Monday After Christmas

Hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and didn't overdo the eating part. At the moment we are still getting all westerlies here - horrible bouncy flying conditions off the Mount and really only flyable from the top. But sadly we still give it a go... Here's a pic of John's Banshee blasting over the harbour entrance on a close fast pass.




On the construction side, I have finally settled on my method for building the 2m sloper - a combination of sheeted light ply ribs and EPP foam leading edge. Might have a go at glassing the wing and the fuse is looking like f/glass over a blue foam core. Yikes! My first attempt at a fiberglass fuse...

Here's a progress shot showing the layout of the ballast tube and valve with the servo and the two inner ribs. Yes, it's under way!



Happy New Year to everyone - let's hope 2010 is a better year all round.

New Project - The Ultimate Sloper

Well it had to happen - sooner or later I was going to have a go at designing my Ultimate Sloper. Of course there are certain criteria for a beast like this (land amongst the Mount rocks with little damage, fast, energy retention, good looking etc) so it will have big boots to fill. But this is what I'm attempting to do.

From the outset I have decided that this plane will have jettisonable ballast (water) to allow softer, slower landings after a big heavy blast aroung the sky. And we're not talking "lead sled" dimensions here - I just want to try for about 400g ballast on a 2m wing to allow me to explore the possibilities.

So, without further ado, here are the plans with the ballast tube (square box section aluminium) including the water release valve.



And another shot showing a closeup of the valve - not that it shows much. I spent a long time searching for a suitable sized valve. In the end I have butchered and kit-bashed my own using a bit of TLAR (that looks about right) technology. Then I covered it in epoxy to hold it together.

More about the construction soon.

Tough Day at the Mount

With the equinox winds in full stride, the Mount would normally be pretty good in a big westerly off the top - but today it was as fickle as a feather - good strong lift one moment followed by sink the next. I was up there with Ralphie and Johnny but after a nice ballasted fly with the Flanker I tried for a second flight and the sink caught me out taking the plane way way down until it mushed out into the grass right down the bottom.

On a later flight from further round the top at the end of the day I got into differculties again. It was really hard to keeep orientaton of the beast as we were staring into the hazy glare of the late afternoon sun. Lost it again - this time over the back of the steep north face and had a mammoth task retrieving it. Had to climb up from the bottom, then I thought it was too steep to descend with plane, so, after overcoming my fear on a steep face, I managed to climb back to the top by chucking the plane up ahead a few feet at a time. Phew.

Hope you like the video here - one of Ralph's Graphite - the other of Johnny's new Banshee sloper.

And here's the Patriot at Raglan

Raglan Videos

Ok, here's my first attempt at posting a video to the flog. This is from a great day Ralph and I had at Raglan in early November.

October's Flying

Well yes October is flying past and it's been nearly a month since I posted anything. But luckily I'm getting no feedback so there can't be anyone out there who is too worried :-)

The lead pic is of John Searle launching into a maiden of his Siren Hotliner at Papamoa's Gordon Spratt Reserve. The next pic is Ralph's Ellipse going up on the winch at the same spot.




And the Redblack is now complete and has been maidened! With a little reluctance I took her round the front of the Mount last week and managed to dodge all the rocks on landing. So how does it fly? It goes really well - just eats my foamies for performance - fast and holds energy so well. I flew it for nearly 2 hours! And so easy to land with the crow braking. Here's a shot of it with some tidying up of the paint etc. Still pretty tatty but she flies well.



So finally, I've progressed to mouldies!

Springtime

Ah Spring! A time for new thoughts and hence new projects. Here's what I've been working on lately - two new projects. Firstly a new plane (well new for me) actually it's a fairly second hand plane that Ralph gave me. It's a sloper/sailplane made from vacuum-bagged fibreglass over blue foam cores and has a fibreglass fuselage.



As you can see it's a bit shabby and has had crash repairs. It's now called a Redblack to reflect its colours. I'm strengthening the wing by adding a drag spar and also adding two more servos for flaps. This should help to land a bit slower and hence make it flyable around the Mount with it's rocky landing zones. Well that's the theory - we'll see how it goes.

The other project is a spinoff from the Redblack which needs servo covers to protect the servo horns under the wing. Ralph helped me to make up some alloy ones using his jig, but I have also built a vacuum box and tried to make some covers from vacuum formed plastics. The jury is still out on whether this will work, but until I get more suitable plastic sheets, here's the pics of what I've made so far and the box.

She Flies!

Went back for another test on Tuesday with the modified tail and the Flanker flew beautifully! Spent nearly an hour flying off the top of the Mount in about 10kts West and really enjoyed it. Not a fast plane but quite capable and predicable.

Next up I'm going to glue everything back together properly and hook up the rudders again. Not expecting any real knife edge performance, but I feel the need to at least have a go.

Maiden Disappointment

Yesterday, Monday, I tried out the new Flanker slope soarer. After rain for a week it was long overdue for its maiden - but what a disappointment!! Due to (ahem) a design fault it would enter a flat spin and then simply tumble down the ground in most alarming fashion. Yikes! What had I got wrong?

After consultation with Ralph, he suggested moving the tail fins rearward and/or enlarging them.... so this is what it looks like now.



Spot the difference! Doesn't look much like an Su27 Flanker anymore probably looks more like an F18 but will take it out for another try and see what happens. Fingers crossed :-)

Sunday Mount at the Treeline

Spent a cold afternoon up at the treeline above the surfclub on the Mount yesterday with Ralph and John - all planked up. Ralph with his MH64 foil 68", me with the 64" JW and John with his 60" JW. Was light and bumpy most of the day - lighter than forecast - but at least we got a fly.



Here's a few pics I took.


This is John's JW looking strangely surreal over the main beach



John flew my grid for a while and I got this shot.




Here's one looking down on a low pass by Ralph



And Ralph carving up a nice turn

Flanker nearly ready

The new Su27 Flanker is all-but ready for its maiden. Was to have been yesterday, Sunday, but a last minute electrical glitch has postponed the action. Here's a photo of it with all the graphics completed - it won't look any better than this!!



In fact it will probably get tatty pretty fast 'cos I built it light to try knife edge. I still wonder how it will go on its side but might have to replace the fins with something more substanial fairly early in its life.

The maiden won't be today (Monday) due to a shortage of time and the wind is up to around 20kts E so a bit strong to be trying out something new.

Mangere Mountain

On Monday I made my first visit to Mangere Mountain in Auckland. A good 15kts W was forcast and it was certainly cold and windy at the top of the crater when I got there. I was trying to learn Dynamic Soaring with my JW plank. The idea is to fly in circles (blue on the pic) on the backside of the slope with speed increasing with each revolution. The world record is around 400mph - and we're talking gliders here - no motor!!



As you can see on the photo, a red line shows my last attempt at blasting into the dark side in a big dive which ended in a massive crash into the ground at full speed! The thing just wouldn't turn and pull up. These things happen in DS-ing due to rotors and turbulence and all kinds of pilot error - hey, it ain't called the dark side for nothing.

Quite a bit of damage with a broken aileron so had to call it a day. But at least there were nice views to be had over the Manukau Harbour and the rest of the city.

Balsa Banana bites the dust

Went for a fly at the top of the Mount today. It was a beautiful sunny day with a nice 5 - 10kts NW and nice smooth lift. Had a really nice fly with the Balsa Banana - a pod and boom style sailplane with my balsa wing.

Made two good landings and then on my third fly all these bloody paraponters turned up so I decided to let them have the slope to themselves. Unfortunately in my rush to land I got it all horribly wrong, and with an audience of maybe a dozen people I lost it over the back of the crest into the turbulent zone - rotor country - where no sloper should be on landing approach.



Of course I fought it tooth and nail - whipped off the brakes to attempt flying out but silly me still on high rates which I haven't applied any expo (exponential programming of the rate of aileron travel that softens the midpoint of the control stick) I found myself overcorrecting from one extreme to the other (or was it the vicious rotors!) until it ploughed into the hard rocky ground - with a wicked cartwheel for good measure :-(

As you can see from the pic, it snapped the tail boom clean off. Sigh. More repairs required.

On a brighter note, the Su27 Flanker jet is nearing completion and will soon be ready for a maiden. Tally ho for now.

Winter Blues

With winter having us firmly in its grip, there hasn't been any flying lately. But I have been pottering a bit and have managed to complete my fencepost sentry in the form of a Mitsubishi A6 Zero.



The Flanker project is coming along slowly too. I now have the wing wrapped with fibreglass tape and the servos installed and some progress has been made on the tail. This pic shows it sitting outside on the picnic table about a million miles away from summer :-(



And finally for now - some sad news - I have decided to abandon the idea of building a Messerschmidt Me262. After much practical consideration I have decided it would just be too draggy to have such huge engine cowls along with having to land on these engine pods as well. In order to make it look right, it would just compromise performance too much - I'm not into building a plane just for "looks" alone - it also needs to be enjoyable to fly. But I am considering other designs for the future... stay in trim!

Raglan

Went to Raglan on Tuesday after stopping off in Hamilton to let the ladies go shopping for the day. We travelled around the Whanga Coast road to a windswept site overlooking the sea. Ralph just had to try it out and here's a pic of him getting airbourne with the MH64 plank.



He certainly cuts a lonely picture in such bleak terrain.



Later, we went round further to another spot on the coast. To get to the hill we had to cross a stream with only a couple of dodgy logs to walk across - and yes, I slipped off and collapsed into the water. Ferkin cold it was too, but worse, it drowned my camera, so no photos from this spot :-(

But what a great flying site : I had the JW racing around the sky revelling in the strong lift, even pulling up inverted after an aileron roll - yeehaaa! Must go back there again, but we need to find a better way across that stream!

Kaimai Fly

On Sunday, Ralph and I went to Matamata for a fly off the Kaimai Range. Weather was very cold but with a perky 12 - 15kts SW we were assured of some flying after too long beside the fireplace.

We only managed a short fly before a shower came over and forced us back into the Safari for a hot drink. Mmmmmm.




After the rain Ralph spent some time thrashing around the sky with his MH64 plank, before switching to his Patriot plank for some more testing and tuning. This is the fastest, heaviest plank he has built and it certainly retains momentum.



Meanwhile, I was struggling, first with the JART and then my Karwai, both being too light for the conditions and not getting any penetration. A shortage of lead ballast was finally solved when Ralph suggested we tape a pair of pliers (!!!) to the top of the Karwai. That certainly helped, and only a small adjustment of trim enabled me to whiz around at a faster clip.

Here's a closeup of the pliers attached to the fuselage - not pretty but it worked!

Paper Darts

On Sunday, I hooked up with Ralph and Cliff in a cold southerly at the top of the Bowl on the Mount. I was flying the JW plank and enjoying some high speed for a welcome change.



Later on Ralph pulled out his paper dart release contraption and taped it to the underside of Cliff's Fusion. This simple mechanism allows the dart to be carried under the wing and released by simply flying upside down.





After many attempts we ended with a tally of 3 darts making it back over the top of the Mount summit - last seen heading off to Karewa Island. Three more (mostly my designs) plummeted into spiral dives immediately after release :-(

Obviously they weren't in proper trim!

Dark Skies

On Tuesday Ralph and I headed up to the Bowl on the Mount for a spot of ESE @ 15kts. I had the trusty Karwai and after a short flight with only soft lift we decided it wasn't going to be a great afternoon's flying.

It seems that when the temperature is down, the air would rather wrap sideways around the slope than go up and provide lift. So as an alternative we decided to forge a track further round to "Ralph's Rock" a spot he had been to before in easterly conditions. It overlooks the Hot Pools complex but is pretty rugged going to get here.

After much bush-bashing we did make it to the rock and I had a little fly. But conditions were pretty marginal so I tried a very poor landing attempt across the top of the scrub that meant a tortuous rescue attempt to retrieve the plane. As we were getting short on daylight we hurried back through the bush, but it just got darker and darker. Here's a pic I took of the streetlights coming on in the town.


We had a bit of trouble locating our exit point in the darkness and were also under attack from some nocturnal birds (bats?) that were making strange squawk noises. They were dive-bombing us all the way back to the top of the Bowl where we gathered our breath in the darkness. This pic shows just how dark it was and that was only 6pm. Phew, what a way to stay in trim!

No Flying

Not a lot to report this last week - the weather has been so cold I haven't left the heater. Also been did a trip out of town which cut down on flying time available.

So in the absence of a flight report, I thought you might like to see a little more progress on my Su27 Flanker project. Spent most of my time agonising over construction details. As with all prototyping I guess it's worth making sure all the components are going to work together and are carefully packaged to optimise the design.

As you can see from the pics below, I am building the fuselage in two parts, with the wing going thru both. This made it easier to have the long skinny nose (to aid knife edge flight) without having to carve a mountain of foam from one block.

Anyway, here's the progress pics. Next step is adding some spars to the fuse for strength and shaping the wing roots.

Until next time - stay in trim!

CAP over Mt Maunganui

On Thursday I ventured up the Mount with the trusty old Vampire to fly combat air patrol over the coastline. Weather was cold with 15kts WSW forecast and was a bit light when I reached the top but also the big rain squall was moving down the harbour heading towards me. Here's a pic I took of it.

I took shelter under the trees and was chatting to a Polish couple who are now living in Glenorchy (spelt?) in the South Island. Very interesting people - also met a chap from Quebec out here on holiday. The Mount has always got tourists up there enjoying the views.

After the rain passed i was able to get in some flying time - not great conditions - very cold air meant there wasn't as much lift as you'd expect from the windspeed. I was constantly hunting on the elevator trim and struggled to make height for a while.

As 3pm was looming up (had to work at 6pm) decided it was landing time. Tested out the airbrakes up high - not to bad, just a little too much down elevator in the mix still, and brought it in to land into wind along the top after only two passes. What I thought was going to be a perfect landing was ruined by coming down on top of a sharp rock which tore all the underside of the fuselage. Bugger :-(  It's very differcult to watch your plane AND your projected landing zone at the same time. Something Ralph agrees with too - maybe we need to spot for each other at landing time. 

And as promised here's a couple of pics I took at Easter when Doug and I went to the Classic Fighter Airshow in Blenheim at the Omaka aerodrome (grass runways). I think the newly completed Spitfire did it for me - what a beautiful aeroplane.

 

I have lots of video from this trip - must get a short movie together. Cheers everyone. Stay in trim.

Weekend Arrives

No more flying sorties this week. Mostly due to my change of hours at work - I am now doing midnite finishes which is taking a bit of getting used to. Its also been a bit colder which makes it harder to get motivated.

So.......I thought I'd for this post I'd show a couple of pics about whats happening in the hangar. First up is a shot of all my flyable planes gathered together in the lounge.

I've also started building a new plane - a jet which is loosely based on a Russian Su27 Flanker. The idea being to use twin fins with rudders to try and assist flying on its edge (knife edge). This is very hard to achieve without a motor, so gliders are not supposed to be able to fly knife edge. Here are the plans...

I have decided to use my old Fusion (my first kitset plane) wing for this project but it needs a rebuild after all the hits it took from learning to fly!! So here's a shot of some filler on the underside where I broke the spar :-(

And finally for now another pic of the wing with hand made extensions which will increase the wingspan to 60" or 1.5m. It still needs sanding, wrapping with fibreglass tape and covering.

Next post will include a couple of photos from my trip to Omaka at Easter for the Classic Fighters Airshow.

Stay in trim.

Greetings All - Tuesday Arvo Mount sortie

Greetings to all who have landed at this flog (my flying log!)

I decided it would be useful to post up debriefings of my sorties as and when time permits. Hopefully this will allow me to keep in touch a little more with where my time is being spent - both at home in the hanger, and out in the fields thrashing around the skies.

So just to get started, I'm not going to tell you yards and yards of background info  - other than I like slope soaring gliders. You'll learn more about me as we go along with this Flog. And so to today's little sortie up the top of Mt Maunganui.

I spent a couple of hours walking up to the top with a promise of 15+ knots of West as shown in our local Port of Tauranga's website page "Harbour Conditions". Here's an old pic of the page which shows wind strengths, direction and other stuff in yellow - all of this info is updated every two minutes. This is obviously a fantastic resource to have available for free on the internet. Thank you Port of Tauranga!!!

Ok so today was a good "forecast" and I did manage about 30mins flying the Karwai (below) but then the weather became more and more variable. At one moment if was blowing like crazy with big black clouds all over the sky. Then a few minutes later, the skies would clear and the sun would briefly come out and the wind drop off. 

After testing out a couple of landing passes, I managed to land without damage (phew) and removed 100gm of lead ballast from the underbelly of the plane. It was much easier to fly after this but then the wind got real buffetty and way over the back of the Kaimais I could see big rain showers coming. So another good landing - just love my airbrakes now they work properly - and after waiting for a while I decided the conditions were not going to improve and I headed for home. Not the nicest day I've had up the Mount!