hours earlier! I am sure 400+ would have been on. Was about 40kts when we got up there.

I quickly got the D60 out as I wanted to try crack 300 again. It was ripping, but it never went over 275, apon landing I found the gun was set to 40-275mph!!! AHHHH! Didn’t fly it again as I had hogged the air for a fair while and wanted to test fly Dave’s new Reaper and get it set-up for him. Wow what a great Reaper that is! Nicest flying foamy to date! Only good for around 150mph as it is a single spar version, but Dave got it to 138 within a few laps! Unfortunately he plowed it in later on. He was flying low and hard! Amazing for his first serious DS! Watch out for this guy!

Having several circuits going on the hill meant that with one gun it was difficult. I was running back and forth with it between the two main circuits. I got the Pocket Radar out and this eased things a bit. We had constant furballs happening, composite and foam. No carnage thankfully, but what a hoot!

Peter was ripping fantastic laps with his Windburner, exclaiming “This thing comes alive once it get up to speed!” Very true, it looked solid! Great to see him crack the 150 mark, on several occasions! New pb of 157mph =)

Rob Duff was putting lap after lap in with his JW60 and then his new Jazz 60. He lost a fin at one point but kept going with the other. Then after repeated touch and goes at 100mph, it lost the other fin. So he kept going without any!

Andrew was SMOKING with his Scratcho! Wings bending extensively and really pushing hard for 200, coming so close at 198 twice, but angle was a trouble with the gun. Again he would have cracked it, just not recorded =( But still, 198 with the vac bagged Scratcho! WOW! Fantastic flying! He will be the bext guy over 200 for sure and then I don’t think 300 will be far off! I have competition…. Hehe

Lots of JW action, didn’t see much of Richard flying again, hopefully someone got some speeds for him. I will ask around.

Neal had brought up his new RCRCM Typhoon, but wisely did not test fly in the strong winds without much of a landing area.

Dale gunned most of the afternoon which was much appreciated by all. Thanks man! He and Neal manned the guns most of the time.

I flew the Ampreg Scratcho to 214 or something like that later on in the arvo, and managed 172mph EASILY with the Smack 60, but something is funny with it as it would give a nasty pitch up every now and then and sometimes a nasty violent roll. I think it is flexing or twisting or one of the servos is a bit suspect. Must figure that one out. Could be getting a brief lock out and reverting to the configuration it was bound in. I will try a re-bind. It has an Orange Rx, and I have had nothing but problems with them. I will do some work on it at some stage.

I also blew up the Reaper again. It won’t go much over 160 without a massive shuddering flutter. Again it shook off the fuselage, the wing was spinning along it’s chord line and climbing up then down, then further down the back, then back up again, finally coming to rest amongst a huge area of gorse. So I had to wade through that impassable crap again. The fuse, about three of us saw it land near the top of the ridge, but we never found it!!!! Could not believe that we saw it land and still couldn’t find it! Oh well, ANOTHER fuse and fin needed! I’m going to find a more permanent way of attaching it.

I have a lot of foamies to fix now as I am fixing up Dave’s reaper, and Andrew’s JW60, which both went in hard, but with surprisingly little damage!

Bring on NZDS2012! Two weeks to go…..

What a great Day Alex! Ive got to get my butt into gear with finishing some planes, I keep thinking its not for ages but I just realised Ive got about 1.5 weeks to finish my new scorcher-better order those servos!
I also Bought myself a half finished Wowings Skua so I'll have some foam to play around with too.

Great report Alex. What a buzz, getting so many guys up there! You've lit a fire ...

I'm just thankful for all the support from you guys! It has been the only thing keeping me going at times

Fantastic report Alex. So good to see guys ds'ing with you. Much more fun with lots of friends to ds with.

I have video, but may be later in the week before I get time to edit and upload