CHRISTCHURCH AND DISTRICT MODEL FLYING CLUB

55 YEARS OF MODEL FLYING
BMFA  AFFILIATION NUMBER 2581

Barton Cliff Slope Site

Only Gliders or Electric assist Gliders to operate here. There is public access to the whole area. Please take care!

After parking your vehicle take your model and radio equipment to the front without switching on.

The Flight Line at this site is the cliff edge.  Please announce “Launching” and guide model out and away from the cliff edge.

There is to be no combat flying or intentional mid air dog fights.

When ready, observe the field and when clear call “Landing” and make an approach over the grass but land in the middle of field, not into other flyers or the model pound area.

Flying over the houses or road is forbidden.

Photo by Colin Murray, context by Trevor Hewson, below

The best place to fly from is opposite Marine Drive West, more or less directly in front of the Waters  Edge guest house. If there’s no parking available along there it  generally means that it’s too busy to fly there safely. The air on the  top of the cliff is turbulent. In the 35MHz days, the pennant on the top of the transmitter aerial was a good guide - it was quite common to be  flying there with the pennant pointing straight out to sea!

It should go without saying that going anywhere near the road is a complete no-no but beware, it’s all to easy to be sucked back there. The turbulence also means that picking a precise landing spot is usually  impossible so don’t attempt it if there are people walking through -  having a spotter helps a lot. The paragliders launch from the east side  of the shops so you get plenty of time to see them coming. Wave them  through when it is safe to do so.

Having said all that, the lift is usually very smooth and reliable. Just as  well, because you really don’t want to have to retrieve from the bushes, mud and crumbling cliff below. That part of the undercliff has been closed for safety reasons for many years but the helicopter still gets called out a few times every year to pull people out from the mud or rescue them after they’ve broken an ankle. As far as I know, it hasn’t  been called out for any C&DMFC members but there’s no prize for being the first! I will give a prize though for the first person to  persuade a seagull to perform a full roll.

Cheers, Trevor