Wednesday 26 August 2009

Voltij fun

No matter how hard I try, I just can't kill it!

Kevin Newton and the Voltij from Kevin Newton on Vimeo.

Saturday 22 August 2009

Welsh Open 2009 - update

Even more sponsorship

James Hammond and Ian Mason (SlopeRacer) are putting up a Vector.
And that is in addition to the F3X model complete with servos already put forward jointly by SmartModel & SlopeRacer
Please go and spend your money with these guys, they deserve it.


Food glorious food
Vic is at this very moment cruising the streets of Bridgend trying to organize a banquet. If you're interested in spending up to about £30 for some good grub, banter and beer (that'll cost extra!) on the Saturday night of the Welsh Open please contact Vic immediately as he needs to know numbers.

Monday 17 August 2009

Vikos - part 2

Words soon...

Sunday 16 August 2009

Vikos - part 1

A quick look at the airframe before we go out to play.







If it looks right, feels right and smells right, then it normally is right.











Amazing amount of room. Great to have fuselage ballast. It'll take around 700g, so if it's really blowing you'll need to use the wing tubes.








Really impressive fit and finish. I was surprised how good it was, and I had fairly high expectations!





Nice, neat and easy.





Again, nice, neat and easy.





Look down that hinge line - not a cavity or big useless splodge of epoxy and microballoons in sight. Top notch.



This tail cone arrangement is the best I've seen. Normally they are horribly fiddly to tape up but this is perfect.





And it fits without needing to trim it for the real world of things waggling inside.




Pre-bevelled joiner is a really nice touch.






Very nice quality.






Fit and finish around the tail area is notoriously hard to get right, but Radek has done an excellent job




Again, getting the canopy to fit perfectly is something other manufacturers struggle with but the Vikos is spot on.

Monday 10 August 2009

New Baudis model...


Jiri Baudis wants to know what you think...

Should this fantastic plane, with RDS, fuselage ballast and a new, faster, section really be called the Cyril?

For UK customers he may be prepared to cut us some slack...

Vote now or forever hold your Cyril...

Sunday 9 August 2009

MPX Blizzard for sale

Tuning power kit and 3 cell 2100 MAh Lipo for vertical performance.
Well built and good as new - 10 flights only.
£165 ono with MPX synth Rx - ready to fly.
£130 ono without RX.
E-mail me



Vikos rumours...

Yes, you will be getting a review soon...
In the meantime more information is on the T9 site.

Skorpion repairs

Feeling a bit ghoulish... watch this, full screen of course...




My first Skorpion was a fantastic plane. One thing was apparent though, it was much happier when the transmitter batteries had charge in them. It was this revelation that lead to my MPX 4000 getting Lipo power.

The Skorpion had gone from being happy as a sand boy, tearing around the Spanish skies full of ballast, to a crumpled heap that had bounced it's way down the westerly face at La Muela.

Given the nature of the incident the damage could have been worse but as it was the bits were headed for the Hotel Infante trash can to save a bit of weight on the flight home. That's before Alvaro suggested that I let Miguel Medina (of Vector fame) have a look to see if he could do anything. With nothing to lose I left the bits with Al, exchanged a few emails with Miguel and his son, Jorge, and a month or so later a big box appeared outside my door in Wales...

Initially, I was absolutely convinced that they were a new set of wings. The finish was perfect and any weight difference was imperceptible - really, perhaps 10 grammes per panel. Looking inside the servo well showed a bit of overspray, so it was true; Miguel is a magician! And his magic potion was some low expansion, high density squirty foam from R and G.

Of course the old girl flew absolutely perfectly with no hint of the previous trauma. What worried my though was how stable the expanded foam repair would be.

Well, after several months of hot and cold, wet and dry nothing had shifted, sagged or bulged even a fraction of a millimeter. I ended up selling the Skorp - one careful owner, never raced or rallied etc - to a good chum and saw it regularly for years, and still she remains perfect. So perfect in fact that there was never any point taking photos of the finished repairs because you couldn't see them!

Below is the repaired airframe back over La Muela the following year, zoom in and you still won't see a mark.

Thank you Miguel!








Sunday 2 August 2009

Welsh Open 2009

18, 19 & 20 September

We are getting closer...! The entry list is below. If your name is on there but you will not be able to take part please e-mail me immediately as we have a big reserve list who'll be really grumpy if you just don't turn up on the day. If you've already sent me an e-mail and I haven't responded, apologies a few things may have slipped through the net when I moved across to a Mac.
More Welsh Open information is below the entry list. And... just to get the juices flowing, there's a slides show below of some Welsh Open images from across the years.


Sponsors
Kin from Smartmodel and Ian Mason of Sloperacer.co.uk are putting together a package of moulded model with all the servos!
Please
e-mail if you want your products to be part of the fastest F3F event on the planet.

Pilot Country Team F1 F1
1 Alvaro Silgado Spain - Synth Synth
2 Andrzej Tabero Wales - - -
3 Andy Burgoyne England Unflapables 69 74
4 Andy West Wales - 62 70
5 Angel Lopez Cabrera Spain - 78 64
6 C M Cheng Hong Kong - 60 -
7 Cedric Grandseigne France - Synth Synth
8 Dag Skoglund Norway - 75 76
9 Dave Watson Scotland Tayside Tossers 77 66
10 David Cederwall - - 82 77
11 Espen Torp Norway - 65 72
12 Frank Hulton England GBR 80 59
13 Gary Harrison England Southern_Numpties 80 74
14 Gerardo Plaza Spain - Synth Synth
15 Graham Reed England Team Muppet Glitch Glitch
16 Greg Dakin England Swillers 77 80
17 Iain Rose England - 61 78
18 Ian Mason England GBR 82
19 Ian Stewart Scotland Tayside Tossers 62 76
20 Iñaki Elizondo Spain - Synth Synth
21 Jack Björnberg Norway - 63 78
22 Jean-Luc Foucher France - 72 77
23 Jesus Herrera Borrego Spain - 68 80
24 Joel West England SMOG 64 74
25 John Phillips England Swillers 62 70
26 Jon Edison England - 75 63
27 Jonathon Sage EnglandSMOG 90 82
28 Jose Carrion Spain - 68 78
29 José Luis Alvarez Fernandez Spain - 69 80
30 Julian Perrott England Southern_Numpties 77 78
31 Keith Wood England - 82 57
32 Kevin Newton England - 77 68
33 Lage Salomonsen - - Glitch Glitch
34 Mark Abbotts England GBR 84 68
35 Mark Passingham England Swillers 69 70
36 Mark Redsell England Tean RAG 81 85
37 Mark Southall England - 71 84
38 Mick Walsh England - Synth Synth
39 Mike Evans England Team RAG 80 87
40 Mike Shellim England - 72 64
41 Mike Young Wales - 85 58
42 Paul Garnett England Team RAG Synth Synth
43 Paul Middleton England - 58 69
44 Peter Gunning Scotland Tayside Tossers 85 80
45 Pierre Rondel France - 77 67
46 Warrick Smith ------ - 60 Synth
47 Ron Russell Scotland - 72 76
48 Simon Thornton England SMOG Glitch Glitch
49 Stefan Bertschi Switzerland - Glitch Glitch
50 Steve Clutterbuck England Unflapables 58 56
51 Tom Macpherson England Team Muppet 84 68
52 Tony Robertson England - Glitch --
53 Vic Eldridge England Team Muppet 70 76
54 Dave Rumble England Unflapables 88 70
55 Bjorn Tore Hagen Norway - Glitch -

Teams
As well as the top three individual trophies there will be a trophy for each member of the winning three man team. You do not have to fly as a team, but if you want to, either include your team details when you enter or get them to me by 1 September.


Entry fee
We need to cover the expenses of land usage, trophies, Eurotour fees and so on. The entry will be £25. You won't need to pay before the event.

The event
Each day you must be at the Bwlch T junction of the A4107 and A4061 (map here
http://www.knewt.com/bwlch/thebwlch.htm ) by 9.00 in time for a 9:45 start. Each day the last round in progress will be that running at 17:30. If the conditions are light and a round started before 17:30 is unlikely to be completely finished that day the Competition Director will consider using group scoring so that we don't lose several hours of competition time. Group scoring will be a last resort, and will not be used if at all possible.

Banquet
This is a lot of hassle for a very small club to organise but we have friends... Vic has done a whole bunch of work and arranged this.

Additional information
Bases will be set back as far as possible, this will allow the safety line to go back a little also. The turn points will be marked in the normal forward position by an additional marker.


Three models per competitor are allowable.

We are currently considering rotation of the flying order - more information soon.

There will be 30 seconds ready time.

Turn judges will be very strongly instructed to acknowledge any errors and the pilot will refly immediately. We all know that some apparently late buzzes are just great flying, others are turn judge error and it is this that we want to acknowledge and eradicate in a supportive way for the turn judge. This worked very well last year and we are keen to build on that success.
You will be called upon to help with buzzing as our experience has been that pilots make the best turn judges.