Some days flying is really good, especially when the sky is doing something special. This was one of those days, with bright sun, brilliant blue sky and more kinds of interesting clouds than you could wish for.
It was pretty breezy; a moderate southerly which quickly developed, but nothing too much to bother the Stinger. With its augmented stripes I’m more confident with the turns, and having it screeching across the fields and soaring into the sky is always a lovely thing.
Watching the video again, with the beautiful sky and the Stinger having fun, was certainly a tonic for the rather miserable weather of late...
A pair of paragliders were heading back to the far field, so I headed the Canadair there with onboard camera, hoping to get some nice footage. Unfortunately I didn't judge the closing distance too well and turned the Canadair back when it was still well off, the paragliders unresolved dots in the distance.
For the rest of the time I just cruised the Canadair around doing flypasts, enjoying the lovely afternoon. After returning from its initial sortie, I took off the camera and then hand launched it to conserve the battery for a bit more cruising around.
The resulting video was then a little unexciting, so I decided to play around with it a little, adding in some flash-forwards and colour-to-mono fades. Completing this slightly experimental video was a backing track with a little attitude, dramatic hip-hop according to YouTube.
For a while now the Rarebear’s cowling has looked a little sad, the missing sections of the flimsy plastic article having been poorly patched with fibre tape. So, needing to do a little work on the motor, I decided that enough was enough and dumped the cowling summarily.
As a replacement I first tried a large vitamin bottle which unfortunately turned out to be a little too small, before deciding in the base of a Sodastream bottle. This looked nice and sturdy, and had a little detail on it to add a little style.
It was slightly too big but I trimmed a section from it and then installed it with lashings of hot melt glue. Being careful to align the lower section, once installed I realised that I’d not checked the top which ended up slightly angled and pinching the sliding top section of the fuselage.
Anyway, it was still better than it was, so now to try it out. It turned out to be a very windy although otherwise beautiful afternoon, into which I threw the revamped Rarebear, newly reverted to its original black prop to match the cowling.
In short, the little rarebear flew just as well as ever, seemingly relishing the gusty conditions as it swooped across the field and swung rapidly into the blue sky...
Having managed some soaring at the seaside, I turned my attention to the nearest inland sloping spot; a set of ridges about half an hour’s drive away. These ridges provide lift in a variety of directions, but today it was blowing southerly. The location for southerly lift is a little tight on landing space and has trees about which makes things a little less relaxed, however I wasn't going to let that put me off.
I launched the Raptor into the strong southerly under power, just to be sure, and was soon getting reasonable lift. Some sections of the ridge were better than others, the far end seeming to be poor and the narrow clear section right in front providing the best lift.
Once I'd trimmed the Raptor to slow it down a little it was performing pretty well, until eventually the breeze ebbed away and I resorted to sending the Raptor on lazy missions away from the ridge over the picturesque farmlands until the battery ran low...
...a novel point of view I'd never flown the DC-3 with an on board camera, mainly because I didn't want to have an ugly patch of velcro on top of the fuselage, and also being so rounded there's not really a good spot. And then there's the cockpit antenna which would get in the way.
Anyhow, the other day I decided I'd try something a little different; putting the mobius under the fuselage, slap bang in the middle of the wing section. I hadn't done a test run of this beforehand, but gave it a go nevertheless.
The result isn't bad, if a little closed-in, giving a nice view of the props. If I tried it again I'd put the camera a little more forward. The best bit, I thought though, was after landing hearing the motors winding down and seeing the props tick to a standstill...
Slope soaring is something I've wanted to do for a while but the lack of nearby locations has been a bit of a damper. However, I finally decided on an excursion to the beach, a well-rated spot for getting lift from the ocean breeze rising over the scrub-covered dunes.
The promised southerly wind unfortunately had an easterly component which meant less lift from the south easterly beachline, however I was determined to have a go anyway on the understanding that it wasn’t going to be ideal.
The most confronting feature doing this for the first time is, of course, the wind; I would normally never consider getting the Raptor out in this kind of wind and yet, here I was. This location flies from the beach, so I launched the raptor under power to make sure it didn't end up in the surf. Climbing into the strong breeze, around 30km/h, the Raptor rose sharply. After getting a bit of a feel for the wind I eased the Raptor towards the dunes and some lift.
The other interesting thing is, of course, the wind; I had barely settled the Raptor in when I was dropping the flaps more and trimming it up to slow it down. And wishing the wind was a little stronger. And this is with a slow glider!
The sloping was challenging and fun, although the oblique wind angle meant I had to resort to occasional power-boosts to get the Raptor up again. Nevertheless, it was a good first try, a proof of concept…
...the big day! Since the ultimate smash I'd reconstructed the Stinger with a new fuselage and new larger and higher-spec powerpack, all of which I was eager to try out so, with a break in the rather poor run of weather, I headed to the field. As ever, not having flown the Stinger for a while made me nervous. Additionally, I wasn't sure what the effect would be of the substantially-larger 2200 battery compared to the 1800 I'd previously flown with.
Eager to get the Stinger into the air before the sun disappeared behind clouds, I gave it a quick check before getting it ready to launch. Running the motor up for launch, the reaction felt a little odd. Blipping the throttle again revealed the reason - it was blowing air out of the intakes. I'd wired the motor in reverse. Dashing back to the car for my toolkit, quite a way as I was flying in the paddocks, I headed back to the plane to remove wings and swap the plugs. Eventually the Stinger was back together, now developing positive thrust, but the sun had unfortunately taken a break behind a small patch of clouds. Despite the disappointment of losing the beautiful afternoon glow, I hot full throttle and threw the Stinger up. Despite high expectations, this continued the run of miserable launches I've had, the Stinger knife-edging a few metres up. Correcting this and easing off the elevator revealed the next crisis; I hadn't done a good check on the trims and the Stinger was nosediving alarmingly. Bringing it round I heaved on the elevator; going vertically fifty metres up is a nice safe place to make control adjustments. After that things got a lot better; the augmented stripes made visibility so much better I was immediately more confident, and soon I had the Stinger making nicely-controlled low passes at speed, howling past at full throttle...
