Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
Sloping Off - our newsletter

Blow blow thou winter wind, thou art so unkind, by Brian Wiseman

I know it does not rhyme properly, but it was written by that chap Shakespeare (but see below – Ed). I told you about him last time. Because of the weather in December I have not been able to get to Beaulieu to fly and have had a few flights in the local sports field. For those of you who have not been there, it is two football pitches side by side.  Standing in  the goalmouth of the first pitch about 40 yards behind you is a tall clump of trees growing on a tall bank the tops must be over 40 feet high. Behind then is a car park then the road. Do not fly there.

The other end of the pitch is protected by another clump of trees. Beyond that is another football pitch. To the right of the second pitch is another bank of trees. So we are surrounded on three sides by trees. The fourth side on my left is the entrance and the club house. The trees are there to protect the pitches from the wind which would make then unplayable without protection. The wind usually blows from the comer flag on my left across the pitch to the opposite corner flag at the other end.

Enough geography.  The grass is cut for a football pitch not a bowling green I put larger wheels on my planes and they do alright. If you have a plane which needs a long take off you will have trouble. I fly three planes in there. The Aero Wot, the Wot 4 and the beloved Extra 300. I take them off from the goalmouth which has no grass. You need to get them up in about ten yards before the wheels get caught in the grass. I had the Extra 300. It was quite windy I did not have an anemometer but it would have been around 10 to 15 mph I guess.  The plane flies well in the wind and so we got along well. Shall I try a tumble where it loops in its own length, was it too windy to keep control? I was tempted. I am told the only thing to do with temptation is to yield to it so I did. I put it up high into the wind and put the nose down and it looped it went downwind across the pitches quickly and I managed to hold it up quite well. Then it got so low that I needed to get it out of the manoeuvre, a gust of wind came and took it away. Remember that it was looping nearly out of control with the rates set at maximum. I tried to get it to face the wind but it would not whenever the nose tipped up into the wind away it went, heading for the trees on my right.

Somehow I managed to get it to about 30 feet and then in it went. It is mendable but worse was to follow.

A few days later I took the Acro Wot out for a fly .Little wind, 5 mph at most. I had   a good flight, changed the battery and took off again. I was hanging about quite high when a terrific wind arose. How fast I cannot say but the Acro will fly at least 50 mph on a calm day. I put it into wind opened the throttle and it flew at walking speed. The slightest bit of up gave it a loop and the slightest bit of down sent it earthwards at an alarming rate. We get these winds at Barton and they usually last a few minutes so I kept it up under control in the hope that it would go away. It did not. It started to rain so I knew I had to get it down. When I left the shelter of the trees and went into the field I could hardly walk into it. I tried to bring the plane close to me to get some shelter from the trees but it did not work. The trees  were bending nearly in half as I hovered it down to about ten feet and then it must have got caught in a ground swirl because it came down with a thump. The ground was saturated so although it went in nose first, neither the prop nor the spinner were damaged and the motor works. The wing came off and the undercarriage for some reason but it was not difficult to mend I reckon I got away with it well.

(Shakespeare’s poem actually says the opposite: “Blow blow thou winter wind, /thou are not so unkind /as man’s ingratitude” Wise Brianman is right about the rhyme though. What was he thinking? – Ed)

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