GliderIreland - Ireland RC Forum - Flying Model forum in Ireland
Gliders => Slope Soaring => Topic started by: Freedom Flyer on January 05, 2012, 15:08:52 PM
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Hello from the U.S.,
Hope you don't mind a foreigner dropping in.
What a beautiful place you all live in, I've admired your slopes from afar. Would be a dream to get there one day and fly on those huge faces. I don't fly anything too fancy, mostly older style built up balsa stuff, have one foamie and hoping to move into the carbon fiber realm at some point. have enjoyed looking through your posts. Freedom Flyer
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Hey Tracy,
Welcome to the forum! :D
And feel free to come this side of the ocean anytime! There will always be a bed for you here! :D
And don't hesitate to share your builds with us.
Fred
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Fred,
I'm having a bit of trouble navigating this forum and getting set up properly, I'd like to add an avatar but not quite sure how to get a pic to a URL, and will more than likely need to get some guidance for posting pics as well. And thanks for the offer, it would sure be a blast to get to that side of the pond :D. Tracy (FF)
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Hi Freedom Flyer, :D
As a little girl once said to me when I was in kindergarten, “ I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours” So, here is a picture of me and my glider. It’s an ASW 22, 13ft w.s.
Flys on very little lift, but not very aerobatic. ( It takes about two weeks to complete a roll. :roll: )
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Happy%20Days/ASW%2022.jpg)
Oh, and as for the little girl……What she showed me was a total revelation to me, I can tell you!!! :lol:
Keith
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That's a awesome model Keith!
The glider is not bad too! :P :lol:
Tracy, for the avatar, this is maybe because there are size limitations.
The avatar must not be more than 90x90 pix and 15kb in size.
Better to upload it from your PC, but if you need halp, send the avatar to me, and I'll upload it to your profile :D
For the images, same, you have a limitation in size (that's to keep the pages easy to read / load).
Max size is 800x800 pix. You have a mini how to here :
http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=980#980
Anyway, if you need help, we are here :D
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Guys,
I'll do some experimentation and see if I can figure this thing out, I may have to get my neighbor over to see if he can help me out. Thanks, Tracy
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welcome to the forum tracy, hope to see some of your work soon. i hope you don't mind me asking, but are you tracy (male), or tracy (female)? just curious!!
keith, i'm wondering how old is that photo........? nothing to do with you, it's just that blue stuff behind you, it's been so long since i've seen any of it!!
looks a fine model, any more info on it?
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Gerry,
I am Tracy (Male), been involved in the RC hobby for 30 years although have not flown nearly as much as I would like to.I Love RC, but I Love my wife and kids more therefore the flight time takes 2nd place. Since I haven't flown a bunch lately, the RC world has passed me by and moved into the Carbon Fiber realm, so until I get up to date and save a little $$, I'll keep flying my balsa crunchies and my 1 foamie.
I Got started while working in a College Dormitory where one of the students had a J-3 Cub hanging from his ceiling in his dorm room. Long story short, through visitation and seeing him fly a bit the bug bit me. He ended up crashing one of his planes and throwing it away, I pulled it out of the garbage and through trial and error, secretly put it back together. Bought a Futaba 4 channel radio and an O.S. Max .25 and surprised him with the rebuild one day. He took it out and test flew it and I was on my way. That was of course before the days of trainer cords in 4 channel radios, so it wasn't long before the rebuild was re-kitted and I found another used plane to learn on. surprisingly enough It only took 2 planes for me to solo. He then introduced me to slope soaring, which really is my preferred type of flying. I tried for 20 years to get my older brothers involved in the hobby and about 10 years ago, 2 out of the 3 succumbed to the call. We are the only 3 guys that fly sailplanes and slope planes in our area, (that we know of we've never seen anyone else in the last 10 years) pretty sad for a city of 55,000. My oldest brother flies both power and sailplanes, but my other brother is a purest and flies slope only and no batteries or spinny things allowed :lol:. Therefore, my oldest brother and I call him a Girl and laugh at him when we're at the slope with no wind and we're flying our Radians. I do still fly power and enjoy it but I'd take sloping any day :D . Hope to get this figured out soon so I can share some pics of our part of the world and of our slope and the Retro stuff we fly. Shoot, I've still got the first Gentle Lady glider I built back in the spring of 1982, it sill flies wonderfully, and I take it with every time I go out. :D :D Hopefully I'll have some pics soon FF
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Tracy, you’d be better off ignoring gerryb. He’s hoping you are female. :wink: He has an eye for the ladies does our Gerry. :lol:
As for the ASW, I’ll write quietly so Fred won’t hear.
I don’t have an awful lot of info about the ASW Gerry. I managed to blackmail Fred into selling it to me about three years ago.
I told him that if he didn’t sell it to me, then every time I met him I’d remind him of a battle that his ancestors lost to my ancestors some 200 years ago outside a little village in what is now Belgium. (I can’t tell you the name of the battle because I promised Fred I would never mention the matter again if he sold me the ASW……..but I‘ll give you a clue. ABBA‘s first hit was called it. And the Eurostar train service from Paris terminates in London at a station of the same name.)
So if you want any more info Gerry, Fred is your man! :D
K.
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hi tracy, thanks for the little history story. it's amazing how similar such stories are of how people get into the world of aeromodelling. some stay, others move on, but eventually come back to the fold!!.
by the way tracy, don't believe a word keith says about me, he's always stirring it up, and be very careful with your spellings and grammer. he's a stikcler for the king's english!!
keith, i'm just wondering, if you had that asw all along, why did you bother with the mu 28 (or whatever no it is)? that should be an ideal 4m to get you into biggish models
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Well you’re exactly right Ger, :clap: it did get me into flying bigger models. Like I said, I got it off Fred. (about 3 years ago, I think :?: ).
The only ‘problem’ I found with it, is that it’s very light. Hence it doesn’t fly very well, (with me at the controls :oops: ) in windy weather, which, as you may have noticed, we tend to get rather a lot of here in Ireland.
The other ‘problem’ is that it’s not at all aerobatic. It can just about loop, although it needs a lot of height and the wings flex an awful lot. (“Clenched buttocks time,” :shock: ………if you get my drift.) And it takes ages to get a complete 360 roll.
Don’t mis-understand me,……..It’s a lovely plane for flying in light conditions or thermaling. But that’s not really my scene. :(
So I started looking for a more aerobatic 4mtr model. It just so happened that after I’d placed the order for the Mu28, the Alpina came up for sale at the right price as well! So now I have two ‘larger’ aerobatic models. 8) ……….Well, not two exactly, more like one and a bit! (I still need to get a lot of the materials before I can start building the Mu!……………or maybe I‘m just a wee bit scared to start :roll: )
Incidentally Ger. Convention dictates that the first word of a sentence starts with a high case letter. You’ll find the high case keys to the lower left and right of your key board. (Just thought I’d let you know! :lol: )
Still waiting to see Tracy’s models. C’mon Tracy, show us what u got!
K.
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convention also dictates you never start a sentence with 'and'! (And it takes ages.......).
re my non use of capitals, i claim poetic licence on that one!! anything to be non conventional.
anyway, enough of this grammatical nonsense, let's stick to gravitational inversion.
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Oaky Ger,..................you win :lol:
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Jerie,
downt nead too werry abowt mi end mie speling, Eye tri two maik shur two chek awl thuh wereds whith uh spel chekr ore lewk themm uhp inn thuh dikshunerie beefor Eye tipe themm. :D Freedum Fliier
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did it work?[/img]
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Didn't work, I'm having a heck of a time. Tracy
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(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0113.jpg) Hope this one worked, This is one of my favorite sailplanes a Craft Air Freedom built it in 1986 been recovered once about 7 years ago.
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(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/AllthePlanesPS.jpg)
Hey guys I think I'm getting this thing figured out. My two brothers and I generally take a few different types of planes when we go, we are not yet into the hi-tech era. Since we are the only 3 guys who fly slope around here, and our hobby shop isn't much of a hobby shop, we don't have a whole lot of access to carbon fiber and the building knowledge that goes with it. :evil: There are a few guys that live about 125KM away that have some higher performance planes. In fact one is very knowledgeable and is building some very beautiful planes, he is however, very much an elitist. and has made some negative comments about our "Old School planes." Thankfully he doesn't live close enough to be around us much. Well gotta go for now I'll get some more pics of our planes, some launches, of our slope and some of the beauty we get to view from atop our slope. Tracy
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This is a Picture of our slope, notice we are Land locked, no coast here, there is a road to the top, flyable from South West, West, North West, North, North East, and East. We are at about 1500 meters altitude(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0147.jpg)
This is my Brother Wayne Launching his Gentle Lady off of a Bluff overlooking the city of Billings, about 230km (142mi.)east of us.(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0070.jpg)
Just a fly by with my Craft Air Freedom(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/P1010087.jpg)
This is an old plane I scratch built back in 1985 from RCM plans, it's called a Pierce Aero Ridge Rat
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/IMG_0006.jpg)
This is me Launching my brother Wayne's scratch built Freedom
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0082.jpg)
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0049.jpg[/img
We see the snow on these mountains sometimes into late July early August.
[img]http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0053.jpg)
With our altitude we do get some winter flying, okay, a lot of winter flying, more than we care to have in fact. However, this winter has been very strange, in the town I live (Belgrade) we don't have a lick of snow on the ground. Very unusual. The Pic with my brother launching his Gentle Lady, the temp was about 4 below zero degrees farenheit. Most of my planes are all balsa and Monocote. Our landing zone is about a mile across and flat as can be, there is some rock but not much, quite abit of grass to land in.
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0049.jpg)
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0052.jpg)
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hi tracy, glad to see you got your photos up. very nice they are too, a fine selection of models. pity there aren't more modellers around to share the good times with ye.
is the bird of time kit built or arf? i have a kit built version myself and my son, an arf version. lovely models to fly in light air.
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Gerry,
The Bird of Time is my brother Wayne's, he did build it from a kit and did a nice job, it flies very well. My oldest brother Arlen also has one but it is the ARF version, he made a power pod and takes his up that way. Wayne flies his with some assistance from me as well as on the slope.
This is a pic of my brother Wayne and I about to piggy back his BOT, it's what we do when there's no wind. This flying site is great because it's a pasture out Wayne's back door, and only two miles from my house. The Power plane is a Senior Telemaster 8' span with a Super Tigre .75 glow motor.
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_0128.jpg)
This gives you a bit of an idea of what our LZ looks like, pretty spoiled
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/P1010086.jpg)
Wayne launching his Bird of time off of our slope "Table Top"
(http://www.gliderireland.net/forum/images/uploads/Freedom%20Flyer/DSC_BOT3.jpg) :D
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There are times when I’d give my right arm for a landing area like that! :lol:
A good selection of models too. I recognise the Sprit Elite. I quite envy you, apart from the very cold winters. :wink:
Interesting pictures, thanks for sharing them Tracy :clap:
K.
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hi tracy, fantastic flying sites and all that glorious sunshine too, lucky lads!!
have a look at some of our models, go to forum, click scale, go down to tountinna gazette and click on it. photos on pages 3 and 4.
tountinna is where we fly in the mid west, located approx. 10 miles north east of shannon airport. lovely spot overlooking lough derg. you and 'the brothers' will have to come and visit some time.
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Gerry and K,
We do have the Sunshine, lots of it, that's what makes the winters more bearable. Even with the sub zero temps, the sun makes you feel warm, we don't have a lot of humidity here very dry, so that helps a lot too. Our site is absolutely wonderful when the wind cooperates, which is more often than not. It's my schedule that doesn't cooperate so much. :D We get a bit of roiling air behind the lip but not bad at all. We can usually land within 20 meters or so, unless it's really howling, but having so much flat ground to land on is a real blessing.
I went to your tountinna gazette sight, my turn to be envious of you, that place must be huge!!!! The grass is always greener right? In your case that's true due to all your moisture :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:. There are truly some beautiful planes there as well, looks like some fine craftsmen over there. Also appreciate the fact that there's some folks still flying some Gentle Ladies over there. I've got the first one I ever built back in 1982, I love that plane, I take it with every time I go out, just a good ole standby.
I'll keep going through my pics and sharing here and there, don't want to show them all at once :D . Thanks for the kindness and interest you've shown, I look forward to more conversations. I've also enjoyed the humorous posts too! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Goodnight. Tracy FF
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Hi Tracy. Welcome to the forum. That looks like a great slope. I wish we had more sunny weather like you have.
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Thanks Alan,
Always great to make new acquaintances, I'm enjoying your guys forum, and am in awe of the size of the slopes over there. I just can't imagine flying on a slope so large. Someday maybe =P~ =P~ .
We do have a valley about 150 miles from where I live called the Beartooth Highway that I tried to fly this last summer. From the valley floor to the top of the pass is 5447 ft, making the top of the pass 10,947 feet. But go figure, I took several planes along and there was no wind. My wife and I were on an anniversary trip, I hung around for nearly 3 hours hoping for wind, nothing! Maybe next time through. You should Google it, it is quite beautiful as are the two National parks we have in our state as well, Yellowstone and Glacier National parks. I'll have to be happy with what we have around here. :D
We do have a lot of blue sky, our state is known as Big Sky Country, and we even have a little community 45 miles from us called Big Sky, one of the best ski resorts (Lone Mountain) in the Nation is 45 miles out our Back door. Too bad I don't ski :oops:, too expensive :(. Lots of beauty around us, just not the huge flat faced hills of Ireland. Another place on our list My wife and I would like to visit. Thanks for the post Tracy. FF
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Gerry,
I've been looking around the forum and Google Earthed some of the cities you gents are from to get a lay of the land. What a beautiful country you live. I've got a friend who was a missionary there in Drewstown. He left there about 10 years ago but was there for about 7 years. He liked it very much.
I was also looking at the size of the country, square miles and such. Having grown up in Montana, I've always known that our state is the 4th largest in our Nation, Alaska of course being the Largest. But when I look at the different sizes of whole countries, it makes me realize how big our state is.
Montana is 145,545 sq. miles, you could fit 4.5 Irelands within our state borders, and 1.8 Great Britains within our state borders. Yet Ireland has 4.6 times as many people and Great Britain has 62 times as many people. We just broke the 1 million population mark. So there's only 1 million people spread out over 145,545 square miles. That's why there's only 3 people that fly on our slope :shock: , pretty crazy huh? I think if we really looked here in the valley we might be able to find some college kids that fly sailplanes but there just doesn't seem to be anyone else around, Kind of sad really. Oh well, we keep trying to convert some of these electric guys from the dark side :P :P :P . I think the hard part for them is it's a 35 mile drive to the slope, when they can go down to the local park and fly. We keep telling them to bring their electrics along, if the wind isn't blowing they've got something to fly. :). Well, I've rambled enough for now, I need to go cut up my deer. FF
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hi tracy,
that sure is some size of real estate!! no problem finding a nice, quiet corner for yourself if you nee a bit of peace.
here in ireland, if you live anywhere in the midlands, you can be on almost any coast in about 2-21/2 hours easy.
because ireland is such a hilly place, most of our gliding is slope soaring.
i was on tountinna today with a new glider. most enjoyable it was too. the glider is a ka-3 to 1/4 scale which i built from a short kit supplied by fred. i hope to have photos up soon.
tountinna isn't such a big place as you might think, but it has good slopes facing n through w onto s. landing areas are all heather. an added bonus for us is the road all the way to the top. ideal, as several of our members are no longer in the freshness of youth and don't really fancy long uphill climbs. facing all of us, i suppose.
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Hey Gerry, you flew your new Ka?….and it was “most enjoyable” (Sounds like a typical English understatement to me) So how did it fly?
We want to know!
I was up on the Big L today. (Mount Lienster for the benefit for our new friends.) It had been cloud bound all morning but it cleared around midday. I got onto the west slope at around 1pm,………….and the wind dropped! Can you believe it, :twisted: ………. what a bummer. :cry:
Managed to scratch around finding little pockets of lift with the Phase 6 ( controls set to max camber) but as the wind dropped further I gave up after half an hour. :!:
Only light winds forecast for the next few days. Time to revert to models with propellers me thinks.
Tracy,……..I think life teaches us all different things as we each walk our weary paths, and one thing I’ve learnt is that bigger isn’t necessarily better by any means. Here’s a case in point.
Not far from me are some sand dunes. They’re only about 20 - 40 feet high but I’ve spent many hours enjoying myself flying off of them. They’re quite challenging actually because the lift zone is rather narrow.
It’s all a matter of horses for courses, of course, but as a (drunk) young lady once told me, “Enjoyment has nothing to do with the size of the ship,…..but the motion of the ocean!” :lol:
Save me a piece of Venison. I like mine cooked ‘medium’. yum yum! :D
Ireland,……..Land of a thousand Welcomes!
Keith
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Alan,
I'm sorry I got you mixed up with someone else :oops: :oops: :oops: .
Keith,
The deer Tastes great :D I might try for one more this weekend, last weekend for the weapons restricted area. I think I'll ask before I post, but I have a couple of pics of my two boys with their first deer, okay to post those? I did on one forum in Australia and go a lot of back lash for it, it seems to make some squeemish :-& :-& :-& :-& FF
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Hi,
We are not at all squeamish here.
We shoot deer and deer-hunters.
We do not like to discriminate.
Brian :mrgreen:
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Hey Tracy and welcome. :)
Nice pics of models there... i especially like the Bird of Time cradled on the telemaster... would love to give that a try someday.
Was involved in shooting myself for about 5 years. Your son looks very happy, i bet you were a proud man that day. :)
Anywho, really enjoyed reading this thread.
later
D.
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And btw... i have seen wild deer on our local slope Tounntine (Gerry b has already mentioned it to you). I have stalked them with camera only tho :wink:
I remember my first ever glider flight under Gerry's supervision. I built a Spirit 100 from Great Planes. Was 1999 i think. I was a bag of nerves but once i got the hand of it i managed to fly it for about 40 minutes solo.. I thought i was going really well until i got it into some sink and crashed landed it half way down the valley... hehe... no damage tho. got lucky.
I had my video camera that day and I took some nice flying shots... then i saw 3 Deer crossing the slope a little further up from us and got them on camera... never forget it.
cheers
D.
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Chris and all those offended,
Please forgive me for posting the hunting pictures, as for training my children to take delight in the killing of animals, that is certainly not my intention. The smiles on their faces are not for the killing of the animal, but in knowing they've helped provide meals and to help take some strain off of the continued tightening of ones budget. We take hunting very seriously here as a means of providing for ones family. Everyone, and I mean Everyone who hunts here in our state, is required to complete a week long hunters education course on the safety and ethical killing of big game. It is a very stringent course that teaches the handling of firearms, when and when not to shoot, and a written test at the conclusion of the course. I've taken them out to practice shooting on targets and KNOW their abilities, I also make sure I get them close enough to make an ethical kill. So the delight is not in the killing but in the helping out of our family. I am very grateful for being able to use high power rifles to hunt with as it makes the taking of big game quick and efficient. Believe me, I take no joy or delight in taking the animals, I do however, enjoy the fact in knowing that we have a freezer full of meat and know where are next meal is coming from. So again, to all those offended, please forgive me for the post it won't happen again, respectfully FF
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Dave,
Thanks for the welcome, and yes I was very proud of my boys for adding to the freezer.
The glider launching from the plane has been fun and scary, the very first time I did it was with a 6foot span Telemaster and carried up a Goldberg Gentle Lady. I didn't have and out riggers for the glider wingtips and with the polyhedral of the wing, the rubber bands holding it on stretched and the glider tipped to one side and was touching the plane wing and causing all sorts of aerodynamic problems. When I added the wing supports it made a huge difference, but the plane seemed to be a bit small for the task. I used to fly that same plane on floats, so much in fact I ended up soaking the center section with prop spray and one day the wing failed by folding in half :shock: no more Telemaster .40. So I replaced it with the Senior Telemaster, Added the wing supports to it, plus some lights for night flying and it works much better. It's still funny to see the Bird of Time on it with the tips protruding 12" past each wing tip. But it works great for taking up planes to search for thermals. I would like to try to tow one up as I've never done that, the scary thing about that is the pilot your towing, I think they could have a disasterous effect on the tow plane :o. But hey, I'm game if my brothers are, they're the ones that have to put the tow release in their planes. If we end up doing it I'll let you know how it goes. By the Way, my wife's eyebrows raised when I told her you were a bakery owner, she really likes to cook and bake.Tracy.
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hehe, don't mention the buns :wink: If i manage to make it to a gliding meet over here with the lads i am obliged by law to bring buns. :wink:
cheers
D.
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Chris and all those offended,
Please forgive me for posting the hunting pictures, as for training my children to take delight in the killing of animals, that is certainly not my intention. The smiles on their faces are not for the killing of the animal, but in knowing they've helped provide meals and to help take some strain off of the continued tightening of ones budget. We take hunting very seriously here as a means of providing for ones family. Everyone, and I mean Everyone who hunts here in our state, is required to complete a week long hunters education course on the safety and ethical killing of big game. It is a very stringent course that teaches the handling of firearms, when and when not to shoot, and a written test at the conclusion of the course. I've taken them out to practice shooting on targets and KNOW their abilities, I also make sure I get them close enough to make an ethical kill. So the delight is not in the killing but in the helping out of our family. I am very grateful for being able to use high power rifles to hunt with as it makes the taking of big game quick and efficient. Believe me, I take no joy or delight in taking the animals, I do however, enjoy the fact in knowing that we have a freezer full of meat and know where are next meal is coming from. So again, to all those offended, please forgive me for the post it won't happen again, respectfully FF
Hi Tracy,
Deer hunting/stalking is very widespread and popular here.
Just about all of our mountain slopes have tree plantations on then.
The shooting rights to ALL of these, except for some small privately owned areas, are leased out annually to clubs and individuals.
So actually the hunters here own the right to be on the hills they stalk while many of us just turn up and toss off a model and hope it is ok.It generally is a 'common law' normally applies.
Here the deer are 'pests' with growing numbers so the hunters are behind the curve.
Fishing and hunting are big tourist attractions here, especially the fishing.
Brian
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Hey Tracy,
Don't be sorry for posting these hunting photos, and I hope that will not put you off this forum.
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Hi Tracy - I believe I flew power once with your brother Arlen over in the Paradise Valley - have always enjoyed Montana and love flying on the Hogsback in the valley (great lift! but a bit of a hike!)
Anyways I'll be back up that way this summer and would love to come fly Table Top with you. Looks perfect for VTPR. And I promise I'm not an elitist, either ;)
Steve