Friday 9 April 2004

John Bottomley informed me that Geoff Morris went solo today without his training gear. I am sorry to say I wasn't there to see it, but its definitely one for the diary! Well done Geoff!

Picture courtesy of John Bottomley

Sunday 11 April 2004

Once again John Bottomley has been my eyes and ears - thanks John!

First the good news! Only a couple of days ago John caught Geoff Morris going solo without his training gear (see above). Today it was Christine Morris' turn to be caught in the limelight! Although its a shame we have only one lady member, its fantastic to see Christine doing well!

Now the not so good news. Having had a slight mishap with his Raptor only  few weeks ago, Andy Harrison has had another! Apparently it lost a main blade in flight - I think if you look carefully you can see the blade grip still attached to the blade. I think this is worthy of an Incident Investigation as Andy's machines are always immaculately turned out, so such a catastrophic failure would seem most unlikely. Although the damage looks bad enough, it doesn't look that bad. I only know of two other occasions within the club, within the last 10 years where a main blade has let go. In both cases the helis completely destroyed themselves in the air.

Picture courtesy of John Bottomley

Sunday 25 April 2004

I had a word with Andy about his Raptor and firstly I am sorry to say that the picture looks better than the reality. Andy said there was virtually no part left unbroken. The interesting, or more correctly worrying, thing about this accident is that it was the blade-grip itself that disintegrated, so that half was left attached to the Feathering Spindle and half attached to the Blade. Andy was not doing any aggressive flying at the time of failure, and even if he was a failure in the blade-grip is of concern - most especially as Andy's machines are always immaculately turned out, so poor maintenance is most defiantly not the cause.

Anyway, on to more pleasant things... Andy has decided to concentrate on his (three!) 3D NTs. Left is is very impressive all Carbon 3D NT, along with a very tidy interior. Right is one of his other 3Ds.

John Bottomley has been struggling for a while to get this beautiful Heim JetRanger into the air.  It has been one engine problem after the other, such that John and Chris must have covered several miles walking to and from the pits, with the engine dying as it span up. However, after a great perseverance (combined with the odd strong desire to throw the thing over the hedge!) and a few more tweaks... she gets into the air. She looks fantastic, especially with that Mike Drinkhill paint job!

Picture courtesy of John Bottomley