Out and about 3 - a magic day of control line at Corobrik with the lads from up north

Keith Renecke with the stunning electric powered control line - MVVS hedging their bets with a grunty brushless motor an controller to complement their well known IC motors. The large lipo and controller located in the fuselage.

No flies on glider guider Kobus who bought a second hand model and benefited in an accelerated learning curve from host Dirk Meyer.

Another of Dirk's second hand specials sold to Russ, the Tucker Special, which oozed character and flew flawlessly for a very chuffed Russel.

Henry and Percy Attfield (Mr SAMAA) trying different prop combinations for the thicker coastal air. Henry displayed talent and body English that the slope and slot car lads for would die for!

Hein (I might have his name wrong) simply could not keep his hands off Dirk's dinky little RC Eflight Ultra Mini Stick, which was a show stealer, even in the tricky breezy conditions..... Hein helped the glider folk tirelessly with their control line planes, as well.

Dirk and his up country control line experts, along with the wives made the Springfield soaring folk so welcome, even throwing in lunch to make the day so special for Dennis, Russ, Kobus, Pete Milne and myself.

Our thoughts also lie with local control line stalwart Doug Irvine who missed out by ending up in Westville hospital ICU after a serious accident down at the harbour wharf.

Thoughts also turn to the potential of a small control line under brushless power (nothing like the grunt in Keith's Plane) and I recall way back a little RC electric plane that used to have an auto cut off after five minutes to save a battery (and radio in that case). Maybe some of the electric folk will know where to track such a gizmo....?

The guys flew an amazing advanced pattern and kindly gave us copy of the Novice pattern, shown below:

CONTROL LINE NOVICE PATTERN
START & TAKE-OFF (within 1 minute)
TAKE-OFF and 2 LEVEL LAPS
REVERSE WING OVER
INSIDE LOOPS
INVERTED FLIGHT
OUTSIDE LOOPS
INSIDE SQUARE LOOPS
HORIZONTAL EIGHTS
VERTICAL EIGHTS
OVERHEAD EIGHTS
LANDING (within 6 minutes)

Key Ridge slope

Late afternoon flying the Weasel

Directly in front of the slope ie . the general flying area

Sunset over the hill

Hometime - its easier coming down than going up

South side of the slope towards Summerveld


We share our slope, no problem

Bradley being buzzed by his mates glider



View of the N3 highway going south over Key Ridge

The slope face, from the bottom


General flying area in a NE wind

Sunset over the hill, taken from the top of Key Ridge on the N3, heading south.






Dont land here, land further back where there are fewer rocks

Car park, next to the trig beacon. Only just accessable in a 1400cc front wheel drive sedan.

Access road vey rocky and rutted.

Bradley having fun of another kind. He also flys r/c and is the owner of the EPP Windrider Fox I mentioned in my July blog post about Key Ridge.

Springfield Chickens out and about

Nix wind from the coast to Howick and a howling gale at Karkloof Country Club saw a scramble back to an empty Summerveld, yesterday. The mid day to afternoon breeze provided some useful slope lift for the high launching electrics. Sheldon's two metre thermaller almost got away on Russ's hand toss! The highlight was two ROG winch launches with Russ's Ash, a craft more used to the slope but coped immaculately with the winch launches. Maybe a hint that there could be a flat field Sungazer as well.....? ;-)

It was first time out for Sheldon's Cumulus XXL, after losing it in the bush for a couple months at a Noodsberg event. After some head scratching on the programing, the issue was merely a lose flap, sorted by Seano. Dave and Sheldon enjoyed some flight time on the sweet flying model.

A rare shot of Andre Leusch flying his 2.5 metre thermal electric at Summerveld.

Sheldon with his foamie, grounded by the pleasant breeze.

Below that, Dave holding Russ's Ash pre the rise off ground winch launch. The Ash behaved impeccably.

Neil and Sean Oellermann were armed with three electrics, including this smart Pelican Pike. Their little EHawk 1500 stole the show, though. Strangely, Neil turned down the offer of a swap for Dave's E Mouton..... ;-)