11 July 2010

Chestnut Crescent Video

Northern Chestnut Crescent in Prestondale

Northern Chestnut Crescent in Prestondale

Umhlanga College flying field


Umhlanga College flying field - the Saturday Crew on ground, cars above.....

Umhlanga College - South towards Gateway


Umhlanga College flying field - South towards Gateway

Umhlanga College - North


Umhlanga College flying field looking North along N2.....

05 July 2010

Back to matters parkie..........






























Saturday morning parkie flying returned to normal this past weekend, after a break for the PSS and Natal thermal events. An 850 ma Hyperion pack had at last been sourced from Denkit and it was time to give the little 1/2A Cox aerobatic control line a run with the Witblitz Suppo motor. The first launch proved Mark Phillips dead right on CG and me dead wrong, only saved by test pilot Simon's sharp reflexes and the (fortunate) ability to shut the motor down. With the battery correctly forward, the plane took off at quite a bat and the motor was cracked back a fraction to slow things. Unfortunately a loose motor halted proceedings before Simon could try some aerobatics but there is ample encouragement to pursue this further with the Ashley Circle Burner guys.
Kelvin suffered the disappointment of a broken motor wire, which put paid to his Skylark flying for the morning - we do look forward to seeing his scratch built Stick type plane pictured above, in action in due course. The plan was downloaded from the Internet and it is magic to see a bit of "build your own".
On the subject of scratch built, we had a visit from Red Bull soap box boff and Ecurie slot car racer Mark Bray with his son Andrew. Mark was quite tickled with his stick time on the Mark Phillips e gasbag and is very keen to lay his hands on the little Skylark, which pretty much got all of us going in e flying. If his aircraft are anything like the (full size) Lotus 7, slot car track and Red Bull carts he has built, we are in for a treat in the future.
Yours truly then headed down the coast to take old age Mum out. After several very half hearted attempts to get to the Kingsburgh field in the past, the ideal weather prompted a call to Leon, who explained how to get in. A second call to Ecurie slot racer Erlo Paul saw us ready for a fly with Erlo, Bruce Clark (from wayyyyyy back) and the other Kingsburgh folk who made us so welcome. The pics give an idea of how scenic their patch is and it was interesting to see teacher Bruce taking Erlo through some solo landings on Erlo's trainer power plane, using the buddy box system. An enjoyable quick flight on the Mini Showtime followed and old age Mum pronounced the field a little bit of heaven, so the lads may see more of us on future Saturdays.
Leon kindly sms'd through the contact info, including their interesting web address:
Just shows to go how us muddlers all enjoy a dabble in the varied forms of aero and car modeling pastimes......