8 - 9th March 2014 (PSS)

[Happy Days]

Incidentally lads, if any of you have any ‘Brownie Points’ left over from last weekend then this weekend the forecast is good for all three days of the long weekend on the Big L. And mild temps too!
Maybe some of the ‘Local Crowd’ might like to meet up there?

Just thought I’d mention it. (Of course it could change by the weekend.)

Keith......(Little)

[JohnPearson]

Hi All

Well I got home in the end, had to stay a few more days at moss house, until my car was fixed. I broke a spring and the top end of the Shock on the front drivers side wheel, due to a big pot hole on Saturday. I would like to thank Ralph and fred for all there help and to little Keith, who taxied me around on Monday looking for car parts, also to the guys at james tomkins garage in Gory, who worked on the car and got me back on the road.

O.k. well apart from the expensive car problems, the weather did not part ball for us on both days, however, the craic was great and it was nice to meet up with some old friends and make some new friends as well. The winds on Saturday hit over 100km/hr on the top of the south slope, and of course, there were some this did not stop us trying to fly in the wind!!!!



Ralph and myself try to get onto the top of the slope!



Well if we can not fly gliders, lets try body gliding!!











looping fred gets into the air

Fred and I managed to fly the wee ME 109 PSS glider in 100km/hr winds :?:  :?:



After the madness on the slope, we came together for a group photo, great turn out for the saturday event 16 pilots.



Fred and Ralph have another go at flying off the west slope, but no joy :!:



Ed and I tried a PSS ME 262 but again no joy, back to the drawing board with this model.

Roisin my good wife, had a great dinner ready for us at Moss house on Saturday night and even provided a few toy gliders to keep us amused :clap:  :clap:



So not much flying, but a good laugh and great company, se  you all in September.

johnp

[jumbo]

Incidentally lads, if any of you have any ‘Brownie Points’ left over from last weekend then this weekend the forecast is good for all three days of the long weekend on the Big L. And mild temps too!
Maybe some of the ‘Local Crowd’ might like to meet up there?

Just thought I’d mention it. (Of course it could change by the weekend.)

Keith......(Little)

I would love to get down on Saturday to try out a bit of slope soaring (if new people are welcome) and you think an izicraft would suit the conditions.

[Happy Days]

Yes you’ll be welcome jumbo, after all we are all newcomers, just that some of us are less new than others! :roll:

Now I have to say I don’t know much about ‘Izicraft’ I think they’re powered high wing trainers aren’t they? (At least that’s what mr google tells me.) I wouldn’t have thought an Izicraft would be particularly appropriate for slope soaring. I have an old combat wing that I let newbies try slope soaring with but unfortunately it got broken last Saturday while “flying” in those very strong winds which were really far too strong for sensible flying. ( But then I’m not very sensible. :wink:  )

If you live in Carlow why don’t you pop up to the Big L anyway and see if sloping is something you might like to pursue?

At the moment Big Keith, Patrick & myself are going up there on Saturday. If the winds stay as predicted we’ll be on the west facing slope which is about a mile on the Bunclody side of Nine Stones car park. We should be there at about 13.00

Little Keith (The good looking one)

[jumbo]

Sounds great, hopefully I'll see you lads there. I have a few different models so will throw a few in the boot

I am putting one of these http://www.windrider.com.hk/products/e_images/212918andrew%20Bee2%20u.jpg together atm which would obviously be better for slope soaring but the final parts I need for it still haven't arrived :@

I think I may have an impromptu build session tonight and try to throw together a small kfm wing. Look forward to seeing you guys.

Justin

ps. Here is a video of some powered flying from yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmRYRQr1IGw&feature=youtu.be

[Happy Days]

Yeah, I like the idea of starting out with a flying wing Justin. :clap:  Hope all the parts turn up by Saturday. The beauty of “Wings” is that most can take the punishment of heavy landings without breaking into small pieces. (Ask me how I know! :oops: )

The only ‘problem’ with flying wings (I.M.O.) is that they tend to be very “tetchy” (sensitive) in pitch control. The best way to overcome that is to enter loads (60%) of exponential in elevator control. That ‘evens out’ the tendency to pitch up and down so violently. Also having Dual Rates can be of help. Then, gradually over time, you can wean yourself away from so much expo.

I would suggest that once you have mastered the dark art of landings, with a model that doesn’t mean you have to spend ages repairing the thing every time you’ve flown it, you can move onto more ‘conventional’ models.

So, let’s hope the weather stays as predicted. Here at my place right now it’s supposed to be sunny,……..I actually can’t see more than 150 mtrs. GRRrrrrr!!!! :evil:

L. Keith

[jumbo]

Just need to cover her and make some winglets and she'll be good for a maiden on Saturday. Think I will cover her in green given the weekend thats in it. Bit nervous, I am always afraid my scratch builds will fly like a brick, any ideas on where the sweet spot for the COG should be?



Wingspan is 97cm, it was meant to be a metre but damn math!!! You can probably guess where I got the inspiration from

[Happy Days]

As I remember the theory, the CoG should be 33% of the average mean chord back from the leading edge, on the inner chord,……….I think. :?:

I’m sure if you post the inner & outer chord measurements someone will come up the figure Justin

What type of foam are you using? Cross strap it all with fibre tape to give it some resilience. It’ll fly! :clap:

Forecast for Saturday is gusts to 40kph. That figure is assumed to be over flat, open ground. Up on the west slope that will probably correlate to around 60kph. I’d suggest you bring some lead with you,….it might need some ballast.

Oh, isn’t it exciting!

K.

[selleri]

Here's a CG calculator.  

http://fwcg.3dzone.dk/

Tried to maiden mine the other day...  dead calm!   :roll:

[Happy Days]

Don’t you just hate it when that happens! :cry:  

Actually, Selleri, we were discussing how to pronounce you name  at the recent glide in. :?:

I recon it’s pronounced  “Celery”  (as in the vegetable :shock: )(no disrespect intended :oops: ) We’ll  find out when you arrive over here in a couple of months.

K.

[jumbo]

Hi Seleri, nice work on the hot wire cutting, I'd love to give it a go but haven't found suitable foam yet, what type are you using?

I used this http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=110&storeId=10151&partNumber=100707 for my wing, its 5 mm and seems a bit more brittle than depron so normally I cover the whole thing with packing tape.

There is a weather man here in work (http://carlowweather.com) and he just informed me "Winds will be picking up from 1 about 20mph west to North West" so hopefully we'll see some good conditions for flying

[selleri]

Don’t you just hate it when that happens! :cry:  
Actually, Selleri, we were discussing how to pronounce you name  at the recent glide in. :?:
I recon it’s pronounced  “Celery”  (as in the vegetable :shock: )(no disrespect intended :oops: ) We’ll  find out when you arrive over here in a couple of months.

K.

Selleri is the Icelandic version of Celery but Sverrir is my given name, have fun with all those r's!  
Something like Sver-ear is close, one of my UK mates decided it was easier just to use Bob, lol.   :lol:

Hi Seleri, nice work on the hot wire cutting, I'd love to give it a go but haven't found suitable foam yet, what type are you using?
I used this http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=110&storeId=10151&partNumber=100707 for my wing, its 5 mm and seems a bit more brittle than depron so normally I cover the whole thing with packing tape.
There is a weather man here in work (http://carlowweather.com) and he just informed me "Winds will be picking up from 1 about 20mph west to North West" so hopefully we'll see some good conditions for flying

These are EPS foam insulation plates from the building industry, 50mm thick, 600x1200mm, 16 kg/m3.

[billscottni]

Jumbo make sure any foam you use for hot wire cutting is virgin and not recycled. Recycled tends to have hard lumps and other crap thru it. Makes the wire skip or ping ruining the core.

options available in the uk incl. virgin white foam, blue foam and from B&Q, knauf foam which is a peachy colour. The blue & knauf are denser and better in heavily loaded wings.

I believe Joe has found a local supplier for white, not sure which part of the world he's in at the moment though!!

[Fred]

Hello everyone

Sorry, crazy week, but finally, here are a few updates
First of all, Jumbo, please, feel free to come and fly with us! The worse that can happen, is that you will get hooked!    The wing looks nice  :clap:

Also, sorry, will not be able to come Saturday, wife made other plans for me  :evil:  But I have an Easyglider, ready to go, so don't worry if you have nothing gliderish to fly, I can bring it, and you can fly it as long at you want. I have this thing for that purpose  

Back to the meeting, here are a few photos:















The "cutest" model of the day for me... Very very nice work again from John!  :clap:  :clap:



On the Saturday, while the cloud base was too low for us to fly, we had a look at the Pine forest down the West slope, hunting for long lost gliders... I believe 2 were found in bits previously, but we have at least 2 EasyGliders left in there!
No luck, found nothing, but the way the trees are is quiet an impressive sight!







At some point, seeing how strong the wind was, we decided to put Roisin on a glider, and launch the lot at the slope! Needed ballast!  :lol:  :lol:



Talking about Roisin, once again, she prepared one of her secret dinner  :clap:  :clap: . She is like a (young) mother to us!  :clap:  :clap:
Flowers is just a very little way for us to say a big thank you  :clap:  :clap:  (Ralph's idea.. He knows how to talk to girls   )



Oh, and we cannot go to the slope without one of us having some sort of car trouble. This year, it was John's turn, and as usual, we were all here to help...  :lol:



Anyway, once again, despite the poor flying conditions (too windy, or low clouds), lots of you travelled to the event  :clap:  :clap:  and we still had a great day (I had anyway ) and again, a big thank you to you all to make these events maybe the friendliest ones we can find  :clap:
Hopefully, April will be a better month (usually is!) flying wise, and I hope to see most of you again on the 12th - 13th  

Also, just to show the flying conditions, Adrian put a video on Youtube about my ASW15 flight. Scary! Should not have launched, but as we said, if you don't try, you don't know!  

http://youtu.be/97g3A5W6yRg

Thanks Adrian for the video  :clap:

More photos on the album on the website:

http://www.gliderireland.net/index.php/galleries/pss-over-ireland-2014
(refresh the page if you get errors, work still in progress)



Oh, and one last photo...

"better safe than sorry Andrew!"  :lol:  :lol:

[Happy Days]

Oh boy, what a difference a week makes! If only the glide-in had been this weekend.The weather couldn’t have been more different.
Never mind. It’s no good crying over spilt milk.

Justin, Patrick, Big Keith & myself thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on the west slope today.


This is Big Keith & Justin, and he is by no means a novice. The wing he ’knocked up’ on Thursday night flew like a dream.

 Not made of solid EPS but of a built up construction it was incredibly light, at just under one meter span.
This meant that it did have a little difficulty penetrating out into the 25 - 35Kph winds that were blowing onto the slope.
Here is Justin’s wing beside the slightly large Zagi of Big Keith.


However, when it did get out into the lift it flew like a dream. Even the “Mad Man of Mt. Lienster” (me) found it easy to fly. I think it would be great in thermals.



Here we see Patrick about to fly his Zagi, Justin already flying his wing, & Big Keith who isn’t actually flying anything.
I think he’s praying, or may be he’s trying to fix his Mijet.
Unfortunately B. Keith didn’t have too much luck today. His Mijet had a shot aileron servo, & his “Flat V tail Thingy”
was found to have a loose wing joiner which gave the plane anhedral rather than dihedral.
So he fell back on that good old retainer, (no, not me) his Zagi.

B. Keith and Justin’s wings airborne together.



Finally here’s a couple of shots of a model you don’t see very often when in the air. A fantastic Phase 6 being superbly flown by………
Well if I don't say things like this, nobody else is going to, are they :cry:




All in all it was a good afternoons flying. Might do it again on Monday.
Anyone up for that?

(Photo's care of Big & Little Keith)