DG505 ORION SCALE GLIDER

True to tradition G.B.O.G.H. the large scale DG 505 is slowly taking shape

The Ventus 2cx a baby by comparison is now waiting for its maiden flight on the slope

Blogs new features!

Some of you may have noticed that the Blog looks a little different lately! That is because we have upgraded to the new version and it gives us many more new features to play with.

This also coincided with the BERG Blogs 1st Birthday on the 9th September. Piet wants to celebrate by doing something different, and has come up with some ideas. He has promised us a cake, so that is someting to look forward to!

The options are; we have a Fun-Fly day at BERG with a "Bring and Braai". The fun-fly will entail things like Egg dropping, limbo flying, water drop, Glof etc. Piet has some rather interesting ideas. More later.

Another option is, as a club outing, we all go down to Vloksrust for a weekends Slope Soaring, with the accompanying braai and gathering around the log fire and legendary breakfast at Oom Louis place. You could of course opt to do nothing, but I'm sure that won't be an option!

If any of you have any other suggestion, please feel free to leave your comments!

We want your feedback and with the new Blog features we have the ability to run polls. So to test this we have started one where you can vote on what we should do to celebrate the Blogs 1st Birthday on the 9th of September. If possible, other suggestion will be added.

Even if you aren't a BERG Member and would like to participate, please vote! Everyone is welcome.

The majority vote will decide. So go for it! Have some fun and cast your vote. Or make suggestions at the Comments link. There is even a place to vote if your wife won't let you out to play! The poll will run until Friday 10th August and after that we will start the planning!

BERG-Blog Breaks through 5000 hits Barrier

A Big Thank you to all our contributors and visitors to the BERG blog.
I don’t think I would believe that this was possible 11months ago when the blog counter register only 5 hits in the first week.

BERG - Power, Scale and Tow day.

Like I said before, never a dull moment at the BERG Club. On Saturday the 21st July some of the BERG Club member dusted of their power planes and the pictures below shows all the lovely planes that we flew and some of the action we had. To all that came along many thanks for a fun filled day.

Getting ready for the tow (Evan & Wesley at the glider, Trevor & Len at the tug)

Evan's Tsotsi lifts off from the dolly on tow with J3 Cub from Len.

J3 Cub and Tsotsi on Tow, up and away into the blue yonder.

Len and " Green monster"

Wesley holding the Edge. Here you can see just how big it is!

Trevor and Wesley. Final R/C test before take off.

Piet's Taurus 48“ 60 % scale, 30 glo motor.

Evan's 1/5 scale Super Cub 4 stroke 40 glo motor.

Len's Morrisey Bravo 35 cc Petrol Quadra chainsaw motor.

Final tweeking done. Time to fly!

Straight down the runway and away!

Morrisey overhead!

Len's 1/4 Scale J3 Cub 90 cc glo motor

J3Cub Fly By!

Unpacking and assembling for the days flying.

James waiting for the runway to clear!

Excellent weekend weather greets new BERG member.

This Sunday we had the most fantastic weather that one could wish for with thermals that even a beginner could catch. My first flight was 45 minutes endurance. This was perfect for BERG's newest member who has just joined the club. Welcome Herman. He has many years of free flight experience and the pictures below show him towing his A2 glider (50 meter two line) and on all 3 flights that he had the glider was saved from flying away out of sight by his de-thermal device. After showing us all how free flight works, Evan gave him some stick time on his Tsotsi and it wasn't long before he got the hang of how to interrupt free flight with radio control. As mentioned earlier the thermals were so good and everywhere and he had no problem staying up.
Some of the members enjoying a break in the flying proceedings.

Charl also popped in to show us the latest BERG gear he is organizing, a nice cap and fleece with the BERG logo embroidered on. The fleece will be selling at R200.00 each and the cap at R50.00. If you want please do the deposit into the BERG account and contact Charl charlviv@dmip.co.za with your requirements. He will need to know what size jacket to order for you and quantities and if you want a cap. Evan is wearing an XL and it fits him nicely. Very good quality as well. (That's the fleece i'm talking about!) Exactly what we all need for these chilly winter days.

For more details you can contact me (Piet) at email me


My Gentle Old Lady is nearly complete, only elevator and re installment of RC equipment to do.

More when it is done!

Restoring my 20 year Gentle (Old ) Lady.

I am currently restoring my CG Gentle Lady that I bought in 1987.
Actually it started out as a my first ever electric glider and the kit was called a Electra by CG. The kit with the motor but excluding the NiCad battery pack cost +/- R700.
The electric motor was similar to that found in RC model cars at the time.

The combination of the electric motor and battery pack was capable of giving a running time of +/- 10 min but due to the under powered motor, did not have a great rate of climb.

Even so, I can clearly remember a number of flights over 30min and at least one flight of more than an hour endurance. Unfortunately the electric motor broke down, so I had built the nose back up to that of conventional fuselage and also fitted a tow hook for bungee or winch launching.

Apart from the strengthened wing (fully sheeted top skin D box and extra strength (3 ply doubler's in the fuse) the dimensions are the same as a normal Gentle Lady.

Finally, about 2 years ago I stalled it close to the ground on landing and broke the right hand tip and so it landed up on my “Ag one day I will repair it again -Shelf "

Evan’s resent call to get our old gasbags out and to dust of their wings for the RES/100 Challenge, has prompted me to revamp it

The pictures here show the scars of many years of flying and it has maybe more carbon in it than most Gentle Lady’s.

Once I have it completely restored it I will post more pictures of (Then (1987) and Now (2007)).

Ka-4 Project ZS-GED

I cut my wings for the Ka-4 on the weekend whit a lot of help from my building partner Peter Karner. The root cord of the wing is 427mm amd the span is 4.16m without the tips.






Here are some pics of one of the cores on the cutter.



Here is Peter sitting next to the completed set of cores.


Note the standard battery harness in the center of the wing.



The next step will be the construction of the spars and the caps.



PS. This is a bigger project than I thought it would be. But as Mike always says "Go big or go home".

International Visitor

BERG played host to International visitor Klaus Christiansen who popped in today to test fly his Tabooish before the F3K Jamboree next Sunday. Klaus is currently based in Switzerland, he has represented his native Denmark at both the Canadian and Slovak F3J World Championships.

Klaus and his family arrived on the same plane Craig Goodrum flew out to Switzerland to compete in the 2007 F3B World Championships.

Sunday 1 July 2007

Craig and Mark flew their HLG models
Heinrich and his Totsi






Photo's taken by Kurt.