…and the weather forecast said what???

One sometimes wonders about the vagaries of weather predictions,
specifically for this skinny little piece of Peninsula that we live on.
Based on Fridays forecast we were supposed to have a lovely North Wester on Saturday …
and no flying on Sunday due to a light and unpalatable South Easter.
So, plan the weekend and take your girlfriend and Granny out for lunch on Sunday, earn brownie points
and buy time on the slope when conditions improve. Fiendish plan that!

However mother nature takes a turn for the absurd and reverses the schedule somewhat.
Saturday turns out to be a howling northerly with no lift! Strange when that happens,
but normally points to a fast moving system with no real basis,
which was proved by a late westerly push in the afternoon.
A very frustrating wind chasing day. Some of us got to fly…barely.

Sunday dawns and after what was predicted, 10-15kms SE,
we get a little surprise as the predictions now show 30kms/h SE.
After working off its morning hangover (the wind…not me)
it started to pick up and created a lovely days flying up at Red Hill.
Eventually settling in at about 40km/h SE in the afternoon.

A lot of aerobatics practice happened, combat was as usual fast and vicious.
and Steve Meusel had to endure his Impala’s film covering leave the wing mid flight…!
making a rather spectacular sound as it did so right in the middle of the formation session
and resulted in a rather hasty landing on his part while Damien and myself checked our pants for brown spots.
No further damage was done to the IMP, but unfortunately all the covering
on the left wing panel will have to be done again.

In the end there was a great days flying, and a lot of practice was done for the Aerobatics League Event
that will take place next weekend… weather permitting!

Iffy lift and strong wind made for an unpleasent flight, but the view was great

Steve Meusel takes the sting for a spin round Klein Leeuwkoppie

Anyone for landing lessons?

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If you want to know how to land without breaking the plane here’s how

Walking wing

Funny thing seen in Cape Town a walking wing?

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RC Soaring Digest September 2009 – Impala coverage

Hi Guys

For those who have not seen some of the Impala shots at Chappies
in formation flying, RC Souring Digest has runa cover article in the September 2009 Issue
Out now at this address…

http://rcsoaringdigest.com/

and loading the said PDF as below

“You can download the entire September issue of RC Soaring Digest (20 pages) by saving this linked PDF file (approximately 2.5MB).”

A huge thank you to Bill and Bunny Kuhlman for their continued efforts in keeping
a slope soaring magazine alive and very well.
Bill is constantly looking for articles and good shots for articles… so get the cameras
and pens out and drop them a line. After all this magazine is read across the globe and
it will always be good to have South African sloping featured in some way or another.

A big thank you to Bill and Bunny from all at TOSS.

What a great weekend, but Winters not over just yet

The weekend of the 22nd and 23rd August delivered a peach of a weekends worth of flying,
up on the traditional summer hang out at Red Hill, above Simonstown.
Instead of the usual North Westerly to Westerly wind directions, we were
handed two days of lovely South Easters in a winter period.
True to form they had a bit of a southerly swing in the afternoons,
which is traditional to this time of the year,
but the morning sessions were just awesome,
starting at 20km/h, smooth as silk and just plain awesome,
up till about 2 PM, which then saw the Southerly switch occur.
Not that it made it unpleasant, rather just a bit liftless
and a bit more of an interesting time in the landing zone.
Things got busy on both days, with Saturday and Sunday catering for
about 15 souls on the slope in pursuit of clean lift.
The guys just flew themselves out, the aerobatics practiced, the Imp formations
attempted and the combat a fur-ball of fury.

Scary moment of the weekend was to have one of the Impalas tip tanks
lock onto one of the other Impalas tip tanks in the formation flying bit of the day.
Which resulted in an untimely and untidy spiral race straight to the ocean below,
only to be saved in the nick of time and flown back to the top of the hill
in somewhat squirmy lift. Heart stopping moment no1…
Thanks to bill Dewey for screaming his way to the front of the slope
to check where it was going to go in…. and… if it was.
Tim Watkins-Baker maidened his Primarius aerobatics glider. and that flew like a peach.
Chris Leal, from that far north place called Jo’burg, dropped in once again
and had a few good flights with his Toucan, and Anton Benning cruised in
to do a bit of field research with Lionel, and see his Impala kits all dressed up.
All in all it was once again a great weekend to be on the slope,
and great to see the numbers growing exponentially to the delicious weather on hand.
Cape Town rocks!…period!

What a view, What a place! Red Hill in all it's glory

Chris Leal from the North and Malcolm Riley from the South enjoying the day

Lionel and Anton Benning in discussion and an Opus flips by in the background

Damien Hinrichsen protects his lunch from a hungry PYE, who at this stage was dribbling much better.

Mark Western, new on the twiddly sticks, gets a bit of twiddly time under the guidance of Steve Meusel

Examples of maneuvers

Here are some links for examples of maneuvers. Have found 75% anyone else able to fill in the rest?

http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/aerobatics/maneuvers/index.htm

http://www.fulldeflection.com/index.php/manoeuverscatalogue/34-aerofab1/46-manoeuvers

Primerius/Keverius gets maidened and then some

OK, there’s this aerobatics league going on, and we at TOSS are getting somewhat serious about it…,
as it leads up to the year end Two Oceans Slope Soarers Aerobatics event

which had it’s inaugural event last year.
So a good few of us have taken the challenge to create purely aerobatic gliders

with that sole function in mind.
At least 3 more gliders are in the process of being slapped together.
I chose to take the design of the Primerius, which Marc Wolfe had successfully
flown into 1 st position in last years contest, and fiddle with it…
the plans… I mean.
With a sharp pencil and a bit of sculpting the square box shape was a thing of the past

and the new vertical stab and elevator were in place.
A scratch build over a 6 week period followed and the newly named Keverius (due to fiddling)
was ready for a maiden.
A pure balsa build, with foam core wing, balsa covered …
nothing beats shaping up a bit of balsa. It’s seriously therapeutic and

you get a glider out of it at the end.
It also takes to cyno just beautifully, about as well as your fingers do.

In the end the maiden was a success in bumpy conditions, and then it was tested

in a 45km/h North Wester up at Chappies in the afternoon and shows a great rate of knots

while being quite stable and very direct in its tracking and high energy retention.
2 evenings later we got to fly it in dying lift and this glider stayed up when a few others had made for the deck.

With a 1,6m wingspan, overall weight of 1.35kg, 25km/h stall speed and a 13oz winloading
this is proving to be quite a versatile machine, and handles like a dream.
Not bad for a design that is rather long in the tooth, ( 20 years since origination)
and the wing section that doesn’t even have a name.
Tim Watkins Baker has just completed the original Primerius version

and will fly that as well for the leaugue, so all that remains is to practice like crazy…

every weekend till the 5th September for the second of the league events
and then beyond to the year end event

Keverius ready to rock and roll

TOSS Aerobatics League – Revised

 All SAMAA registered slope fliers welcome to join us.

NEXT EVENT – 05 September 2009

We have re-structured the league format to make it achievable by all levels of competitor with any type of glider. The new format is a single class with the SIX “Mandatory Manoeuvres” and an additional FOUR manoeuvres selected from the “Optional List” with a higher K-factor manoeuvre scoring more points than a low K-factor manoeuvre. (You will be required to select your Optional manoeuvres on the score sheet before the start of the event)

(K-factor explained) K-factor (K) – The scores awarded by the judges for each manoeuvre is multiplied by the K-factor allocated to the manoeuvre. Example – an 8 out of 10 score for a “Cuban Eight” would score you 80 point whereas an 8 out of 10 score for a “Rolling Eight” would score you a 120 points

Mandatory Manoeuvres

Optional List

Entry Fee: R50.00 per event payable on the morning.

These event dates are weather dependant and subject to change. Please check the TOSS info Line  0712108400 prior to event for possible changes. 

EVENT DATES:

June 27
September 5
October 31
December 5

Long weekend flips of time…is it Tuesday already!

Would you slope every day of the last long weekend if you could.
Some of the TOSS crew did just that… Damian, are you still with us!
Saturday the 8th August produced a classic South Easter in the middle of winter
and due to the cool air, this odd wind for this time of the year, does indeed
tend to be smooth and awesome. So the guys flew themselves flat.
Come Sunday, and a light north westerly pushed through and the group gathered once again
at Chapmans Peak and found nice conditions, although a bit on and off,
as it still had quite a bit of northerly in it.
Naturally by the time I got there at 3 PM, I managed a “Malcolm”
and chased the wind away… not very far though!
By Monday morning it was a howling North Wester with rain…
till about 11AM, at which time it cleared up, the sun shone through the rolling clouds
and the wind remained pretty much pomping and stomping.
Grabbing a tire iron on the way out of the garage… to use for ballast,
a diminished number of us enjoyed some pretty hectic 45km/h winds
and vertical lift beyond belief, for the entire length of the last afternoon of the long weekend.
A bit chilly on the day, but with no rain, it was what winter sloping means to us folk down here.
Yup, it was pretty darn good long weekend…

Damian dressed for the wintery conditions. Very pretty indeed! Setting the slope style for winter.

Damian puts the Voltij though it's paces

Pye was not enjoying the cold cold and took every chance for a cuddle

Some more pics from the weekend

Just a few more to add to the visual list…some great images taken by Malcolm Riley,
as were a large number of shots in the last post… the boys got talent!

Someone taking a hit in the combat zone

Fox cruising in the evening sun

The bay of plenty lift