Well, not to be outdone by all this gliding activity, we lads in the Sunny South East spent a eventful Saturday afternoon last weekend.
The venue of course was the Big L with winds of around 20 gusting 35Kph coming pretty much straight on to the West slope, (13.00h) although they backed to South West from about 15.00h
Stephen, his son Tom, Big Keith & myself arrived at the slope to be met by rain. :cry: In fact the rain hardly stopped for the afternoon but most of the time it was just a few drops of water. But we Liensterites (If there is such a noun :? ) are a hardy bunch. We ignored the moisture and flew anyway!
Here’s Stephen, myself and young Tom off to the slope. The cameraman had been on the drink the previous night so he was a bit slow off the mark. He only got the shots of our backs.
Here is Stephen wearing an almost ear-to-ear grin while brandishing his newly completed Skua. He was looking forward to maidening it.
Er,……that’s when things started to go wrong. After first launch, or should I say ‘first throw’ this is how the Skua looked.
However, once it got airborne it put in a stonking performance! Completely out flying Big Keith’s Zagi and my Skua. How disingenuous can a person be? I’d spent ages during the past couple of months answering emails and phone calls, advising Stephen on how best to assemble this wing, and then he goes and produces a model with such outrageous performance!
(Big Keith & I have decided that in future, if Stephen shows up on the slope while we are there, we’ll move off to a different part of the slope!) (
But we haven’t told Stephen that yet)
Here’s a couple of snaps of Big Keith’s Zagi
Although there aren’t any pictures of him, Young Tom (10 years old) was so excited by all that was going on that he asked to have a go.
Fortunately a buddy box was found and he certainly enjoyed putting us ‘old-erns’ to shame
by showing us how quickly he could learn.
Having never flown an aero model before he was flying my Skua for up to two minutes without any input from me by his third attempt. :clap:
(That’s the trouble with ‘Youth',…..It’s so wasted on the young! :evil: )
After tea and refreshments, kindly donated by Big Keith, I assembled my P6 and Big Keith assembled his MiJet. Alas, the numpty hadn’t checked the battery before launching the model and………………..Yup! You guessed it,…..the MiJet ended up in the trees! (Where else?) :roll:
We managed to get it down by Stephen very courageously climbing up the tree, all-be-it that he fell the last three feet when descending the tree. Much to our delight, (he ended up on his arse) and his dismay.
Finally to round off this little tale, here’s a couple of pictures of an old friend. Do you recognize it Fred?
YES! you cleaver man,..it's your old "Flat V tail Thingy!" :wink: Now in the ownership of Big Keith. It gets around that plane doesn't it! :lol:
Keith (Little)
