Today's task is to pay the rents for both flying fields. The traffic being especially bad tonight makes my arrival at the first farmer's house too late to see him, as he has already gone out for the evening. This is a shame as I enjoy talking to both the farmers that I deal with. In common with most farmers I have meet, they are both very happy to see the land being used (and for the cynical amongst you... I don't believe it is just because of the little income it generates!). Both are real down to earth people and although their jobs and lifestyle are so different from mine (I am a Computer Consultant) they are very easy to talk to. I do manage to get to speak to the second farmer, but not for long as time is getting on and I have a commitment at home. He informs me he is going in to hospital for an operation tomorrow, so I wish him well!
Later in the evening its some more Club work; completing a BMFA application for a new member. Oh, and updating "Dear Diary"!
Weather:
Overcast, about 8degC, with a light Easterly wind
I forgot to take my camera today (sigh of relief from the usual crew!), but fortunately John Bottomley had his and took some photos for me. As well as the usual reprobates, two more of the regular members were flying. Andy Ling had brought along his new Raptor 60 (right). This is the first Raptor 60 in the club and was watched with interest. Its a nice, clean looking machine and with the new Curtis Youngblood Muscle Pipe started very quite. However, for some reason just before landing it seemed to have audibly increased in volume. As usual Andy had it flowing through the air in a very pleasant manor, including , reverse rolls and loops.
John
Bottomley had brought his Century Bell 47G (left). After borrowing a set of
NHP tail blades, from Nigel Mycock, John had got the tail sorted and
the Bell was starting to move around the sky in a very scale like manner -
especially when it got above the tree line. I am sure John will say more on
this in his Model Helicopter World "Improving the Breed" articles.
Also down was SP with his SST Eagle (I'll try and get a picture as soon as I can). This must be the quietest IC engined helicopter ever. SP has now fitted one of the new OS91, but even with his previous OS91 I measured it at about 76db(A)! It simply purrs around the sky.
Although I started "Dear Diary" as way to show what happens in daily club life, it occurred to me that I could also use it to pass on other aspects of the club that might be of value to others. Topics I thought to include are:
General Club Rules
Frequency Control at the flying fields (which we recently had to drastically improve due to an incident)
Being Treasurer including handling Club Accounts, BMFA Admin, Membership Administration, etc.
Flying Fields and all their problems (finding them, losing them, how we handled complaints, etc.)
Models flown within the Club and Transmitters used.
other things that come to mind!
If there are other areas that might be of interest to you drop me a line at:
Both pictures courtesy of John Bottomley.
I forgot my camera today, and no John Bottomley to stand in (and do a better job!) - so no photos today. Also it was short day for me as I had to get home and lay the floor in our new conservatory (or "Observatory" as we have decided to christen it). The new floor is this clip-lock laminate wood effect flooring - very effective and dead easy to lay! Anyway enough of that...
It was very quiet today with only four members flying. Andy Harrison was flying his Raptor 50 and also had his 3DNT ready to go.
Nigel Mycock had his Vigor flying and was practising loops ready for the coming competition season. The Vigor flies enormous loops but Nigel needed to make them round, rather than oval. By adjusting pitch all the way around the loop he improved them enormously, though with a tendency to exit some 30 to 40 feet higher than entry. Probably due the entry being too low. We fly under one of the take-off routes out of Manchester (by the time they get to us they must be about 4,000ft or more and, since we fly at most about 200ft, I am sure we have sufficient separation) and at one point Nigel flew a loop which, from the pits, gave the illusion of flying right around a DC10 - the kind of moment you wish you had a video camera.
When Nigel first flew his Vigor it was about the time when we were having to deal with a noise complaint. Now we probably aren't as stringent in formally checking our noise levels with a Noise Meter as we ought to be - though we always keep a subjective listen out for what sounds noisy. SP was also flying a Vigor and both appeared (an ultimately measured) to be very noisy about 85dB(A) at 7m). Both Nigel and SP tried all sorts to quieten them down, but to no avail. If memory serves me right Nigel's was powered with a OS61 with a Zimmerman muffler. The conclusion was that it was a combination of the mechanics and the canopy. Some nine months later, Nigel is now flying a Webra 90 with a Hatori muffler and has also installed a machine cut gear. It now appears very smoothly and reasonably quiet and within the sound limit.
Just a quick registration of one new member and one renewing member (Treasurers up and down the country will recognise my frustration at requesting - begging - members to renew at the beginning of the year, only to get some who still wait for three for four months!), then off to the Building Society to pay in the fees and get a cheque for the BMFA.
Location: Mottram field.
Weather: Overcast, about 11degC, with a stiff South Easterly wind
Even fewer flying this weekend - only Andy Harrison, Nigel Mycock and myself. Though Bob Barclay came down later to ground-run his Futura SE (more on this later).
Nigel was practising loops again with his Vigor. The stiff wind carried it nicely through the inverted section of the loop to make it an almost perfect circle (still exiting higher than entry though), but in reality the wind made flying even a 60 size heli not much fun. However, it made the 180deg autorotation go on and on and on and on!
Since the demise of my Futura SE based JetRanger (see right, in its prime!) I have been flying my trusty little Raptor 30. I don't think its ground speed has ever been so fast downwind and upwind I began to wonder if it would make any headway at all.
Now
its a strange phenomena, but have you noticed how things seem to go in
waves? The club has never been into X-Cells. More a case of flying what
others fly, and what is readily available from local
shops, more than anything else. However, in the last few months we have had an
influx of them. Andy Harrison acquired this very nice X-Cell Fury Extreme
(see left) which is another quiet, turbine smooth, great piece of
engineering. It really does fly
like
a dream (see right). At Christmas he also acquired an X-Cell Pro 2K from
Motors and Rotors .
Now it really is a precision piece of engineering (see left). I took a photo
of the tail assembly, just because it must have more bearings in the
linkages than most heli's have altogether! Unfortunately the photo was out
of focus so isn't worth reproducing - sorry. I'll try again sometime.
Bob Barclay has been losing power when at full throttle. So it was out with the head-loaders to see what was what. Nigel (extremely bravely) offered to tune the engine whilst at full chat, whilst Andy (going beyond bravery to something else altogether!) offered to hold it down - in retrospect I think strapping the thing to a workbench would have been more appropriate! Anyway, some needle twiddling showed that, although it was smoking well, it was about as lean as it could go. After stopping the engine, a quick check of the casing showed it to be running on the hot side too. Now most of the club run the excellent Cool Power, and Bob normally flies the 5% Nitro mix. However, ever since I started flying Heli's I have been getting my fuel from Dave Whitney's shop, Revolution Models, and I have always used his mix of 5% Nitro and 20% EDL (synthetic oil). We decided to give this a go in Bob's model. It certainly wasn't any worse and may have been running slightly smoother. So I think Bob is off to buy some to give it a longer test.