21 November 2011

Springfield comes to the rescue

There were some very frustrated slopers on the BBM group through the misty and rainy Saturday - the grand plan being to visit Switchblade for the forecast NE on Sunday. Travis reported back mid Sunday morning that Switchblade was still shrouded in the inland mist and fearless leader Russ made the call to switch to Springfield, which turned out an inspired decision as more and more folk keep cruising in all afternoon! 

The Springfield shuffle has evolved to a bunch of foamies combating on the front, ala the TOSS and Hermanus mobs, whilst us crunchie flyers played further out and snuck through for the odd "right to left!" from time to time. It was enjoyable to thermal the flying fish Sharkie right back down wind and generally explore the slope.

Gareth was the first to leave his mark on the Springfield pole with his newly refurbished ex Andrew Leusch crunchie - someone please write Gareth's name on the pole with a marker!

Production car race driver Reghard Roets is now one of the hard core BBM slopers and it was a pleasant surprise to have fellow racer, now rally driver, Guy Botterill pop in for a quick decko. Guy has banged his Toko at the mo but will be back.

Foamy fliers Grant and Travis were now studying the various mouldies as the next step up and Mike Smith had a ball with his weasel but decided to keep the Graphite for another day.

Not to forget the successful maiden flight of Rudi's "PE special" Corex Mig.

Russ unfortunately lost his Ash right down the bottom of the slope and there are many offers of assistance to locate to today, such is the comradeship and pulling power of the BBM group calls for magic afternoons like this.

Travis said it best with this BBM post afterwards: "Awesome day guys. Thanks for introducing me to another WICKED spot. Had a lot of fun today thank you."

Mike, Travis and Grant sporting the latest designer T shirts.

The original car park of vehicles with "the pole" - kept filling up all afternoon.

Russ, Grant, Travis, Michel, Mike and Dean just enjoying flying.

Young Thomas in foreground (Russ's nephew) learnt on a simulator and said to Russ  in his own words "I haven't had  so much fun in ages!"

Some of the sky occupied by foamies and birds. 

Andre, Brendon, Gareth, Grant, Michel, Travis, Reghard and Dean

The evergreen Dennis Bird flying his "twinkle roll" Kipper.

There was even a "rent a crowd" bunch of locals spectating.

The gorgeous Fox, Michel flew it a treat.

Brendon's colourful e-wing.

Travis and Brendon ballasting up the single tiplet wing.

Michell's Swift still awesome on slope power alone!

Almost looks like a pylon 1 race turn ;-)

18 November 2011

Quadcopter FPV at La Mercy lagoon

Another FPV flight with my quadcopter, this one was flown at La Mercy Lagoon north of Durban.

14 November 2011

Russ "Russel's up" aero tow interest at Karkloof

Some pictures taken at the Karkloof Country Club on 13 November.  The main focus was on aerotowing large scale model gliders. The weather was less than ideal with 10/10 low cloud.  Fortunately there was no rain. The event was well attended and everyone had fun.

Cheers for now.
Dennis