Only
a few members out today. Amongst them Dave Ducket with his very old
(antique, I am reliably informed!) Kavan Alouette (left). Here's a write up
from Dave:Weather: Bright and sunny, about 8degC, with a very light south westerly wind
The Mottram field has had a good quantity of manure sprayed onto the access field which makes access a little interesting! The farmer is most embarrassed!
Only
a few members out today. Amongst them Dave Ducket with his very old
(antique, I am reliably informed!) Kavan Alouette (left). Here's a write up
from Dave:
'Seen at Chelford'
Well you may have seen me trying to coax some life and fly a 'Kavan Alouette 11', The model is one of a pair, the first was given to me second hand with some spares 18 years ago by a friend who spent some time flying 'Belveder's'. The second I bought as a box of bits from Peter Jenkins at a Retford fun fly (remember them?). Phil Clay wanted a winter project, and with help from Billy Grimes all the dust/rust was removed, sorting all the bits and using my new collective pitch rotor head. Phil reconfigured the swash plate to take three servo ccpm, the tail boom was re glued and had a coat of paint, adding throttle/rudder servo's to the cabin floor the cabin was cleaned/glued then secured. The webra engine/belt driven clutch and right angled drive for the tail were all checked and re assembled. When running, and in the air, the cyclic needs some anticipation, the tail will do it's own thing (tail control wire is .8mm thick/thin) With no auto unit a throttle adjustment, as we know will make flying interesting. Many thanks to Phil Clay on the rebuild and to club members for advice and help. All good fun and not to serious.
John Bottomley (of Model Helicopter World fame) and his son Chris were also out flying a Century Bell 47G (right), more of this I am sure in John's "Improving the Breed" in Model Helicopter World. He also brought along a Futura 1.8M - a very large machine, especially when powered by a 120! Either very bravely (or some would say foolhardy) John let me have go with both machines. Both flew very nicely.
Both pictures courtesy of John Bottomley.
Weather: Bright and sunny again, about 10degC, with a light southerly wind
The farmer had harrowed the access field, thus making it more accessible without too much difficulty. Also there has been little or no rain which helps!
Arrived
at about 10am and began to think I was either the only one left standing or
else every one else had gone to Chelford (one of the many problems of having
two fields is which one to go to! There are benefits though - more of that
anon). Just about to pack up and troop off to Chelford at 11am, when John
and Chris Bottomley and Nigel Mycock and his son Joe turn up shortly
followed by Gary Morgan.
Joe Mycock is one of
our very few junior members. Here (right) he can be seen concentrating hard
on
his Raptor 30. Dad, Nigel, has a Millennium (left) which sometimes he uses to ensure the flying field grass
is kept to his liking (below)!
He also has a 90 powered Vigor. Nigel is a recent convert to governors. Both
machines have one fitted and Nigel r
regularly puts both through a very clean
aerobatic schedule with the engines running very sweetly.
Nigel is one of our Club Examiners and we are very fortunate to have two more; Chris Kennedy and Richard Fry.
Well just to let you know that club life isn't all flying - or building for that matter! I spent about 4 hours this evening doing club accounts, membership applications, club meeting reminders and maintaining the website! At least the weather forecast for the weekend looks promising.
Not only Company's have End of Month and End of Quarter deadlines; its off to the Building Society to get the money for our Field Rents today.
The club is very lucky, and prudent, to have two flying fields. "Lucky" because finding acceptable places to fly in Cheshire is worse than finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. You just find what looks like a nice field (largish, flattish and no encroaching trees) and yes, you've guessed it, there WILL be a great big house overlooking it - so its off to the next likely looking place. "Prudent" because when you do find a field that might be workable, it is inevitable that after a few months flying the locals will have noticed you and seen you might be around to stay. Their observation is often closely followed by the noise complaints (and yes, we do enforce the BMFA recommendation of 82dB(A) at 7 meters and try very hard to beat it). In its 9 year history the club has had to leave three fields; and at least one was very acrimonious - at least on the part of the major complainant (who I am sorry to say was a fellow model flyer). I'll write more on this topic another time.
However, renting fields is not an inexpensive occupation, which is why our Membership fees at £50 may seem a little high. To give you an idea of our field costs alone, we need to have at least 40 members to break even.
Weather: Bright and sunny, about 8degC, with a very light Northerly wind
It started at 10am
as 8degC and feeling warm in the sunshine, by 1pm it was 13degC and freezing
cold. Ah, the vagaries of the British weather!
A few more of the crowd down today. From left to right; Colin McFarland with his fully equipped Mobile Support Centre, Richard Fry (a Club Examiner), John Bottomley, Charles Ross and Bob Barclay (Club Chairman). Under discussion was; "Were did the sun go that we all saw earlier in the morning?" and "the likely outcome of the England versus Ireland Rugby match?". Also present was new member Mark Szolkowski (right), author of "A Beginner's View".
Bright colours for
Richard Fry's 3DNT (left) to which he says "Good Morning" (right).
When Richard flies every one stops and watches and NOT because of one of his
recent outings where a Death Spiral became terminal when the gyro came loose
from its mountings. Richard's flying is a treat to watch with enormous
loops, arrow straight rolls and a host of other manoeuvres. I'd swear that
the vertical climb into a 540 Stall turn is all of 100 ft!