Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
Sloping Off - our newsletter

Wild Thing by Tony Harris

Last month’s meeting showing the excellent standard of our past magazines prompted me to think about recording a near deadly incident. I only now see the funny side of it, prompted by the great cartoons on the cover of those early previous issues of Sloping Off.

I'm on Ringstead slope, on a very blowy September day. There's a few other hard case flyers there. Among them that Club treasure Mr Brian Brockway.

My "Wildthing" is performing wonderfully.  Suddenly, I lose its orientation. Iffy eyesight, an ageing brain and a very bad knee (which is about to be totally replaced in the next few days) is my excuse. 

The Wildthing is going in - vertically: down, down, out of sight below the ridge. I haven't seen it begin to pull out to my desperate commands. I fly it on in my mind’s eye out of sight then guess I’ve gently put it down not too far off. What else is there to do at such a moment of blissful joy?

The late summer grass is luxuriant. Growing on the steep south facing sunny slope; it cover all sorts of dangers.

Brian B was with me conducting a search of the lower slope which includes some 2m high gorse patches pushing up through the 0.7m to 1.0m high grasses. 

Noticing my difficulty is climbing down the N slope face,  he was saying " there are lots of hidden steps totally concealed by this tall slippery grass." Yes there were! 

To climb down I had to hold onto tall grasses above me, at chest height and let myself down one leg at a time. As well as concrete steps, I also found large deep big dustbin size holes.

Let my self down did I say? Yes - big time! You guessed it!

I slip and go head first into a hole. Its just shoulder and hips wide, my head at the bottom: hips not quite emerging from the top of the bin. I say Oh! or words to that effect.....but there's not even a mole to listen to me. Brian was quite some distance off on his second broad sweep search. I'm alone marooned and desperate. 

I'm stuck, legs vertically up.

Worse even:  I find I'm trapped. 

After a couple of minutes/ages, I try twisting and gyrating my vertical body around so my knees bend downhill and just touching the lower slope with my heels, I can just get some push upward. Another 30 secs and I'm out; shaken and definitely stirred.

I'm telling you all about my folly in the hope that this will not happen to you.  We really must have someone with us down these hillsides.

A similar incident was reported in BMFA September issue. Someone, again of a certain age, flying his pride and joy a 4m Alpina I think, suddenly lost slope lift and too low and slow to land atop with his buddies he sets off down the rocky face, TX in hand.

All lift now disappears from the rock cliff face and he looks despairingly at the rock-strewn beach and his Alpina. There's almost no landing area. He walked and climbed down, just crunching his glider on rocks at beach level below. Only to find he can't safely climb back.  His mates thought he'd gone off to base! Somehow he emerged in time for supper with his glider repairable. 

So these things can happen near to home too. Beware all: we're precious china.

BUT! As for the Ringstead incident, there is good and bad news. The good news: Brian has my transmitter and returns toward one of the tall gorse patches.

"Where is your signal strength meter or range check on the Taranis?" he asks. Switching on the Tx, the Taranis with its most common X series receiver shows a returned signal strength and this coupled with a voice of "low or critical signal level" warning is a must.  I always have it set to On. With a few moments of discussion and our bodies shielding a lot of 2.4Mhz signal we triangulate where the Wildthing is. Brian dives deep into the gorse bank in his flysuit Thorn proof I hope: and emerges with the model.

Well done Brian, probably an hour of his flying day has been spent sorting my error. Thank you Brian.

We should do a demo at the Club Tuesday session in the car park on how to find a lost hidden model using this method. 

The bad news: the vertical dive into 2m high established gorse tore 5" long 1" wide tears through the thin ply covering and structurally shattered the foam cores. I'm not sure it'll fly again. 

Tony Harris