Winter Slope Outing

A group of us headed to Volksrust over the long weekend, for some slope action.



Various aircraft featured in some of the recent posts were flown for the first time and all flew without a hitch, Teddy Brown got to see Volksrust from above.



Conditions were excellent on saterday and with Paul and Izak from ETB and Gert from Secunda and Glen and Arthur from Durbs joining us we had a good bunch of slope enthusiasts , the hooligans did not make an appearance so the slope was an absolute pleasure, the frequency control was done by pilots just talking to one another, its so easy when handled this way by pilots with a little savvy.

Saterday was the best wind we started flying at 9:00 and finishing with valley release on the slope at sunset. (see photo with jet trail).




Peter really seems to have his big Astir CS sorted now ,he had 6 successfull flights , logging over two hours of airtime, he practised launching with Charl our official big glider launcher and landing approaches, of all the gliders flown from the fuselage mould, I have made, this wing layout and foil has the most gracefull flight characteristics, Pete's got a winner here.







The 4MTR Dianna SZD56 had a very succesfull flight and is now also sorted, a little more nose weight and the twitchy-ness is a thing of the past, this glider has a very flat glide slope and responds to thermals very well , I flew a full hour with her on saterday from thermal to thermal and find this medium size, less tiring than the 6 mtr ships.






Finally my Swift S-1 had another flight after the flutter/crash flight it had in january note how green the veld is , anyway after the rebuild it also performed well, it is quick (MH32 FOIL) and rolls well , no sign of tip stall in tight turns and does what an aerobatic glider should, its smooth and fun to fly, it also needed a little more nose weight, but is now sorted. A bit hot on the landings, so I need to find a way to slow her down, probably program in some Flaperon, at some stage.



Izak maidened his full (really full) carbon Toko which was built for DS and it seemed to go like stink(Charls expression). In the Saterday blow Izak's Toko, Paul's Trinity f3b and Flippy and Pete's Prodij , Charls Aero , and Mikes Jart ,all screamed about , giving the pilots their daily adreniline rush ...great fun.

Peter's son Chris flew and maidened his home brewed hybrid the"Bastardo" to great effect, it looks good in the sky with its swept wings.

Sunday saw light conditions but strong thermic air, once the valley warmed up, out came the electric assist gliders, barring Glen who seems to also be able to fly in these conditions with his Weasel foamie which works in light lift, quite amazing.

We all put in hours and hours of gentle soaring from thermal to thermal , at one stage Izak had his gentle lady 2mtr, above us at speck height and I have no doubt if he had not spun her down, she could have continued upwards out of sight.

Monday we die-hards went back up the slope , but the conditions indicated on the spot graphs were high pressure and very little wind, and so it was. So we invented a new glider class F-Slope-J a one man hand tow.















The line is limited to 10mtrs and 600kg ,breaking strain with two heavy duty galvanised rings(a tow rope actually) and 6 x strong rubber bands.




Piet got his Tsotsie away like this on most launches out the front into the thermals, never a dull moment with the Berg guys.


Unfotrtunately nothing slope planned
for the forseeable future, so we will focus on
flat field flying.
regards
Mike