Our winter weather has continued unabated and flying has been severely restricted. This appears to becoming the norm, as it is a similar pattern to last year. Howard's has been flooded for weeks and some members have taken to flying float planes there. Kings Park and Stanpit have survived a little better, although they were very muddy at times. The above makes the growing interest in indoor flying more important, and the search for alternative flying venues even more urgent. We have investigated several new places recently but none have been suitable either from a cost or size point of view.
During the weather-enforced flying inactivity I have finished making a new cowling for my Great Lakes biplane which took longer than refurbishing the plane. The house had the aroma of polyester resin around for days and I got it in the neck from Erin doors again. I also re-covered my IFO which had laid around looking very sorry for itself for months. Perhaps the weather-enforced lack of flying has some good points after all. I also started a new secret project, can't tell you as it wouldn't be secret any more.
22-11-02. Oakmead Indoor Meeting. We had a good attendance. Someone with a video camera recorded my flying antics . Bad enough, but to put my And-Now's demise against the wall on the club web site was a bit over the top. Obviously he has no respect for his elders? I will have to see about raising his subs. (It was visiting flyer Rob Ashley, so he did pay £5 for the privilege! - Ed)
5-1-03. Kings Park. Had a nice morning's flying with the usual crowd at Kings Park. I hadn't flown outdoors for over a month and it showed. Flying inverted and pulled in up elevator by mistake which resulted in the lowest possible pull through, missing terra-firma by no more then 6". This necessitated my early departure as I had no spare trousers with me.
12-1-03. Kings Park on Sunday Another good flying session but somewhat compromised by two non club members attempting to fly one of the Hobby store 27MHz 'Toy' aeroplanes. The result of this was one of these 'toys' ended up disappearing over the houses, never to be seen again. Incidents like this could have serious consequences for bona-fide club flyers, as Councils do not need many excuses to close flying sites. It is to be hoped that the 'Toy' did no damage when it's flight ended and whoever found it looked on it as a bonus and not something to complain to the council about. I have to say that these miniature aircraft, for this is how the CAA look upon all model aircraft, do pose an increasing threat to our hobby. I wonder if those traders selling them have considered the consequences that lost flying sites will eventually do to their livelihoods. I would also make the point the any club member owning one of these models still requires a club certificate to fly alone.
24/1/03 Oakmead Indoor meeting. This meeting had a smaller attendance than usual with only eleven flyers participating, although there were the usual non flyers in attendance. Trevor used some new Lithium-Ion batteries which are about to transform indoor and park flying. I won't steal his thunder here as I'm sure an article regarding them is on it's way from him. I had a good session until I managed to entangle the landing gear of my IFO in some side netting, about five meters up. After some futile attempts to disentangle it I finally managed to retrieve it by snapping of the Carbon fibre undercarriage leg. Ho-Hum, such is the lot of the model flyer.