Rob C....
Good looking, highly experienced radio control flyer.
Martin D....
40'ish, middle age spread kicking in. Motto
"You build it, i'll fly it"
UPDATE - Martin prob 50s and gone AWOL
UPDATE 2 - Martin located working in slate mine in Somerset. Due to return 2027
Even though I do everything that is possible to make sure there is no need for me to do building, repairing or maintenance, something always seems to go wrong! I couldn't believe it when on Monday evening I was putting the fuz ballast in and the back of the ballast tube gave way. The ballast just went straight through the back. I dropped a mail to Baudis, got a reply but wasn't really any use. I gave Rob a call but again completely useless. After alot of pontificating about how I was going to fix this without removing the ballast tube I came up with the following method.
I cut a piece of foam that I could squeeze down the tube. I marked a steel rod so I was a able to ensure I would push the foam far enough but not too far. I wanted to create a foam bung as a base for epoxy to create a new solid end
I connected some tubing to a syringe. I had put the tubing in the ballast tube and marked it so I knew when the end of the tube would be resting against the foam bung
The fuselage taped to a dining room chair. Gravity would play an important part in this repair. I mixed up a load of epoxy, filled the syringe with the epoxy and with the tubing balanced on the foam bung , fired it in
I left this overnight. The following day I rammed a steel bar down the tube and miraculously my repair seems to have worked. The end of the ballast tube now has avery solid epoxy bung in the end . Brilliant. Martin
We at SJ's dont like to promote products.. especially when we get F..k all from it! however in deepest darkest Wiltshire we have a gem of shop, a little known place situated just outside the village of Pewsey. Which incidentally has the most common surname of Fookme-relo of any where else in the country. So why on a blog based mainly on flight without power is there lots of pics about helis i hear you ask? Well the answer is simple. QuickUK produces upgrade parts for helis. I.e you buy a bog standard Heli, then you go to QuickUK to buy uber smooth parts for it. They manufacture zero slop parts on site.. for us in the glider world that means ball joints, servo arms, carbon fibre parts that had me spaffing, they know a lot about amp draw, servos and batteries, and are the friendliest bunch too. Budd the shop owner has a lot of patience, just as well when i walk in and ask stupid questions....
This is the ultimate in helis apparently, 12 cell setup and serious power. you think glider servos are powerful? they stick 35kg of Torque servos in this beast!
Lots of helicopters on display as well as the thing below. very complicated piece of kit.
... and a yacht, don't ask me why.
Get to QuickUK, if they have not got it, they will. The shop is well
stocked and all the manufacturing is done on site.... So Budd do i get
my Sab Heli since i plugged your shop?
A weekend in South Wales can mean many things... For Team SJ's it was the chance to put our foot print on the world of F3F, as well as drink a lot!
Leaving the accommodation in Martins hands was never going to be a good thing. At check-in he was sniggering like a school boy, He booked me a disabled room. However i had the last laugh... acres of room, plenty of extra rails to hang shit off and a long bit of string that flashed a red light and made some noise when tugged!
Lots of seriously nice gliders about.. My favourite glider at the event was the Freestylers... dont know what it is about them but they just ooze class. Unlike the Rumpster battered Alliaj which looks like a
chicken caught in a tractors nuts. We made him sit away from us to avoid
embarrassment. You can see him sat next to the cars if you look
carefully.
Rwyt ti'n esgys fach pathetic am dyn
Night life in Bridgend is something you wont forget in a hurry.. Martin has a nice bit of film footage caught from his hotel window of the nocturnal activities of the locals, as well as pics. This is a pic early in the night... it got a lot worse.
Adam sat in foreground.. the reversal king! had his Vampire whistling.
Seriously spafftastic.
Base A.. or B, One or the other.
Normal Welsh weather kicked in on Sunday. I did one of the last runs before the comp was brought to an end, also achieved my quickest time 47 seconds. Discounted due to rain! Cloud base dropped very quickly, lots of gliders disappearing at times in the low clag!
Rumster giving the Bobster some valuable advice. We quickly discovered that the best thing to do was to ignore his valuable advice "go heavy.. go light.. full reversal.. EM turn" Our times increased when we did our own thing. Sacked as team strategist.
We liked the Muller Elita, very different looking fantastic build quality and just weird. Seemed to defy the laws of physics on the turns too. Would love a V-tailed version for some reason.
A quick flavour of the weekend, apologise as i have no idea who is flying... Turn up Very Very loud, this will scare the children and you probably ought to get the cats out!
A fantastic experience, lots of very friendly people and lots of advice. Seriously good flying too.
The results speak for themselves. Rumpster a seasoned veteran came 22nd. My first comp ever.. 37th. Martin really surpassed himself, the useless waste of blood and bones. LAST!
We went , We tried but we definitely didn't conquer
It was rain of the type I like to call 'Pissy piss', it was still dark and I was about to spend 2 hours in the car with that Wally. Not the greatest of starts
We arrived and as with the other competitors set up camp. Sportbrollies are a must when you are stood on top of a mountain for 9 hours.
Probably could have done with some Portaloos. Rumpster disappeared into the woods at one point with some wetwipes. He has now been renamed the DUMPster, dirty ba$t...
There were smart and super smart gliders everywhere. If carbonfibre gets you going , this was the place to be
Dumpster and Rob walking past the safety line. Dave's best time over the weekend was 39 seconds. This is an average speed of 60mph if 1 kilometre was travelled, bearing in mind there are 9 turns and Dave goes 20 yards past either end he probably touched speeds of over 90mph
Scott RavenSCOTT. Both Scott and Bobby stand out as legends. Can't fly for toffee but great fun to be around. We think Scott might be a farmer because every time we saw him he said ''I've got a brand new combine harvester!'
The last half hour of the last Day. The dishing out of the prizes. Couldn't even win a cularis in the raffle.. In summary the weekend was hard but very good fun. Everybody there was great. We realised that although decent club fliers, this was a different kettle of fish. We need to get practising and try and do something better next year, than walkaway with the wooden spoon Now for the Video, as usual turn the volume up, HD it and enjoy
Quick update on the iPhone.. Well you will pleased to know that me and martin are consistent... Consistently at the back end of the group! The Rumster won a round which might help us out a little!
There are 2 more days to go and we can only get better hopefully. Martin has successfully booked us into a shithole, we even found a used pregnancy kit on the road outside!
Somebody told Robert that if you polish the wings of a moulded glider you can produce a shine that will reduce the drag co efficient of the wing. The science behind this is the super smooth surface created by polish will create a low friction surface that will make the wings more slippery and faster as the air disturbance is less. In 2004 in Australia 2 acacia's were raced . These were flown by the same pilot on the same course. One acacia had the surfaces scratched up with sand paper and the other was ''Mr Sheen'ed'' to within an inch of its life. The results were staggering, each run the ''Mr Sheen'ed'' acacia was quickest and when the mathematics were done it was summarised that the Mr Sheen'ed glider was an average of 3.6% quicker. To put this into context on a 45 second run you could potentially be 1.6 seconds faster. Its worth having!!
This one's for THE THURNHAM MASSIVE. Calm down boys. Rob with Spaff rag in hand making sure the Rotty has the best possible chance with one last buff
Rumpster with the needle wing. I have concerns that could be his CF , still if it works then Happy Days.
Me. The brains and only sensible one in the operation. I think the shiny wing theory is a load of poop, but with my ability I need every bit of help I can get.
After major discussion and numerous text messages, Alton Barnes (Knapp Hill for the anally retentive) was the hill of choice. Southerly wind veering by early afternoon to a SSW meant that all 280 meters of it above sea level would help keep our little ballistic missiles afloat! Martin and Myself needed the opportunity to fine tune the gliders for the forth coming competition. But as soon as we got there all the other selfish fliers turned up to steal our air space.... So not a lot of practise was done as there is nothing more dull then watching a glider go back and forth along a slope Dave.
Malcolm was the first of the upstarts to spoil our practise. With 4X4 full of gliders he was set for the day.
Richard not quite grasped the concept of slope soaring, and where the lift might be.....
"Its my precious.. has anyone got a spare spaff rag? My pink nose needs a buffing"
Fly you bastard
This seriously needs to be turned up very loud.. make sure you have full screen and on HD.
Well not a lot of practise, however 2 very strange things happened. Firstly My Viking2 F3B which i have not flown in 6 months, goes like the clappers! Really enjoyed flying it, secondly Martins FOSA looked very very good, he was even making a decent job of the corners much to his own surprise!
With less than a week to go before the Welsh Open, the SJ's F3F team will spend the day tuning planes tomorrow some where windy...I will get the Viking out to check it still flies, Martin will try and make his Fosa go round corners quicker than a canal boat, and Dave will probably play tennis, thats dedication to the SJ's team for you!
WhiteShit, Roundshit or Alton Barnes Shite, which hill to fly?
Rob
PS, SJ's plans a trip to Dorset to "Bust The Door" This will be done FPV style, or with GPS equipped quads. Anyone own a boat we can borrow?
Sunday 2nd September Winter has arrived, the sun has disappeared along with all of local modelling fraternity. There was only myself, Roberto and Mark for 90% of the day with a late appearance by Malc. A lack of people, a lack of photo's but no lack of fun and horseplay. Here's the vid, you know the score....
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