Well there is plenty of showers around, but there is 20knots from the SSE, so I am off to Otford if anyone is interested.
Matt, are you still keen?

Well, we had a nice bit of flying yesterday between about 1 and 4pm. GregK, greggold and I made it up. We started at the pie shop slope but moved to the north end when greggold left after stripping yet another servo in his carbon blade.

We had a stack of fun with GregK developing a new, straight in from 250 feet dead stop and fold landing approach with his 72" Lumberjack. He then gave the 60" a second chance which flew very well with some expo on the elevator. The wind picked up a little to around 20kts for a while and I had a ball with the Bat. (get it?) I tried to DS the road and there was a bit of acceleration but the air was not clean. I decided that was a bit dangerous.

Hey but don't worry, I have lodged an official complaint to the president about the incident and he has banned me from flying all day Friday. Unfortunately the president was unable to do anything further because I was never informed of the site rules when I joined the club. In fact he is not sure if there are any rules/guidelines. But concerning DS'ing the roadway he said that was probably ok as there were no members of the public within 30 metres of my circuit and other members have been known to fly behind the flight line in the past. He then reversed the ban and we had a cup of coffee together.

Magnesium usually helps Matt.
Dont go Too high a dosage as it tends to dull the thought processes
-
Glad to hear you had fun. Hope you didnt get wet.
Glenn.

Yeh I don't remember the LJ72" having a 20 degree dihedral before I left?? I think the only thing that stopped the whole thing from collapsing / folding was the ballast tube! . I got it home and stipped much of it to find the drag spar broken in 4 places and the carbon ribbon snapped in a few as well! - needless to say it is out of action for a while. Trying to work out what happened ? I think I was just beaten for pace - didn't realise how quick it was really going because it was travelling straight down?
Anyway the 60" was glitchless, which has renewed my confidence in it, and was a good match for the bat. Good fun when 2 planes are evenly matched chasing each other across the sky.
Looking forward to Saturday if I can get a leave pass from home. Anyone else going to make the trip?
Greg K

Yep, Saturday now looks to be OK, but light. Rain showers are forecast but maybe they will only force the schedule of the coffee breaks.
F

Saturday also hosts the Festival of Flight down at Stanwell Park including a low level fly-by for connie and some other old favourites after lunch. Should be a busy day.

Tim should fly his easyglider at Bald Hill this w/end for little payback

I nearly lost my miniblade yesterday – and I didn’t realize how bad was the mistake until I was driving home in the car.

When I arrived at pie shop the wind was directly onto the slope, and lift was very strong. I had to use loads of down trim on the blade and it was moving very fast. Conditions were great, although after a while a rain storm appeared from the south maybe 10 km out to sea.

The 3rd landing was like the other two, I used spoilerons and the blade slowed down nicely, it was steady on approach and I expected a soft landing. Instead there was a loud clunk, and I saw a wing spin around in the shrub. Both wings had moved on the wingrod when I reached the model, but I checked it over carefully and found no damage. I tested the controls, honest, nothing wrong. Ten minutes later I launched again (after testing the controls again) and I noticed something was not quite right, but I could not put my finger on it – it was flying slower, wallowing a little, not responding so crisply to controls. Gregk and Matt were there, and I said I think the wind speed has fallen off. Because of past experience (see below), I had the thought “I should land right away” but instead I attributed the problem to low wind speed and reduced lift. The flight seemed to improve and then I had plenty of lift. I tested L and R rudder input, seemed ok but not quite right. I climbed and attempted a loop. When I pulled up elevator in a shallow dive the model did a spin! It exited the spin in a horizontal position. I actually had the thought “I must have inadvertently pulled some rudder when I did up elevator”, that explained what happened so I kept on flying. A minute later I thought I would sort out that loop issue, so I did it again! Again, when I pulled up elevator there was a spin, and again, it exited the spin in a horizontal position. The blade has a v-tail with with microservos located in the tail planes, and the diagnosis should have been clear. Only then did I decide to land, and it landed without incident.
When I checked the controls the R tail servo was functioning erratically, flicking up and down and then settling on neutral and not responding to up or down command. This meant hard up elevator control gave full L rudder, explaining the spin. Had I exited the loop/spin manoeuvre in a vertical dive, my efforts to pull out of the dive would only have caused the model to spin faster, and nothing would have worked to abort the dive.

About a year ago I launched an e-hawk glider and it flew very erratically, and needed constant control input to keep it straight and level. (I later found that an earlier heavy landing had caused the motor battery pack to move position, causing the tail heavy condition). I kept flying, not clear about what was wrong, but aware that something was wrong. I thought I would take it to a good height and sort out the trim. I struggled with it for 5 or 10 minutes, on one occasion it came out of a turn with an unplanned vertical dive, but still I persisted with the flight. Then at a lower altitude it entered a spiral dive and crashed, with serious damage. This would have taught many people a lesson.

Some people are sloooow learners!

Originally Posted by OzDragonFlyer

Tim should fly his easyglider at Bald Hill this w/end for little payback

Don't tempt me . It was probably payback for all the other times I've had a fly there when the winds have been howling in from the south and there's no one around.
Looks like it will be EZG flying again on Sat morning before it turns too far east.
T

Latest BOM forecast has been downgraded to SE/NE 5-10knots! for Illawarra - probably not worth wasting a leave pass on at this stage.
Oh and Greggold- see post #844 if you want to see dumb!

15-20 kph at Stanwell from SSE as at 10am. Heading down for a light fly. May pick up a bit as the day progresses.
TJ

Yep I was there , Tim , Fred, Mat and John. I flew my Passer thermo's and little Fox early Tim fly his Speedo and Fred flying is Weasel this was at the Sydney end and then the wind swung and off to the Pie shop slope. I was able to put in some really nice air time with the DG1000 finally think Ive got this beast worked out . It was rock solid in flight this time round .But I do need to increase elevator throw slightly, its backed off to far at the moment. Didnt fly the ASW28 as I must have pulled the servo lead from the extension in the wing , fixed it when I got home tonight hope for some more tomorrow . Ive just had one of those 1 in ten days on the slope it was just so right .
Yes it did have some on and off moments ,but on the whole it was really nice air.
SteveW who had his camera in the car and forgot about it.

So whats the call on Sundays flying??
SteveW backing up for another go

looked like a great day for flying.. of course it would be when there's work to be done

The crystal ball gazers reckon Sunday will be NW'ly..bloddy typical

Looks like Saturday was a great day! I nearly flew but finally decided it was too dicey and to save the leave pass for another day.

I am now trying to decide between a session on Monday OR Tuesday. Both days look really marginal, certainly light model days, I am leaning towards Tuesday

Greg