Been Flying

The wind was howling again at around 2am. Light breeze now, and drizzling steadily!

This morning arrived - well, it could hardly fail to!
After overnight rain and wind, it wasn't too bad outside, so I got ready to go to the field.
As I put the last few bits in, it began spitting with rain! Typical.

Got there for 9ish, got the cabin open etc, then sat and watched the rain for a while - just enough to be a nuisance.
At around 1030, I ventured out, and although rather windy from the SouthWest, got a couple of flights in before being rained off again!
I put the Decathlon, the bag of batteries, and the transmitter - into the cabin, and watched them drip dry.
At around 11, Alan and Graham arrived. Yesterday, they were working on the mower, fitting new blades. That involved grinding off the rusted lock-nut, and the head of the bolt, then grinding it into two pieces so it could be extracted - and THEN - using brute persuasion and a big hammer to drive the rusted seized bolt out of the spacer, so it could be re-used. They had four of the old blades left when they ran out of battery for the grinder, so they had packed in.  Today, armed with a bag of recharged batteries, they soon had those last ones off, then all the new blades fitted.
After faffing about with the cutting height, Alan enjoyed riding up and down the field, cutting the landing strip, while Graham brewed up.
Quite a few regulars there today, getting a few flights in while the weather window lasted. I won't name them all, as you don't know them anyway.
As usual, they were packing up at around 3, leaving self and ex-student John taking it in turns to fly something in the blustery wind. Considering that John only started r/c flying in January this year, he's picking it up rapidly, and is not averse to flying in challenging conditions. As I said to him when I was teaching him, if you can't fly in a wind, you can't fly in the UK.
We packed up at 4.30, and I was finishing off locking up by 5. Of course that is when the wind died, and the sun decided to warm the place up!
Through the day, my Decathlon got seven flights. I only had one battery left, and as I often say  "Never have a last flight  because it will be". So I packed in.
I had taken the Kobus and the Twin Shark gliders, but the conditions weren't right for those!

Nice this morning, sunny, passably warm and just a gentle breeze so I flew both of the FX707s
The now restored Flapped one. Pictured this morning.
 
and the basic one with its 850mAh 3s moved forward 5mm. Also taken this morning.
 
All not entirely satisfactory. 
Somewhere during the repair the flapped FX707 ended up tail heavy which after just a few seconds resulted in a rather nose down "arrival"
Some repairs required but mainly as I discovered the glue was not full hard!
I am fairly certain the CG has not moved much but it is possible that when gluing back the tail plane its incidence was changed.   
The basic FX707 was rather better but it proved very hard to turn left particularly anywhere near the stall!
Nothing that a bit of wing massage did not cure for the subsequent flights.
The concerning bit is the EPO? foam of the FX707 is rather rubbery so any "massage" effect tends not to permanent.
It has rather small ailerons so its a toss up between making the ailerons longer or adding a functioning rudder. 
   

Frosty here - at 7am!

Frosty last night here too. However a most unusual colour of the sky to day...... blue.

NO I HAVEN'T.

The weather here has been too bad & unpredictable to make arrangements with my trainer & I haven't found anywhere to fly my plastic job. The old school site is the most suitable locally. There is plenty of moorland around here but its pretty rough.

My Operator's ID expired on the 3rd March, I'd paid the fee through the club & they had sent it off on the 10th February. So the club had paid the fee & had a receipt. The CAA said it was up to the BMFA to upload my details which should renew my ID which they had done. But it didn't!
The club secretary emailed me to say he'd noticed my dob on the CAA site was wrong. I couldn't change it so I had to get the CAA to alter it but my ID still wouldn't renew.
After about 5 weeks of 3-way emailing, someone rang up from the BMFA last week & we went through my details. A letter "X" was missing in the number the BMFA had on file. She corrected it but it still wouldn't renew. This morning I rang the BMFA & she put me on hold for 15 minutes while she got someone to speak directly to the CAA. It then transpired that the number the CAA had an "N" where it should have had an "M" .
So now I'm wating for an email from the CAA to say my ID has been renewed.
I obviously had a valid ID last year so its inexplicable how this happened.

I didn't get an email & my Operator ID is still showing as expired so I logged onto the BMFA site & my dob had reverted back to the wrong one which is where this started. I rang the BMFA & she said she didn't know how that happened but she'd corrected it & will see what the computer makes of it this time.

I think there is a general problem of people now not reading things properly - the spell-checker syndrome.

My wife was watching a cookery program the other day & the chef's wife was described as a "sommelier" - the sub-titles said she was a "smelly air"

I've just got an email saying I've now got a valid Operator's ID.

Flyng for me - today.
Unusually I was second one there, because John G was so keen to get some time in that he got there for 9.
I rolled up at 9.30, and proceeded to excavate three of four gliders and  the usual Decathlon from the mobile hangar..
The wind as forecast to be light Westerly, but we got moderate Northerly - so square across the runway.
Today, there were 12 there plus self, of course.
Decathlon first, of course, to 'feel' the wind.
A bit later, I got the DLG out, put the tiny battery in, and began trying test glides over the long grass on the far side of the runway. Once I'd got the trim correct (it needed a bleep of left ails and about 10 of up ele), a gentle shoulder-height straight hand launch from the edge of the long, was giving me about 100 yards before the ground got in the way.
The canopy needs a bit of trimming, to get it to fit correctly, so I was using an elastic band to hold it shut, for now.
A bit later, I flew the Decathlon again, then put the big lightweight 'Tango' together, and had a fly with that, but because of the patchy dark cloud and the cold wind, there was no thermal activity. Even the buzzards were flapping.
After several false starts, I was about to test-fly Jeff W's Harvard. He'd started with an engine that wouldn't run more than half throttle, so I told him to take the fuel line off, take the needle valve out, and blow all the muck out of the carby jet! After a good red faced blow or two, we got that sorted. Then he told me he'd lost a cylinder head bolt, somewhere. He got the engine going, and then we noticed that two of his four mounting bolts were loose  one had actually lost it's nut. More faffing about to fix that. Then he tried again, and the starter unscrewed his propeller nut and spinner! Still more faffing about, while I flew my Decathlon again.
Finally, Jeff was ready, engine running, controls going in the correct directions, so I was walking to the flight line with the transmitter when Malc shouted me. Jeff had let go of the model, and it was happily trundling across the runway! Plenty of rudder got it turned along, then I opened the throttle. The plane began to gather speed, then the engine spluttered and faded out, just as the wheels left the ground. It settled again well down the runway, and Jeff went to get it.
A mutual decision was reached that he'd take it home and get it sorted out, as it obviously didn't want to fly today!
As usual, by 3.30 everyone was packing up and leaving, with just Stew and myself still there, hoping the wind would settle down. It didn't.
So the Twin Shark and the Kobus gliders didn't get assembled.
I flew my Decathlon six times, the Tango once, the DLG for about six fifteen-second hops, and Jeff's Harvard - almost!.
I finally locked up at 5.
 

I though the wind was just about gently enough t fly the Depron Seagull after some nose repairs.
 
It certainly proved to be stronger than it looked at any height and as a result distinctly turbulent low down. Flew for 5 minutes
After the flight inspection showed that it was flying with the elevator at full down trim.   Which with such a short tail moment made the longitudinal stability a bit marginal particularly when being "upset" by turbulence.
After the flight inspection showed the tail plane, such as it is, had developed a noticeable twist giving the equivalent of up elevator thus explaining the significant down elevator trim required.
Easy enough to fix.

Still sunny, a bit chilly and as forecast the wing was slowly increasing so I flew the Swiss Venom
 
With a 1400mAh 4s  it really has a lot of power but really needs a throttle/elevator mix as there is a significant trim change with throttle. The only problem is I cant make any sense of the mix parameters on the Hobby King TX6i transmitter. The manual tells you were the various parameters are in the menu but not how they work! 
Anyway had a good flight approaching 8 minutes with quite a bit of gliding in the very buoyant air.
Later as the wind was increasing I had intended to fly the heavy Big Dragon 3 but I found I had charged the battery for the Endurance   so I flew that instead.
 
Hardly a heavy weight but had a good twenty minutes but slowly the into wind sections of the flight were getting very slow indeed compared to the down dash sections so I stopped before anything got damaged or lost.

       

When the wind speed is approaching the model's flying speed, adopt the slope-soaring technique. Imagine that you are the downwind 'back-stop' and DO NOT fly any further downwind than yourself - then if the fan stops for any reason, you are landing on the flat in front of yourself, not in a tree half a mile away!

The secret with throttle/elevator trim is that the trim that you currently have is applied at the throttle centre, so eyeball your elevator trim before applying the mix then, once you apply the mix, re-trim the elevator trim you want at zero throttle. I lost my MPX Mentor because I didn't understand this.

Today like the yesterday really quite warm all clear blue and virtually no wind so two sessions for me.
First the Big Dragon that I had intended to fly the day before. No problem in the super still conditions with a nice 20 minutes.
 
Then the Swiss Venom again, to check in really still conditions just how much trim adjustment with throttle was actually required given that last year once the trim was set for "straight and level" it  needed none at all. Low and behold! I managed a 7 minute flight, not bad of a 50mm EDF of a 1400mAh 4s, with no serious trim/throttle adjustment required ending with a long glide circuit and landing. Happy with that!
Next was the Depron Seagull .. Managed 6.5 minutes gently soaring around and that uses just a 450mAh 3s.
Then the repaired flapped F707 Albatross. That did not go too well ending with another nose plant!   
Damage not too serious but it felt like control was simply lost but of course everything still worked tested well before I even got to where it had crashed.
I suspect the previous serious nose plane may have deformed the foam fuselage and reset the wing/tail incidences.
Hopefull tomorrow will be the same.

.   
 

Forecast says dull overcast, with a moderate wind from the South. rain later in the evening!
-
But  - looking out of the window, I see blue sky, with a light haze, and high - whispy contrails.The tree-tops are barely moving! (at 0745).