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!