Sunday 8 February 2015

Wrecker to myself!

The forecast was looking excellent during the week for a brilliant day of practice and sports flying for Saturday on the Wrecker. Clear skies, 15mph wind smack-on NE and a beautiful 0 to 2 degrees Celsius/Centigrade (bbbrrrrr).
I let people know via the BARCS forum that I'd be there with the F3F course that anyone could join me for a sports fly and possibly have a practice session. The idea of the course on the slope may have kept everyone away because I was forced to endure a full day flying by myself!

The wrecker works quite well in a NNE, which was what I was provided with, instead of the NE.
The VR slope also worked pretty well and I used them both, seeing as I had the space.

The clear skies didn't really appear straight away either.








Full ballast was the order of the day to start with and the F3B Skorp was ripping around. A modified reversal turn (I think i'll call it the Inverse Reversal!) was working the best for me and I couldn't get a good rhythm for any decent EM type turns.
I spent ages playing with differential and snapflap and then popped the brakes on as a precursor to landing......... bloody thing nearly looped and even full down elevator only just held it level. A bit of practice putting full down elevator just before flapping it up and I was able to control the unruly beasty and get it safely back to the deck.

The DSL had been given a healthy dose of reflex during the week and was a totally different plane to fly, she is no longer the ugly stepsister. Even though the need for ballast was gone as the wind had all but died, the DSL really surprised me and I think it flies really well even without snapflap (accidental discovery after a crow-through!).

As the wind died down, the sun came out and the afternoon session was just a real pleasure to be up on the Bwlch.






Next Sunday is the 4th round of the Welsh Winter League F3F and I'm really looking forward to it. I hope the conditions are epic................. actually just flyable would also be nice!!

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