Monday 30 June 2014

Sunshine at Whitesheet

  It s what summer days are meant for! Sunshine light breezes and enough thermal activity to keep you interested in launching.
  It was my first time out with the Willow 2 since the nationals and her first thermalling day.  I needn’t have worried, her handling more than made up for my thumbs and the controls remained crisp.  I was really pleased with how well the Willow reacted to lift and once found she took off really nicely.

  The warm weather and a good number of pilots, brought out by the Somerset Trophy, meant that I got to do some good model watching and catching up with people.  John Philips was test flying his Pike Precision- a lovely bit of kit made to look even better in the air
  The light winds also encouraged some blasts from the past like Jess Nicols to come out to the slope- with a 5 m Alpina electric to Maiden.  Some trimming still to do when I left but, in glide model she could really cover the sky.

  Seeing an old Algebra flying was fun- I used to fly one 25 years ago.


  Perhaps not the best day to practise pumping starts of F3F set up but a great days flying for exactly the same reasons.

Thursday 19 June 2014

New Willow 2s have arrived!

  A box of new Willow 2s landed this week.  When My prototype was made I made a wish list of the thigs I'd like to tweak and improve about the model.  Opening a package up you always winder if the suggestions have worked and which ones have been done.

  Simple with these- all of them and oh yes they've worked.  There's not a model for me in this batch- I can't wait for mine to come in a few weeks.  After managing to miss the heather of yorkshire and smacka  rock I think I'll just have to have one!

Tuesday 10 June 2014

Nationals 2014

  From a very wet and frustrating Saturday to a tricky fun and fast Sunday that got

us to 10 rounds I think.  Thanks have to go to the organisers, John Edison Martin and their team at fantasy weather.com – you just can’t change the weather.  Or friends from Scotland enjoyed possibly their last visit to the nats!

  The southerly bowls at the HoH is one where I don’t think I’ve ever had a great deal of success and with a real lack of practise I couldn’t keep up with the consistency of the big lads.
  The Willow 2 really showed me that as well as it’s excellent construction quality it responds to good air on the course and accelerates fantastically.  I know my thumbs let me down and this was shown by my ability to miss the miles of heather and find a dirty great rock on landing.  My set up tweaks had to wait and the Merlin launched.  The Merlin has to be one of the most fun and fastest model’s I’ve flown so it was no hardship to be flying it.
  Looking around the pits on Sunday I was reminded of the 2009 nationals on the same slope.  A field dominated by Skorpions and the first Freestylers.  In Similar conditions 5 years on, not a scorpion on sight.  It felt that the models were going faster and there are certainly more pilots going faster, there are certainly more pilots going much much heavier.  Ballasting was a tricky one if you weren’t EMing, the air’s buoyancy did seem very variable.


  Bucking the trend and really showing that it’s about maximising the model you have was Mike Shelim and his Sting, 6 years of racing with a second hand model and he still achieved 17th place only just 1 behind Richard Bago, who would race his Freestyler when Dave Wright wasn’t looking and one of his Needle’s when Dave lookedJ.

  The Thuroly good Greg gave us another picture for the collection of Dark lord at the nationals.  With so many summer races it's good to have the chance to see some old friends.
  Styles may have changed but those pilots best able to put the model where they want still came to the top- congratulations to Mark Redsell on his overall win- the own design category was easy!

Friday 6 June 2014

a bit of fun

Saturday's forecast isnt great but there was time for a sports fly on friday. 



Thursday 5 June 2014

Off to the nats!

It must be that nats time of year, no wind to practise but the willow and Merlin are ready to pack and the alarm has been set for too early in the morning.  The models I know are more than capable but I'm not so sure about my thumbs!

  Excuses to come and with a little bit of luck some pictures each night.