Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
Sloping Off - our newsletter

The beginning of the end, by Wise Brianman

I have only managed to get to Beaulieu about twice a month so I do not get much flying now. I take the Aero Wot which is a wonderful flyer. Graceful and easy to fly. It will do most of the aerobatics I am capable of. It has done nearly 70 flights and I have explored the envelope as they say so it is getting a bit boring. Ian Hammond who comes out to the flight line with me now to stop me doing daft things has bought an F15. Eagle made by Freewing. It is not too large and being an EDF jet looks to be a real handful to fly but Ian says it is not too bad. The span is 38 inches but the length is 54 inches so when it gets far away I find it hard to see and it goes very fast so it soon gets away from the pilot. Ian is a very good all round pilot one of the best at Beaulieu, where we have some champion pilots. He can fly anything and test fly anything he has won competitions flying his between the wars bi-planes He is one of the few who could handle such a plane. It does look good in the air.

Ian says that here are 13 servos in the plane. There is an air brake which rises out of the fuselage and the undercarriage is a wonder to behold. When he activates it the doors open the wheels come down and for the front wheel the door closes again. To put them up the front door opens up go all the wheels and the doors close. It must have been a great job working out how to do that . I offered to fly the plane for him but he said that he only had one pair of trousers at the airfield so I could not fly it. I cannot understand the connection but it his plane.

I am flying the Cessna Grand Tourer. It is another rather sedate plane but it flies well not made for aerobatics but it has a retracting undercarriage.  What surprised me is that I am still landing well. I have not flown in a high wind lately and these foam planes    do not like a wind but in fairly calm conditions I expected that I would by now have a job to get them down but not so.

I have just purchased a Phoenix Simulator. It has about 100 planes plus gliders and helicopters. It is great fun and good for keeping the reflexes going. It has many different programmes and it is possible to  increase the size of the models so I have a flying fortress which is 8 metres times two almost like the real thing. It  is possible to fly from a chaser plane or  the cockpit but so far I have not got that part working.

I have just  bought an E Flight Sukhoi 29 mm Gen 2 44 inch wingspan (...to stop me doing daft things...Ed)  I have just taken it out of the box. I hope it will be a bit more of a challenge than the Acro. It is a nice looking plane but a bit small. The first thing I noticed was that the plug for the battery was a blue one like nothing I have ever seen  My batteries all have yellow plugs. When I am Prime minister I shall lock all the battery manufacturers in the Tower of London and only let them out when they have agreed to use only one plug on all their batteries. Whether not I am still man enough to fly the Sukhoi we will   have to see.

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a less  windy  2017.

Brian Wiseman.