16th + 17th March event

[rogallo]

No photos of "LES"  

[Happy Days]

Some might say it was cold on the Big L today. Some might say it was windy. Some might say it was wet (at times). All the above would be true, but what is also true is that there were lots of smiling faces as well!
Where can I begin to tell all the stories of the days events? Answer; I can’t! So here are just a few of the things that I was aware of on the west slope, on St Patrick’s Day 2013.

There was certainly lots of flying, all-be-it between the showers of rain and sometimes hail/snow flakes.

 JP’s new PSS models put in an amazing performance and I believe there are some pictures and video footage that’ll be posted soon to prove it.

Alan also put his PSS plane through its paces in the sometimes rather stiff westerly wind.

I saw Ralph looking rather contented flying another of JP’s models although because of the amounts of lift it took him three or four attempts to land the plane. (I found that last aspect very comforting as when I declared “Landing” yet kept on failing to get my P6 onto tera firma I heard someone shout out, “When?”  :oops: )

Richard braved the low temperatures to show off his flying prowess with his Quark and demonstrated why he believes it’s the best plane he has ever built.

 In the mean time Fred put a number of differing styles of flying machine into the air for the benefit and amusement of us all. (More of that anon :?: )

Eventually Big Keith & Stephen tuned up in the afternoon. Keith proceeded to fly his new Zagi. ( For those who don’t know the story; Keith lost his first Zagi somewhere on the west slope just before the new year. Despite looking for it he, and later that week both he & his good wife failed in their searches to fine it.) So this was Keith’s maiden flight with his new Zagi.

Stephen mean while, had his first flight of his Easy Glider. In fact it was Stephens first flight of anything.  (Apart form a few moment last September) I must tell you all that his flying was outrageous! :shock:  He’d only been in the air for a few minutes and he was completing inside loops!  (We’ll have to keep an eye on this one lads,…….bit of a dare devil is our Stephen!)
Stephen was also responsible for finding Big Keith’s ‘lost’ Zagi, which he hadn’t even been looking for! This plane had been lying, upside down, in open country for over two months. Rained on and at one point covered by a couple of foot of snow. When returned to Big Keith who charged the battery the rx and servos all worked perfectly! :shock:

As the light began to fade and yet another shower started to descend Fred decided he was going to fly his Easy Glider. :roll:  Not content to just fly it, Fred felt compelled to fly it inverted! Not content with that, he decided to land it inverted. He missed the landing zone on the first attempt, brought the plane round…..and Stephen caught it on Fred’s second attempt.  That’s right, the Easy Glider was caught, while flying up-side-down.

These are just some of the events that stick in my mind from to day, no doubt other's will tell of their memories, but I shall certainly remember this St Patrick’s day for a good while to come.

Thanks to all for a most memoral event. Safe journey's home.

Keith.

[Richard Boyd]

Hi all and Happy St Paddy's Day! Thanks for a wonderful weekend of flying and fun. J.P's PSS planes were fantastic. (think his Spongebob Love Pants helped his flying!!) Fred told us lots of French stories helped along by copious amounts of French wine. (the best of course!!) Ralph (danger mouse!) entertained us with his snoring. Rosie fed us. Keith, as always, entertained us with his wit and charm. Big Keith and Stephen made the foreign visitors from the North very welcome. It was good to see new faces on the mountain especially the gy who flew my ASK21 (sorry didn't catch his name!) Hope to meet him again on the slopes of Mount Leinster! Ok, it's been a long couple of days so Im off to bed to catch some zzzzzzz's!! Thanks again to everyone for making the weekend such a success!

[Fred]

Well... That was a really nice week end!!
First of all, thank you all for coming, form North to South and a little bit in between!  :clap:  :clap:
Saturday was a very good day, with lightish winds, but lots of thermal activities, and wind picking upslowly, but surely as the day goes.
Arrived first at the slope, ready to face the -10 degrees they promised.. To end up having a nice cup of coffee.. In my T-shirt, flying the Explorer sitting on the grass    They are the best mornings!  

On my way to the slope.. Looked promising!



Fog down below all over the valley.. Feels like you are on top of the world! Only the top of the hills around pop their heads over the sea of cloud  










Anyway, while I was alone, decided to try the Explorer, as there was no wind, seemed to be a good time to test the throws and CofG  





That thing flew great in the almost no wind, and remainded me my first proper glider flightalmost 20 years ago  :cry:  
Only some sheeps passing by were breaking the silence...



Magic!  

Silence, soon was going to be broken for good as I saw Ralph's car driving up... I knew spirit were high straight away!  :lol:  :clap:  :clap:





Soon joined by more flyers. Breakfast table was set, and it was time to start doing some more flying!







The little ASK21 UMX. That thing fly surprisingly good! Really look the part too.  :clap:


The "thing"  



Happy Roisin  







Cork was in the St Patrick mood!  :clap:  :clap:



So as Diane. To the rescue!    :clap:









We have groupies!!    



















Scary stuff there!  :lol:  

[andrew wallace]

:lol:  :lol:  :lol: heard a wee rumour Mr Fred that Diane was the last person standing on Saturday night   everyone retired early to bed
Conditions looked really good on Saturday

[Keith]

Hi lads
Great bit of craic as usual at the weekend .And thanks very much again to stephen shannon for finding my zagi it had been up there since janurary and i had given up on finding it. i had been up and down that slope four times and never got a glimpse of it and stephen just happens on it while he was looking for me as i had been on another ramble down the slope
 :clap:  :clap:

[Fred]

Saturday - Continued (sorry, had to take a "kid" break  :wink: )







Found a panorama function on my camera by the way... Used it so!  :mrgreen:









And it was time for a groupe photo (old Keith is not in that one! But we have some with him. Funny enough, nobody called him or mentionned that he was missing...Strong message sent!     )















Bendy Roisin  























And last one in flight. Landed the Asw15 at 18.40  



And it was time to head to the B&B in Bunclody for the traditional.. erm.. Social off event  :lol:

[Fred]

This is when things gets hairy!  :lol:  :oops:
Once again, thanks to Roisin for the feast  :clap:  :clap:
We also found our Welsh buddy, Adam, but this time, we saw him for a bit longer than the last time  :lol:





Then, things started to go a bit wild!  :lol:  

Featuring Richard the French Man  :lol:



We had to give the Danger T-Shirt to Ralph... (did I mentionned he was the first one in bed?     ) so we all ended up in his room!
What have to be done, need to be done!









Don't they look.. eerrrmmmm, pleased!  :lol:





I was then presented a bottle of "Fat B*stard" (with a screw cap!!  :evil: ). Actually, funny wine producers! (google it)



And we even had a show from our 2 favourites groupies!  :clap:  



Oh, and no Andrew, I was the last one in bed!  

Next morning, everybody looked more or less fresh  



We left the pipe band doing their march, before it was time to head back to Mt Leinster for another great day!

[Fred]

Sunday... Wind!
And rain, and even snow!
Big contrast compared to the Saturday!
Need to add more layers to keep warm, and dry between the showers!
We had a few showers during the day, but nothing really serious, the longest one being around 10 minutes, giving us about 2 hours flight time until the next one.

Anyway, this was going to be the PSS day!  







JP maidened his 2 new PSS, the Aermacchi and the Fouga Magister. First flights were total non event!
Those things fly great and looks great! Well done John!  :clap:
This was alo the first flight of Kevin's one, in the expert hands of Ralph.. Same results, no issues, and looks really good!  :clap:  :clap:























And some good landings with the Fouga... Wing tanks left behing swiftly recovered by some happy people  









And Richard showing us how a Quark must be flown!











Oh, and we had a BBQ this time! (nobody were hungry on Saturday!)



As for me, I finally managed to properly test my Avacro wing.
Did a few launches on Saturday, believing that the wing will do well in the low lift conditions (very light, and huge wing area), but couldn't get that thing flying, even with 1.10 euros!    
So, conclusions were that the profile I took needed more lift (F3F profile)...
So the Sunday, launched the wing again and... Well, I love it!
That thing really came up to life! Very easy to fly, perform well in aerobatics, and the huge rudder do some... interresting stuff!  
Very happy!

So, that was almost an end to the day, when Steven found Tall Keith wing he lost a good 3 months ago!  :clap:  :clap:
Let's charge the wing... and miracle, everything worked fine like nothing ever happened!  :clap:
We had a very happy Keith!



And then, it was time to go home!


NOT!  :!:

Silly car, when you leave the boot open all day, the light in the boot don't turn off. Something the remeber for the next one!

Called Keith (the old bloke) and after 10 minutes, came back to the slope with Keith (the tall bloke) and Steven (the find stuff bloke). Jump leads and all that, and engine was running in a flash!  :clap:  :clap:
Thanks again guys for coming back!
No one left behind!!  



So once again, thank you all for coming  :clap:  Looks like the first meeting of the season was another success, good flying, good laugh and banter, and most important, a good bunch of friends  :clap:  :clap:

Bring on April!!

[mario]

nices pictures, we want coming :mrgreen:  :mrgreen:

[Happy Days]

Phew!  they were an awful lot of pictures Fred, thank you for taking / posting them all!  :clap:
(I notice there are far more pictures of flying models taken on Sunday than Saturday. Is that because there was more lift?  Private joke folks, between my friend and me. :wink:
)
Some of those PSS models have really amazing detail.  (I haven’t got the patients to produce work like that. :oops: )

Looking forward to the next meeting in April..... Or at least I was. Is it really true that nobody missed me when the group photo was taken?!
( Keith sighs, drops his shoulders, and slowly walks off to cry by himself in a corner of his workshop  :cry:  :cry: )

K.

[bren.p]

Hi All,

I hope I will be at the next fly in raging I missed it would of loving to make it

but there will be other meets glad to see you had a great time and fun had by all thats what this hobby is all about.

Having the craic and learning from others like Fred, Ralph and ohh yea little

Keith how can anyone forget little ole Keith lol just kidding mate.  :lol:

[Happy Days]

Hi Bren, yes you missed some good fun.

By the way, Fred gave me your Skua, so if you want to try it out before the next meeting we can meet up and I’ll give it to you, along with the model Big Keith rescued for you.
(I’ll have to start charging you storage fees! :lol: )

Little ol' Keith. (Who has stopped crying, but now have sore eyes)

[bren.p]

well thanks Fred for giving the wing too Keith for me I really appreciate this.

As for storage fees Keith send it too where the sun dont shine ave darkside deeole.  lol

[the Pope]

I definitilly hate you.....really!! :evil: