By the time you read this the winter will have receded and with it our winter programme. The indoor meetings have turned out to be a great success and we have gained many new members from them. Our series of evening talks by Steve Morris on the safety aspects of our hobby and from Mike Roach on lightweight construction techniques and the use of Litespan were very well received. We hope to hold more of these informal lectures in future. If any of you have ideas for new subjects of interest, please let a committee member know so that we have plenty of time to organise them. For myself, winter flying was very limited, but I have managed to get my secondhand Great Lakes Biplane into flying trim. This turned out to be more of a problem than I first envisaged. I had to completely rebuild the engine for a start. It had been left after its last run without any oil protection, and had corroded badly. After an extensive rebuild it now runs well. The model had been very well constructed but the control linkages were poorly devised and would not pass the Steve Morris scrutiny, so they were remade. New servos and tank completed the job. I had no idea where the cg should be so I did what all good engineers do and had an educated guess!
All this took up most of my spare time over the Christmas holiday. It was some weeks before I was able to get to the flying field. Having arrived at Howard's I inveigled Steve into taking control for the first flight. When the throttle was opened up the little bipe shot into the air inside ten feet and proceeded to climb like a homesick angel with Steve screaming for someone to put in full down trim. So much for my educated guess! Steve finally managed to land the plane still holding in full down elevator, which said more about his ability than my guess of the cg position. In a word, don't guess when it comes to model aerodynamics. If you don't know, find someone who does.
The week before Easter I managed to visit our merry band of slopers on a very nice Sunday afternoon at the picnic site. Now, I have to admit that it's over a year since my last sloping off jolly. My word, how things have changed! The majority of models appeared to be very expensive moulded glass ships, with the odd EPP foamie thrown in for good measure. I only saw one built-up kit model being flown. It was very pleasing to see our club trainer in action for most of the afternoon, with a variety of people having a go under Brian's tutelage. I managed to land halfway down the hill in the bushes and had to stagger down and back to retrieve said model, by which time I was completely out of breath. Having said that, the Synergy is an excellent trainer and a real asset to the club. The obvious conclusion is that our slopers are very fit and very rich. Comments to the editor, please!
By the time you read this, 'Sandown' has come and gone, with it the ritual passing of huge amounts of gold in exchange for new kits and ARTF models by C&DMFC members. The before and after photos appear elsewhere in this edition, so if you were one of the culprits you had better not let Erindoors see this copy of 'Sloping Off'. As usual, Neil, our Social Sec, set the record for the fastest wallet lightening by the purchase of a Sky Cat model within two minutes of passing through Sandown's hallowed portals. The Sky Cat is the latest 'Foamie' from the Multiplex stable and looks like a worthy successor to the Pico Jet, Twin Star and Twin Jet models. By the end of the day they were completely sold out. Our enthusiasm for the aforesaid spending spree was suddenly tempered by the realisation that, with seven people in Trevor's People Mover, there was no room for all the huge boxes we had accumulated. In an effort to preserve the remaining space, I reluctantly decided to forego the 1/4 scale F3A Cap I was about to purchase! Instead, I had to content myself with a very small angle poise lamp. After this very generous gesture on my part I shall expect to be allowed to fly all the new models my fellow travellers purchased! The flying display was probably the best I have seen at Sandown, as the weather was very kind and ideal for flying. One model that impressed was the Ripmax Alienator, which flew very well and, at around £38 ready built, is excellent value.
One of the subjects raised at the last committee meeting was the very poor state of the Stanpit recreation field. The long grass and numerous potholes are making it very difficult to fly anything except hand launch models. The field is so overgrown in places that the holes are not easy to see, which makes walking almost a dangerous occupation. With this in mind, we have asked Trevor to write to Christchurch Council pointing this situation out, in an effort to get something done about it. Don't hold your breath though. Well that's enough waffle from me for the time being, so have a good summer's flying and I hope to see you all soon.