Make my Day !!!

Hi all,

As you all maybe aware of is that it is Tuesday the 13th today , all day but at least not as bad as Friday the 13th ,that is if you superstitious about the 13th , actually good things can happen on the 13th.

Sometimes things happen and afterwards and when you think back you know that you did not plan it that way.

Well what happened this morning with me was definitely not planed at all. As I was about to leave my home for work my attention was drawn to the hedge next to our gate. The sudden movement of wings came from a Grey Lorrie that was having a meal on the ripe berries. I always carry my camera with me and with the morning light and the red berries the Lorrie would make for a good picture.

I had my camera out in no time switched on, zoomed in and focused but just as I pressed the shutter button to take the picture nothing happened. I quick look at the display showed “Memory card Full”.

Needles to say I uttered some not so descent words and franticly start to delete as many bad pictures as I can to make space for “The Shot of the day”. This took about 30 seconds and when I got back to taking the picture, the Lorrie was not on the hedge any more but in the tree just above.

I uttered some more not so decent words and strolled head down to open the gate in frustration took a picture of the Lorrie in the tree as a consolation prize.

The next moment as I was about to open the gate, still with my camera in hand, I heard the familiar sound of twin aero engines droning away. As I looked in the direction of the approaching plane I could not believe my eyes, the sound was that of my favourite plane a Rockwell Aero commander.

The last time I saw an Aero commander fly was at a Air show (Lanceria) when Bob Hoover were flying it in a aerobatic display. Next thing I realized that I still had my camera in my hands and Immediacy took as many pictures I could. This time the Camera work with me and

I got some reasonable shots that I am posting her with the Lorrie that starred the events. As for the Grey Lorrie shot that I didn’t get I don’t mind but I am really happy to get the pictures of the Aero Commander (I don’t think their are very many in flying condition out there any more)
So of to work I go with smile a mile wide no matter what happens today on this really made my Day!!!

You can get more Pictures of this Aero Commander on Airliners.net , just follow the link below
http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?regsearch=ZS-KPU

F5J #1 @ BERG

The first F5J event of the year took place at BERG on the 18th February. Before I left home it look like it was going to rain and we wouldn't get any flying that day. But by the time all the eager pilots arrived, although still heavily overcast, the rain had held off and we were able to get of to a fairly early start.

After a brief discussion about the rules and the usual haggling about wind direction and landing spots locations, Ivan got things going. In all we had 9 entrants on the day, with three complete newbie's in the fray.

There were a few issues with the setting on some of the guys altimeter deceives..... Our esteemed host from BERG, Prepetation Piet, managed to launch to 270meter on his first attempt. A serious penalty of 370 points. But despite this, he still won the round. Mostly, because he flew the full 10 minutes, while the other pilots only managed around 3 to 5 minutes. Not much lift around at that time of the morning.

But soon things got down to normal and the rounds progress nicely with one or two more small issues along the way. Johan had the unfortunate mishap of his motor running in reverse at the start of one of his slots and by the time he had swapped models, half his working time had elapsed.

Ivan, who organised the event and the F5J rep, had a ball with his ETsotsi, winning the day. Well done Ivan.

After we all settled down to the format and had a better understanding of the rules, it was great to see how after each flight the guys would gather around and count the flashes on their Altis meters and compare times and landings with each other.
The new F5J rules are great and I'm sure that this format will grow very rapidly. It's so easy to just switch on and fly. No hassle with winches and wind direction and line breaks and all that bother.

Especially gratifying for me was to see so many Tsotsi's competing against each other.

It must be mentioned that Gordon and Jonathan flew glider that were just not suited to this type of event, while Melgardt started off with a similar type of glider, he flew the last 3 or 4 rounds with Ivan Tsotsi and the improvement was dramatic.

PSS FEST Volksrust 2011

The SU-35 Sukhoi “Flanker” Russia Jet of Mike May on its Maiden flight.

The feld fire near Oom Louis Farm house made this picture even more realistic.

The settings on My Nikon D90 was As follows: 1/1000 sec, f5.6 ,ISO 100 ,

18- 105mm nikor lensSet at 40mm.

BERG Photo Of the year

HTL # 3 (Photo's by Evan Shaw)

Eeeish! How close is that?????

Get out of my &%$#^@* way !!!!!

"Turn right Dammit!!!!!"



Lionel the Slave Driver
PS. Read his comment below!!!!



Derek with his patched up 2met

The flight line



Close formation on landing

Rudi



Another spot landing

Ivan



The Wolfie Snarl

Nigel's little boy



Running repairs

Right - Piet's Thulani on approach. Wolfie taking evasive action!!




Below - Derek and Ian

And finally young Jason "The rising STAR"

Vloksrust midsummer trip 2010

Over the last 3 years between Christmas and New Year we have done this relaxed and informal slope soaring trips and so was the 2010 event. Every year as we set out towards Volksrust there is always the concern about the weather and lately even more so because of the extreme weather conditions we experiencing. So you can land up with no slope soaring possible at all or on the other hand the conditions could be perfect.

It so happened this year that we had a perfect day one on the North West slope and the next two days with very light and variable winds. It is for this reason that you have to take an assortment of gliders that can handle from no wind to a howling 40 kph wind. This means taking more than one glider and depending on conditions you could end up flying some of them and the rest could not even get assembled.

However what made this year’s planning more difficult was that after the 3 days on the mountain we were set to travel down to the KZN South coast to spend the a few more days on the coast and while we were there we were to meet my younger daughter at the King Shaka airport to spend some time with us and afterwards travel back with us home.

Before we left we had a small rehearsal as to make sure all of us knew what space were available as I had no tow–hitch fitted to my personal vehicle and therefore could not use my trailer. Obviously as you will see in the next pictures my plans did not worked out as planned.

If somewhere in the future you land up with a similar situation you could do what I ended up doing on the home leg of our journey.

HS Buccaneer PSS Build (Part 3)

The 1/72 scale Airfix kit that I build in Part 1 and Part 2 provided me with a lot of information but did not include a much needed front view of the buccaneer. I had to revert back to a Google search to find a drawing that contained cross sections of the fuselage. With the aid of this drawing I then scaled the 13 formers to I/7^th scale that I required. Six of the Formers (where the jet engines are situated) were too big to print on a normal A4 (unless you tile them) printer and I had them plotted by my brother on his A2 plotter.

After cutting them out and pasting it on thin Formica I will cut and shape those to the outlines of the plotted formers to make up templates for my hot wire foam cutter. Up to yesterday I managed to do 5 of the smaller formers with the bigger 8 still to be done.  Once all the formers are done I will order the foam and proceed cutting it, building up the fuse in sections as per Formers 1 to 13.

This technique differs somewhat from the top view /side view approach and may require more work but I think that I will end up with a more accurate / symmetrical fuselage especially more so because of the complex curves of the buccaneer’s fuselage.

For now I am happy with progress and I am including some pictures of the build as up to this date.


I don’t know when I will make the next posting and therefore would like to this opportunity to whish all the BERG Blog readers a Merry Christmas and a happy new year (2011)-May all your landings be good ones.

There is a Buccaneer in my front garden (PSS build Part 2)

Over the last 3 evenings I managed to finish the Buccaneer 1/72 scale model and I must say that this project is now starting to draw me in. I do not think that building the plastic kit was a bad idea as I have learned  a lot and now getting more and more excited about the project.

I did not have any major problems with the build, as many reports pointed out, and found that my fuselage top and bottom lined up ok, however the right hand saddle where the wing would slot in had a 1 mm lip but I shaved this off and had no further problems with the fit after that.

My biggest problem was in and around the cockpit area, but somehow just carried on no matter what went wrong. The biggest setback I had was when the fuel nozzle disappeared after I had glued in position. I did not wait for the glue/paint to dry properly and carried on working and when I turned the model over knocked it off. Later on I realised that the nozzle was gone and started a massive search that lasted for at least a half-hour before it finely found it - stuck to my left outside forearm. The buccaneer won’t be Buccaneer without this all important feature and if I did not find would not know how to manufacture a small part like this, but in the end everything worked out I am happy with the result.

The only things that I have done extra were to make a stand to mount the Buccaneer on because I wanted to see how the Buccaneer would look like in full flight. Of the 144 pieces that came with the kit there must be about 60% or more left (fuel tank and bomb parts).

 I did not fit them on the wings as they would crowd the underside so much so that you would not see any part of the wing! Anyway I think it will take about the same time or more just to assemble and paint all the bombs that the Buccaneer could carry. I probably will assemble them, but for now I don’t want to lose the focus on the building the 1/7 scale PSS Buccaneer.

I don’t think that I will get much more done in terms of building this Des but I would like to get the plans drawn up so that I can start building in Jan 2011.

I posted some pictures that I found really inspiring to me as you can see with them you do not need to imagine how the Buccaneer would look like flying on Volksrust slope and I hope that you will enjoy as much as I did taking them.

Roll-on 2011!