Sunday 1 Jun 2003

Weather: Southerly Breeze, 23DegC

I heard a rumour that people were getting camera shy, so no camera today (actually I forgot it again!). However, not having my camera present didn't make any difference, although it was a great day for flying, there was only Rob Barclay and I down at the field – in the morning at least. Rob was flying his new Raptor 50 (see his report). As Rob notes, we measured the head speed and it was an incredibly low 1310 – with the engine producing a very interesting “burbling” noise. We had a brief discussion about the Planning situation and agreed to discuss it further at the Club Meeting tomorrow (Monday 2 Jun 2003)

Monday 2 Jun 2003

The first Monday of every second Month is Club Meeting night – so that was tonight! Nine members turned out and we discussed a fair number of topics (see minutes).

Sunday 8 Jun 2003

Weather: Southerly Breeze, Bright turning to Rain at about 1:15pm

A good turnout today with about eight members, two of which who are new to the club. First job of the day; strim the take-off squares – the grass grows at an incredible rate at this time of the year!

Watching Rob throw his Raptor 50 around impressed our very newest member, Ken Duffin. At which point Andy Harrison flew his X-Cell, including loops, rolls, 540s and backwards circuits. Then Andy almost took over the grass clearing exercise by inverted hovering at grass top height! When we pointed out that Andy had only been flying for 18months Ken was seriously impressed!

After a quick fly, our other new member Peter Crossley, asked for help with his Raptor. After a few minor tweaks we fired up the engine. It started quickly and idled fine. So out to the take-off point and, after the usual re-check that all controls were as they were meant to be (as I always do as the rotors get up to speed), I increased throttle to hovering level and… a quiet pop and the engine stopped. After another go with exactly the same affect I thought perhaps the hovering pitch was too high and causing to much load on the engine for it to pick up. A few turns of the pitch and… still the same. At this point Andy suggested that perhaps the clunk tube might be suspect and also an inspection of the fuel tank showed something floating about in there. So it was off with the fuel tank for a cleanout and clunk tube check. All back together again and… still the same! Andy’s next suggestion was the Glow Plug might have some crud in it. So off with the glow plug and on with a new one and… success. The engine would now run.

Meanwhile Andy and Rob had been looking at Ken Duffin’s heli, which is a Shuttle with Sanwa Radio. This setup was proving to be a nightmare too! The Heli was OK and had a CSM ICG400 gyro. No problem there – except that we had no idea how to get the Tx to signal that Setup Mode was required of the Gyro. No end of toggling the Gain (Retract) switch made any difference - nor did reading the tranny's manual. Although Ken was very disappointed, I think it is difficult to lay any specific blame - though it is a little suspicious that even the guy at the shop that sold the setup to Ken couldn't get really get to grips with the Tx either. As noted in the new Club Heli Specification section "As an over-riding recommendation we suggest that you approach a Model Club, that has a reasonable number of heli flyers, and seek their advice and guidance before you buy anything... so that when you do get to the flying stage there is likely to be someone around who should understand your setup and be more able to help."

In between giving the new members a hand I had a quick fly during which my second auto just missed the take-off square and landed in the long grass. Luckily, although the blades swept back I didn't incur a boom strike. However, although everything seemed ok I noticed a slight wobble as the blades wound up to speed - and then I noticed that the tracking was off. Perhaps I had bent something after all? However, a quick inspection showed that at the start of the day I had put the wrong blade on the wrong grip. Swapping the blades to their correct location ("white spot blade" to "white spot blade grip") and tracking was back to being ok and the wobble was gone. Once again, what I have said before rang through my head "make sure you check everything before flying".

Final event of the day - to properly register the two new members and create the documentation for their BMFA.

As a postscript note to this item, I happened to be speaking to Dave Walker of Revolution Models and mentioned the problem with the Sanwa Radio. He said that he too consistently and continually tells new people to the hobby to seek advice from a club and suggests that showing their face a clubs like ours is the best form of introduction - it seems that unfortunately not too many people take his advice either. It must be said that Joe Curry and Dave Walker, or Revolution Models, are two of the nicest people you could wish to meet and in my experience they always give the highest quality advice. It certainly helps that they are both excellent heli flyers. I should also note that John White, of John White Models, is always very friendly and helpful too.

Monday 9th June 2003

Up date the website. As you have probably noticed their have been a significant number of additions to the website over the last couple of weeks. Special thanks go to the contributors, specifically; Rob Barclay, John Bottomley and Andy Harrison. HOWEVER, please don't expect this rate of  creation and change to continue at this rate! Much more at this rate and I will suffer Web Master Burn Out!

Saturday 28th June 2003

The club was asked by the organisers of the Mottram St Andrew Village Summer Fair if we would attend and put on a display. Originally the site looked ideal for our "B" fliers to provide a demonstration, only for us to find out that the field we thought we could use was where the Fair was to be run! So instead we decided to put on a static display.

Special thanks go to David Ducket for providing a fantastic display of Scale Heli'swhich really looked the part and created a lot of interest (see below, left to right; Kavan Alouette 11, Hughes 500, Bell 47). He also provide a series of Plans to use as "table covers" that looked really good.

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Rob Barclay brought along his CSM Simulator on a Laptop and, with a Light Pro provided by Colin McFarland, we had the simulator displayed on a large screen (see left) . This worked really well and many people had a go, both young and old! Chris Bottomley did an excellent job of shepherding many a youngster on the sim - though some of the take-offs would have made the pilot dizzy through the high-speed pirouettes!

We also had a selection of other heli's; Colin and John brought along their Robbe Eolo Electric Helis. After consultation with the organisers and an investigation of the show arena it was decided that it would be safe for John (as a BMFA "B" Cerificate holder) to demonstrate the Eolo. The demo was nothing fancy, just some low level hovering manoeuvres (to maintain a safety margin), and only lasted five or so minutes, but each flight resulted in a round of applause.

John had also brought his Century Bell 47 (featured before in this diary).  To vary the size of heli's we also had a Raptor 30 and this monster (see right) from Colin - actually its an old Baron Alpha. We did ask the Scottish Country dancing ladies if they would like to try the Heli simulator, but they only agreed if we would join in their dancing display. Both sides decided to decline the offer!!!!

It was fantastic that so many members turned up to support the event, bringing their heli's should the need arise. Colin had the canopy off his Futura and spent a long time explaining the avionics and many others spent their time answering questions (including the usual "how high do they fly, mister?").

Talking to the organisers the view was the addition of our stand added a tremendous interest to the event, with the added bonus of the small demonstration flight, and they want us back next year!

All pictures courtesy of John Bottomley.

Sunday 29th June 2003

Weather: Southerly Breeze, 25DegC

A good turnout, with quite a few new members getting their heli's sorted.