Cutting edge... 50s design.

 We at SJ's like to showcase the latest in slope racing porn, the good and the bad with honest feedback not marred by sponsors, well that's if we had any sponsors!

 This week Dave had the opportunity to bring his latest piece of carbon fire porn to the slope. We gathered around the car in anticipation...

 

 

 

Now i dont know about you but that is the ugliest thing i have ever seen, not helped by the orange and yellow glider in the pic! No seriously, where is the nose? it needs a nose, noses are important right? its somewhere to keep your bogies, its where the old Colombian marching powder goes up. ITS WHERE YOU PUT THE WEIGHT TO GET THE C of G RIGHT!!! obviously in the design phase of this glider they thought, balls to the nose lets concentrate on the really long fuselage and tiny rudder. Dave had to get inventive with the weight and add around 2 tonnes worth of lead in the front.

Pete above trying to look vaguely interested.. Look at that tail, this was conceived in the 50s for free flight and to be honest probably never should have had RC installed. It only gets angry when you try and control it!

 I got some stick for buying a 50s glider, mine has the nose any french man would be proud of. The plus side is it requires little weight up front and actually flies really nicely. Dave thinks mine is the ugliest thing ever however i challenge him on this. 

 

 Check out my Marauder below, shes gorgeous! She has an all moving rudder, very important as we found out on Daves maiden.

 

 

 

 

Daves Maiden was recorded by Pete, he did an exceptional job. Note the anxiety in Daves voice. The slight concern for the safety of our fellow humans walking the slope.

 

 

 A brilliant effort by the glider, Dave was shit!

 

 FIX IT AND FLY IT!

We have a new section! Down the right hand side, our experience of bodging and flying. I originally wanted to call it 'bodge it and flog it' however Dumpster-Rumpster Dave said i might upset people, so changed it appropriately. Dont want to upset the WOKE fairy brigade. So if you have an epic repair that you want to share, send it over to me! robscoles1@gmail.com.

 

 

 Most amazing news.. really, i mean it!

I wanted another Acacia, not because Rumpster Daves gone all old school and bought a Tragi F3F (which looks more like an F3J) its because out of all the standard F3F designs we see, the Acacia is truly unique. It has one of the most graceful fuselage designs ever, its got all the curves in the right places. If you like them Twiggy thin, this is all well and good however its hard to get your fingers inside, hard to work with, mostly bad tempered and always getting sick! Now for me i like a little more junk in my trunk, The Acacia fuz is this.. 

Anyways... I GOT IT! Martins old Acacia 1 is finally mine.. its come home at last and what a beauty it is. Martin sold it to a lovely bloke called Richard (featured a few times in the past) He has not flown it in a year or two and agreed to sell it to me... He also has Martins old Skorpian too. Martins review of this very Acacia stage left.

 Just look at it! couple of little dings but pretty much perfect. Gotta be 25 years old at least! Richard has done her proud and fitted a load of MKS wing servos too.

The Acacia just looks good, it looks mean. Its one of those machines like Concorde that will never be designed again, came from an era of pots of money, plenty of oil, and before the birth of Greta Thunberg. You remember they banned turbos in F1 cars in the 80s because the engines were getting to powerful? this is the glider equivalent. Like banning group B rally cars, the Acacia is the Ford RS200 hopefully this one will kill less spectators.

This Acacia is built like a brick shit house too, it needed to be in Martins and Richards care, shes a hefty bird weighing at 2.6kgs. With provision for ballast through the wing top. I would say ahead of its time with the short nose and wing ballast!

The acacia 2 had fuz ballast and more of a pylon style connection to the wing as i found out after i bought a brand new Acacia 2 fuz... they aint compatible FFS!

I mean just look at it....  ⇧⇧⇧.... Anyways shes ready to fly once we get a decent wind ill do an old school SJ's vid and who knows i might try a couple of rounds with her in f3f! 

Its a nose Gérard Depardieu would be proud of and one Kate Moss could put to use with the old Colombian marching powder!

Difference between A1 & A2, same wings, but wing now mounted on a pylon. Longer nose and bigger tail. I prefer the cleaner lines of the 1. I need to get rid of this 2 fuz i bought thinking it would fit.. DOH

This is the legend that is Richard whos been caring for my precious over the last 10 years. He also has Martins Skorpian which is in immaculate condition too.

YOYOYOYO.. ive been doing lots of flying recently so will try and make some sort of supreme effort on keeping this page updated. Also news about Martin! he has been found, and now works mining slate in a pit in Somerset. He is planning his big return in 2 years time. Now thats planning for you!

I have been forced to fly with Dave Rumpster Rumble. Which has its +'s and -'s. One of which just slightly out weighs the other. Im gonna dump a few pics on here and tidy it up sometime in the future. I hope to keep the gliders review bit up together on the right too... 

These pics are 2025 fresh, all at a recent Roundway Hill trip.

My all moulded Robbe ASG29. Taken a few flights to get sorted. 4.4meters, 6.5kgs. Goes really well. About the right size for scale slope gliders i think. not to big that your sweating your bits off getting it to the slope.

Below Dave doing what he does well, launch master. In this case the maiden of Malcoms Alpenbrise Rather nice 4m beast. Flew impeccably and getting popular on the slopes. I can see why!

A happy chap above, Flew really well. No vices. You point it somewhere and it goes to somewhere. It does this very efficiently. unlike Dave.

I really liked this one. Paritech DG600. very little wing flex on this, had the pleasure of flying it around for 10 mins. Super cool, really did well in the contrary lift. Another one of Malcolms he bought recently. Ive told him i want first dibs! Looks super cool with very high aspect ratio wings. I had a little damp spot in my pants after flying it i have to admit.

This is the new take off gear Paritech installs for slope flying. Built in legs.

Few quids worth above, unlike below!

More on the mini Elipse later, brilliant little 60" beast i found for £50. Not to be out done Dave bought one for £100 which came with a snazzy bag! well i poo poo on your snazzy bag as mine can carry ballast, unlike Daves🤣

 Hello, is there anyone out there?

Some new gliders, some old faces and Martin has disappeared!

My new Space Lift above, not below that's old Dave. The SL is a sublime machine...

Dave Rumble 'Davester' has not disappeared

The weapon that is the Pitbull, not to be confused with its new brother the PB3 with the punched in nose!

This is a sprocker, the fastest thing on the slope, this one is tied up whilst i fly the Precision, the fastest thing in the air, well i was the only one flying.

Bye Bye..... if anyone asks you haven't seen me

More Quad Action

Forget the gliders... check this out!


Rob

QAV400 second flight

Well chaps... glider flying is dead as far as im concerned! Quad FPV flying with my new QAV400 is more adrenalin packed than unlimited funds in a house of ill repute!

Turn this right up, my second FPV flight with this little pocket rocket!


Rob

2.4 or not to 2.4... that is the question..

Well that was always a question that was asked of me ' still flying with that pizza box then?' Today i made the leap forward 20 years to join the 2.4 revolution. I bought a Futaba 14SG. I know Martin will be saying 'I told you so' The Tranny has telemetry and S-bus technology what ever that means. I will use on my quads and the gliders and let you know how it goes.... the cost of all this greatness was a mere £400! a billy bargain! Bought from Long Marston RC show today. This Transmitter looks so cool, its sleek and elegant, bit like me, comes with charger receiver and to top it off my dad bought me a case to put it in. I now need to program the Rotmilan in and strip out the meters of aerial running down the fuz and each tail plane!

I hope i like it as much as i loved my trusty 3030 pizza box!

Rob

Whats a small dog with a bad temper?

The video of the opening of Martins Pitbull... quite frankly i was bored and wanted to get it out the way and go quadding, much more exciting!

Anyways turn up to 11 and watch.........

 
So another boring glider with a V-Tail, except this one is in piss flap pink! Rob

Baudis Pitbull F3F has arrived

The Baudis Pitbull F3F arrived yesterday, unfortunately I was away from home . I got home this evening as fast as I could. This is it. A few pictures taken in the garden. I will get some detailed pictures at a later date.. First impressions are it looks very quick, feels solid and the build / install quality is second to none!

 The wings are super stiff, and the V tail is similar in steep angel to the 'FOSA"

I Think the detail on the bottom really looks good. I am slightly biased but the Baudis Pink on always looks good against black and the word Pitbull really stands out

 The Pitbull logo on the Flap. Again some more super crisp, no over run . Look at the detail where the wing butts up to the fuselage. Brilliant
 





Below is the FOSA and the Pitbull side by side

 


The wings on the pitbull are definitely shorter and look to have a wider chord. I will measure one day. It is a similar double wing joiner system.

Up against the house. I genuinely love the FOSA. It turns an average flyer like me into someone that can manage a PB of 34.2. The Pitbull looks as though it will have the same straight line turn of speed but with the shorter fuselage and smaller wingspan looks as though it could be more nimble in the turns. 
Happy Days are here!







Martin

Baudis Pitbull F3F

The Baudis Pitbull F3F is now ready for dispatch. I got these 2 pictures today sent through from a Baudis Camera phone. The servos are installed and Monday it will be put in a box and sent to me. It should be here by the end of next week

This is the first time I have seen a picture of a Baudis Pitbull F3F and to be fair to quote Rob ( which is something I rarely do as he talks a lot of bollocks ) '' It looks quicker than a North Korean missile''. Very topical but I have to say I think it does look good.

Happy Days

Martin

Quad flying..FPV KK2 board

In order to bump the boring flying backwards and forwards on the slope down a bit, here is a report on recent quad flying. I have been practising.... This is a HT-FPV frame with the cheapest KK2 controller on board... This is manual flying unlike all you pussies out there who fly with a Naza (might as well be someone else in control) this takes a bit of practise... take a look at the below! Turn it up to 13 volume

 
...EDIT, no dogs were harmed in the making

Rob

My 34.2 second F3F Run

Last Sunday while Rob was at home learning his 8 times table and Dumpster was at the Local Berni Inn with the family on Mothering Sunday duties I was smashing my PB time for an F3F run from 47.xx to 34.2.

This is a vid of the epic run caught on Graeme Mahoneys iPhone

Enjoy






Martin

F3F BMFA League. Round 1. The Wrecker

Despite poor weather forecasts on both XC and the beeb I decided it was worth the trek to the BWLCH for Round 1 of the BMFA league.  Rob decided to give it a miss based on a decision made following studying weather forecasts, its a good job there are no meteorology skills required in his business of master minding commercial balloon flights, as it was a huge mistake to miss this one.

We were flying from '' The Wrecker''.
Take a look at the 2 flags in this picture both blowing in completely opposite directions. If you do not take the 300 yard stroll to the safe landing area unfortunately you will likely wrecker your model

Launching was not for the feint hearted, To the left and below is Joel West launching Simon Thorntons Needle 124. There was some serious pumping action going on. The climb outs reached were phenomenal.

LEFT...Martin Newnhams Freestyler being launched. Martin achieved a new British F3F record with a time of 26.84 seconds.

As for me, once I got the hang of the conditions, I managed my first ever sub 40 second run with a 37.98sec soon to be followed by a 34.20 second run . The Fosa was screaming around, only limited by my ability / inability. I am chuffed to bits with this time and for those of you that know the competitiveness between myself , Robert (45.xx) and Dumpster (36.84) you can imagine how the phone calls on the journey home went. One was full of congratulation / praise, the other a little less impressed. I will leave you to work it out which was which!

Paul Garnett's Needle 124. Stunning colour scheme and a stunning PB achieved with a 29.24 seconds. Pauls first sub 30!

This was Mark Trebles Needle 100. Early thoughts are it could be a battery failure with a cell giving in, or maybe the Zepsus magnetic switch packing up. We also had a complete failure of a wing joiner / joiner box that resulted in a model disappearing down the side never to be seen again. There were also multiple other flap servos, tailplane feathers etc etc . The conditions were fantastic, but also very extreme. The models really do take a hammering.

Anyway , now for the video. There is some top notch flying in this so enjoy!

Martin
PB 34.20

Its been a while

We have been a bit slack recently with posts , mainly due to the fact the wind directions and weather haven't been kind to at the weekends for slope soaring. We even managed to miss what probably was one of the best British F3F events for a long while whereby Abbo managed a run of 28.75 seconds.

We will be back on it very soon with this weekend (weather permitting) being the Whitesheet BMFA F3F event followed by Welsh Winter league round 5 the following weekend again weather permitting

Now for a small update... today I received 2 pictures of a new glider that is currently being built ( again Pink) , hopefully it should arrive in the next 3 weeks. I think first impressions are '' what a beauty!"

Martin