Held at the end of August, I made the BMFA nationals this year for a couple of days for the first time in a few years.
Lots of fun.
Even in the evening in the beer tent they were making paper planes and seeing whose flew farthest.

I had been at a small rock festival on the friday and saturday, then sunday morning drove up to Barkstone Heath, just in time for the bring and buy.
Some bargains there.

Then it was off to the FPV course, on with the goggles to sit and watch.
After that I wandered over to the stalls, to find a much reduced number from previous years, I suppose that is the way of the world, people buy off the net these days.
Some great models on the flight lines.
And more, just look at the pictures, there are a 160 plus there to look at....Continue Reading

A local Allotment society asked me to take some pictures of their Allotments this weekend, a bit tricky as two are in the city, but one is outside the city on Stuntney Fen, so while I had the Mavic in the air I got a picture of the City of Ely.
The Cathedral in the middle sits on the top of what was once the actual Isle of Ely, that was before they drained the Fens, it also had a castle sitting just to the left of it, where the wooded area is you can see to the left of the Cathedral, but that is long gone, just the hill left standing.

Old Warden, if you are not someone who lives in Britain, but you are visiting Britain and you like old aircraft, I recommend Old Warden, hangers full of pre 1950s aircraft, most of which fly.
I go on their Model days, more relaxing than most model shows, but you do see Control line and free flight. I like the free flight.
I walked away with a Micro aces SE5A to build (something to do at work at lunchtimes rather than argueing on LTUP).
And some Rapier motors....Continue Reading

For a long time I have wanted to take pictures of the Fort in Upware from directly above, I have had it in shot, in other shoots, the first time when I flew over the village in a 1945 Dragon Rapide several years ago.
Recently I got to know the new owners of the meadow and showed them the images from the aircraft flight and they said whenever I want to go and see what I can get.
The Fort dates from the English Civil war and was probably built by the Parliamentarians to guard the river crossing, there had been a Royalist uprising in the Isle of Ely and Cromwell set about building up the defences of the Eastern region.

I took the chance to get some pictures of the village while I was at it.
Upware used to be the local river crossing and up until the end of WW2 there was a road going into the village to the river and a chain ferry to cross the river.
After the war jobs on the land reduced as mechanisation took over, the ferry fell out of use and a new road opened across the fen avoiding the river.
The Old Pub burned down in the 1950s, a new one was not built until 1980 when a marina was dug in the village to serve the leisure boats that were replacing the working boats that had once sailed the river....Continue Reading

A mate has a farm that borders Wicken Fen, Wicken fen is one of the oldest nature reserves in the UK.
They are trying to preserve the Fen as it was before it was drained.
Sticking the Phantom up you can really see the difference between the Fen and the cultivated land.

It is all very flat though, drained marshland, the soil is slowly eroding, eventually it will be useless for cultivation, so then it will probably get flooded again and given a few more hundred years the silt will build up again.

It was a bit hazy, so the shots ain't quite as clear as I would have liked....Continue Reading

I popped over to Old Warden Saturday for the last model weekend of the year, shame about the wind, messed up the free flight, still the tether cars were fun as usual.
I keep thinking I should get one of my old Mardave cars and rig that for tether, a circle ain't too different from an oval.....Continue Reading

Living on a boat near a pub does have its advantages, as does being considered (no matter how inaccurately) a tech wizard to the locals.
As does working 4 days on, 4 days off.
I find myself being able to (so long as I do not freak out the customers) fly small models off the meadow near the pub by the river, play with RC boats on the river and now on a quiet afternoon with my Phantom3.

So, I alternated between being outside in the sun flying the quad, or inside, charging the batteries (using the power sockets put in the new bar just for me) and checking out the pictures on my laptop, drinking Cranberry and soda (I try not to fly while drinking alcohol, it costs too much in models), the beer came in the evening.

It was fun, lots of talking to the people, first letting them know what was happening and then talking about the phantom especially to a lovely old lady on an outing from her retirement home, she hobbled over with her walking frame accompanied by a carer, asked some good sensible questions, looked at herself as the quad saw her and generally made my day.

The only complaint was from a woman who turned up with her husband (I think) and a fancy little day boat on a trailer, dropped it in the river from the slipway, moored it on the pub moorings, took their dogs for a walk, off the lead despite signs saying all dogs should be on a lead, then went off on the boat for a couple of hours, then came back, allowed the dogs to roam about again while they got the boat...Continue Reading

I got a message from the boss of one of the clubs I am a member of asking me if I could take some pictures of the patch.
Quite funny really seeing as I was told when I joined I was not going to be able to fly my multirotors there as it was fixed wing only.

I am quite pleased with the results....Continue Reading

Dear Thor.

Please make me remember to have lots of space available on my camera before I go to a model show, especially if I start using motor drive.

Punkie....Continue Reading

My first visit to Weston park, stunning site, great flying, lots to see.

I will have to stay over next year if I can, I want to see the evening show....Continue Reading

I spent a couple of hours at RAF Eye, now the only flying there is RC.

The Mid Suffolk radio modellers had a drone awareness weekend, basically anyone with a multirotor and insurance could fly, they had a course laid out for the FPV racers, which attracted a few few guys who have never flown through hoops before, advice was given to those having issues with their quads.

It was a good event....Continue Reading

A rather nice evening after the bad weather over the last few days, I thought I would get the boats out.

A fun-4 from dreamy hippo, not fast, runs on 2s 2200's. But fun, very stable, I might get another hatch and mod it up to take FPV.

The proboat Recoil is fun, I have swapped out the standard RX and fitted a spektrum AR6000-X same as in the fun-4, I prefer sticks to wheels and had modded a DX6i with a centre ing spring so it works with my cars and boats. The Recoil turns on a sixpence now.

Good fun evening, two batteries through the fun-4 and three through the recoil, then took a few pics of the sunset.

I managed to get an afternoon off work today, so it was off to the club site to have another go with the Phantom.

The first battery was OK, second, it was too cold, the temp had dropped and the battery was sitting on the bench, nevermind, I am running the batteries in so it was not in the air for long.

I managed to get some reasonable pictures, next stop a few places around the village, I know plenty of the local farmers and have permission to fly in fields quite close to the village and should not have much trouble getting permission from the locals to take pictures of the bits I want to take pictures of.

I also managed to fly my Emax nighthawk, that was much more fun and I ran my Proboat recoil on the pond much to the amusement of the other club members....Continue Reading

Well, it seems to work, it don't like the cold weather we get in the UK at this time of year. Apparently the battery was too cold, I have bought a hotrox hand warmer, so I will stick that in an insulated bag with the batteries next time.

But it flew OK, as a stable camera platform, with a fixed lens, point and shoot dangling underneath it is fine, an improvement over the Quattro-x with a GoPro hanging off the bottom, (not a fan of go pros, too much distortion with the lens.)

No challenge to flying it, but that is not the point, I have other quads for that, this is just a practical camera platform, stick a camera in the air, point it at something, take a picture.

It hammered down, but |I was not going to miss the first ever British national final of the FPV racing.

Again I took at few pictures then swapped to my Fatsharks to watch the racing, by luck I hitched onto the winner, unlike the day before when in on race the drone I was following hit a post and span out, a bit disorienting the first time it happens

Nice to see the prizes going out to the winners and to see a prize given to the lap time record holder, who unfortunately did not make the final.

After the heats, they had sudden death quarters and semis to decide who went in the final, it looked like the pressure got to a few.

To see the view I got, I found this on you tube,

UK FPV Drone Nationals Grand Final 2015 (2 min 45 sec)

, thanks to whoever it was who posted it there.

Anyway, I hope you all like my pictures from the BMFA NATs, I had a great time there, Monday, it was really hammering it down with rain, so I packed up my tent, chucked it all in the car and carried on with my travels.

Next stop Coventry, I will post the pictures in LTUP as they are off topic, cars, motorbikes and canals....Continue Reading

The Scale Aerobatics, this is tucked away from the rest of the Nationals, along with the FPV competition,.

Well worth hunting down and spending some time watching, but, it had started raining again, the models got covered over with tarps, the one in the air got difficult to get reasonable pictures of....Continue Reading

The bring and buy is always worth a visit, Almost everything you can think of will be on sale preused....Continue Reading

For me, the best bit, though this year I only managed one evening, my leg has been giving me hell for months, I only got off crutches a few weeks ago after several months use.

Bloody good fun, I gather someone got hit on Sunday evening, I hope they are not badly hurt, but you go knowing there are planes flying in all directions and you stand a chance of getting hit if you do not keep your wits about you.

The sunset was pretty cool as well....Continue Reading

I only stayed on the scale line for a short while, it was nice to sit on the grass and watch some nice lovely detailed models put through their paces.

I have no idea how they judge which model is the best, they all are of such a high standard....Continue Reading

I was looking forward to this, I have had an interest in Multirotors for a while and built and bought a few, I am not that good at flying them, but I try.

My most recent purchase is an Emax NightHawke, it is built, I just need time to finish setting it up, then fit the FPV gear and play.

In the meantime the racing at the NATs was pretty good fun, set up on what I think was the old Bloodhound missile site.
Saturday was the heats, fun to watch, interesting watching the techniques people used, some just went for at, missed the hoops and took the time penalty, or more likely crashed out, others took their time and had better results.

If you don't finish, you can't win.

Anyway, the racing was fun, very difficult to get a decent photo of one in the air, not a sharp one anyway, but I tried.

What I found fun was to put on my own Fatshark goggles and watch from the pilots point of view....Continue Reading