Octo-Quad-Zilla.. Sperm Circles

Just to try and knock down Marty's effort below which he won't shut up about... This is my works Octo i built doing some filming over some crop circles made to look like sperm (well that's what i think) This is a beast of an Octo, full 360 pan and tilt gimbal with a 4 kg payload. Filming the filming with a Gopro 2 looking at a Canon XF105 camera. I had to FPV it over the corn which was about 200 meters away to the circle. Some great results, particularly when slowed down. The XF105 is a monster of a camera.


I've dumped the under carriage, 700gr of extra weight to carry around, weight is flying time... i now land in the doughnut!

Early call.... SJ's is going to Zummerzet on Sunday for electric winching fun! Pete has promised us a BBQ, Beers and be-atches.. not sure what he's on about!

Rob

Roundway Saturday

The Sun was out, the skies were blue, there wasn't a cloud to spoil the view so we all went to Roundway, stood at the end of the peninsula and had a good day

Picture Taken from Quad Saturday 28th July

Above... A view from left side from behind the flight line, you will see the usual suspects keep everything tidy. To the right .. a view from the 'new recruits' end of the slope, we still have a little work to do in educating these lot how to park their gliders




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This is Janek. We weren't sure of the reason he always walks stooped when in the landing zone. Having now seen Craig, Phil and Pete's flying it may be a tactic I employ if we are to be graced with their company in the future

The Rotmilan flying over head. This is still the second nicest looking Glider that frequents our local haunts.

Upside down past the flight line from the Skorp. This glider maybe 7 years old but it still does exactly what it should do even with a camera on one wing and a lump of lead on the other.

Janek launching Petes Predator 3 at the ground, fortunately it missed, first time I have seen one of these, it looks nice.
Pete is the guy that now has my ASW17. So far the scorecard for the ASW17 goes launches 1, landings nil. It now needs some TLC. I have a feeling he is a bit of a hooligan.




Now for the vid. There was too much footage to squeeze into 4 mins, anyway turn the volume up, HD it and enjoy.





Martin

whad dooeedo inyer spur tyme thun?

We at SlopeJunkies Central Offices, got an email from our Somerset affiliated branch of SJ's, after taking an hour to try and decipher the Zummerzet language we found this gem of a vid!

Pete the Strega (known for the interesting ways in which he crashes his Strega) had a legendary day single handed winching his glider. His mate Ollie who is "priddy keen on vitograffee" put the vid together.



I've been looking for the "drunken" effect on Imovie all day, but i have now been informed that the camera man was actually drunk!

Fantastic video, SJ's Zummer Tour will visit the site for some serious fun in the not to distant future!

Rob

Electric Saturday....

Just because there is no wind does not mean that we don't go flying. We spent the afternoon at SJ's secret flat field location and had a monumental session.....

This is the reason we got kicked off the last SJ's secret flat field location. Martin and his desire to mark everything. Seriously don't ever invite him around.









 What happens when you trail 4 meters of aerial off the back of your FPV model? you get it tangled on something which causes a crash!










This is Slater, were not sure if thats Mr, or just Slater. However he owns most of Market Lavington and gave us permission to fly. Had a very nice little built up electric which unfortunately had a landing incident (see vid)





Below is only a taster of what happened, we have loads of footage which we will put together later... Anyways get the beer out, get the  BBQ started turn volume up to 11 and watch!

This is the large floppy wing glider. Takes an hour to put together, has a prop on it the that any wind farm would be proud of and is as ugly as sin, however..... this is the greatest flat field electric glider i have ever seen!!! Seriously stable even with a camera on the wing. Hooks thermals very easily and is up in the clouds before you know it, you can see it from miles away too. Martin might sell this, if i had the money i would buy it....... Hero of the day.

Rob

LOST QUAD

Can any of you help this guy out ???.

My  Xaircraft 650  . 

As a quad flyer I  understand how easy it is to lose orientation on something that is small and looks the same from each side once its more than 50 yards away. Once you add the value of the airframe, receiver ( unless its one of Robs 1970's 35mhz steam powered things), flight controller and Go pro etc etc together this little thing starts to become quite expensive, and not something you want to see disappearing into the distance, wondering which stick you should pull and in what direction to get it back

I have just bought and am now waiting for delivery of this gadget. It should plug directly into my DJI NAZA flight controller. It is the DJI Naza GPS system. It has several functions I will be able to use, but the 2 most impressive ones are a ''hover hold'' and ''Return to home''.  ''Hover Hold'' at the flick of a switch halts the quad in its tracks, it will keep its altitude , orientation and positional direction held rock steady. This will be ideal for filming . ''Return To Home'' at the flick of a switch will lift the quad 20 metres from wherever it is, it will return to the spot directly above where it took off, and then drop down to a super smooth landing.




Watch the video below. This guy is demonstrating the capabilities of the NAZA GPS system with the ''hover hold'' and ''return to home functions''. This is amazing technology with remarkable functionality, that will act as an insurance policy at a very affordable price







Martin

FPV Heaven and Back... Thankfully!

Get the Kids to bed, turn the TV down, and turn the volume up to 11!! A little fun on Sunday eve. Thankfully Martin's eye sight is good as my spotter, the rest of him is falling apart mind! A little bouncy at low level, this is prob the low speed trying to conserve battery life.

Rob

Turned out pretty good

Sunday 15 July


Took the decision to get on over to Roundway, a little more north in the wind would have seen us at Westbury for the afternoon but no such luck. It turned out 'pretty good'. Stars of the day turned out to be Robs newly acquired electric Blaze, Rob by name, rob by nature. The other star turned out to be my quad, armed with the DJ Naza board it fought the wind to get some pretty good footage for the Video.

The recently 'robbed'  blaze . Beware...If you manage to take advantage of somebody and talk them into giving you (reluctantly) their glider, you to could end up with a 'stupid expression' stuck on you face!!

2 Willows, A big sting and a typhoon. One of those 2 willows a couple of weeks ago was launched FREE FLIGHT. Ian Mason would be proud of his design. It did 1 very nice circuit before a not so very nice circuit and then a fairly heavy landing ( more of a thump into the side) but no significant damage.

The X650 quad with Naza board.
This along with my superb piloting skills fought the wind and turbulence to take some very good footage.
No need for 8 motors , GPS hold and Gimbles etc etc








The Rotmilan cruising past the wrong way round again, yawn yawn

Above Geoff and Rob try to program the Trinity. On the right the manual is out and still Geoff and Rob try to program the Trinity. My advice to you Geoff is stop seeking help from Robert and ask the Grand kids!!













Now for the video, full volume, big screen, HD it and look out for Quad footage











Martin

Remember this!

See a couple of posts down how Martin managed to smash this blaze up last Sunday with a crappy launch... it was abandoned on the hill, i felt sorry for it and took it home.









 Add a shit load of Gorilla Glue, bit of patience, some black paint and you get this..............

Just test flown, it go’s great! very fast and agile... bit like me really! Next stage is to beef it all up for some serious aerobatics. Will add weight, but worth it, very pleased.

Rob

FOSA IS READY

Today I received pictures of my new Baudis Fosa . Tomorrow I transfer a bucket load of euros to Jiri Baudis but I reckon its worth every one of them

God knows how these ugly pieces of carbon cloth and molds turn into 2 beautiful wings

The fuselage.  This will arrive ready to go minus the receiver. I am looking forward to seeing how that little dumpy battery will work. The 'Rumpster' swears by them. He said something about its has less amps but the ones it does have are more reliable or something... I am an eneloop man so looking forward to seeing which I prefer
Have you ever seen a servo tray like that one?

Lining up the RDS before putting in. I remember spending 4 long evenings trying to get the RDS into the Tanga. Possibly the most tedious / soul destroying thing I have ever done apart from sitting in the car with ROB for 2 hours driving to the BWLCH, that particular journey ended with me having to spend an hour on the telephone to the samaritans

This is the Tailplane coming out of the molds. Still frazzles my brain how this actually works and comes out looking so god damn pretty

This is the guy that built this glider and did the install. He looks like a bit of a character. I keep having a vision of him slumped outside of a bar after drinking gallons of potato vodka  once the money transfer clears and if he does, good luck to him. He deserves it.






















With any luck the Fosa should be with me by the end of the week. All I have to do is put a receiver and switch in and that it .....A maiden


Martin

Aerial Warfare at WESTBURY!

From Northerly first thing, round to a North Westerly late in the day this slope works. A mixed bag.. Pretty much flew everything that could be flown from Quads, Electric Foamies, Mouldies, Wings and some things that ought not to of been flown! Shared the hill with the Paras.. not so bad, they know when to stay clear, especially when a half ballasted Rotmilan F3B/Tanga is blasting around.

Some people bring a car up the slope... Not Geoff he brings the hanger!!!  Nice lines on that Willow, not so nice on that arse.

This is Geoff on the right, Geoff looks after his pet below... Get your filthy paws of that trinity, and stop shitting every where!
 

 Check me out! Notice that cool calm air about me... Thankfully Graham was reading out my height, distance, power consumed, direction everything apart from looking at the dam FPV plane as my spotter!

 This is the result of letting Martin launch your glider... Nick, make sure you never let Martin forget this, because i wont! More in the video.....

Because of Martins crappy launch downwind resulting in a crash, we gave him a wind sock so he could get it right! I took 3 pictures just in case he did not.......

Gay dogging paragliders. We over heard them discussing the "rusty trombone" technique.. no idea what that is.... No Colin today unfortunately to dampen down the crowd.

We said "land next to the horse" not fly right up its arse! Chris paying particular attention not to get kicked in the knackers.

A happy bunch of pilgrims, these guys had every type of glider under the Sun, some flew better than others. That lad on the left is a master stunt pilot featured in the last copy of the BMFA mag. Incidently when do they come out? i never seem to get it!





Turn volume up to max and chuck the Mrs out....



Rob

ASW 17

ASW 17 is now for Sale


Here is a quick video of the ASW17 flying this afternoon. There is some good onboard footage of the recently painted Westbury White horse and watch out for one of the worst launches of all time.


This glider is not pretty but never fails to fly super smoothy....


Robert is cracking on with the usual summary of the day. He has stacks of footage and this one will be one not to be missed, even he won't be able to fluff this one up!




Martin

Balls to the rain....

April showers have lived up to its name.. so much so that they decided to stretch to May, June and July! However we will commit remote aviation on Sunday morning!  Westbury there may be a chance... So time to prepare, charge those gliders, transmitters. Get the excuses in early to the Mrs..  I shall be there as soon as the mist clears. Planning to test my FPV gear I've fiddling with, going for serious distance and height. Wont publicise as the CAA may bust my little ass! Also interested in close proximity glider chasing. Anybody want a blast at FPV... Sunday morning!

Rob

PS. Martin do you mind not coming. Thanks

Care in the community...

 Once in while we like to go out and impart are valuable knowledge to the masses.. think of it as "outreach work" so on a quite evening i went to Geoff's place.. Geoff has been featured in one or two movies, his last appearance was with his Baudis Trinity being very badly out of trim. Geoff has been RC'ing it for yonks so i was interested to see what was stuffed in his cupboard...


Geoff has a relatively small garden... this is the reason! bloody great long hanger!!!

This is whats in it.. amongst other things! A Blue Air lines Ash 26, 5 meter virtually finished. This is perfectly proportioned and stiff as a priest in a brothel. Just to prove this point, what would you do to test the strength of your 5 meter Blue Airlines Ash 26?     YOU DS IT!!

Minimoa waiting a refurb. This is 1/4 scale and looks great!

A load of junk in the corner... including a Baudis Banana, Trinity.... Oh and a third scale all moulded carbon Pilatus!!!!

Seriously braced inside for strength, massive carbon joiner and nice scale cockpit. Geoff you need to get this in the air! I also found a Thermik XXL fantastic mouldie lurking under the drum kit.

Where do planes and gliders go when the die (apart from the Hudds house) Geoff's attic!!

The priority is to get the ASH flying, should take a couple of hours of programming, then the mighty Pilatus must be flown, then theres the Moa, then all the 1/4 scale stuff, then .......... i need a drink.


That concludes this week's Outreach work. Next week Martin goes to Grahams house to give advice on the intricacies of vacuum bagging, as well as a video demonstration on the holding abilities of super glue on his lips (not grahams)... I cant wait.

Rob