26 July, 2011

Sorties from foreign fields

I seem to have been getting around a bit lately. In the previous posts I have mentioned my flight in a Cessna 152 and my visit to Greenacres Model Flying Club with my webbit. Well my travels continue.

On 12th July the Light Aircraft Association were looking for something to entertain their branch and members from my Club (SCRCS) took some models to the LAC farm strip to fly. I took my glow engine powered Red Arrows Hawk and for an extra bit of excitement I took along a Seagull Boomerang trainer on a buddy system to allow LAA members to have a fiddle with the sticks. Also we had helicopters, sports models and another guest brought a jet turbine powered model. A very enjoyable time was had by all and the LAA kindly provided a barbeque on the evening which of course we also enjoyed.

On the 24th July I was again away from the home field, this time flying at the BMFA Fly In at RAF Shawbury, which is in Shropshire. That was a very enjoyable day out too because my wife came with me and my friend Mike Amphlett brought his Spitfire. I took my SE5a and had 4 quite lively flights in the fair old breeze that gusting up to 26 mph from time to time. I've never flown (and landed!) on & off tarmac before so that was a new experience. The undercarraige on the SE5a was getting a bit old and weak and I was concerned that it would not last the day - it did but it was a slightly different shape to when the day started!

Not content with that I have just finished assembling a JP-Si or more simply, a flying wing. This has no power source of it's own. The idea is to take it to the Great Orme and throw it out towards the sea then fly it on the rising air. The build blog is at modelflying.co.uk Watch out for the next post!