christmas combat

it's that most wonderful time of the year!

and on a rather more depressing note, read on below.....

predictably nebulous

Sloper Road

Having a clear-out at chez Goodwind.

Latest Ebay sale just happens to be going to....

lest we forget

Found languishing on an old hard drive,

a memory of Jim's ASW from exactly 10 years ago.

Floaty Firle

It seems we've had more airtime at Firle than at any

of the other South Downs sites this year.

The other Friday we found ourselves bunking off there again

for a delightfully floaty session.

King of the scale floaters..

...away she goes!

Dave's vintage beauty has two speeds-

very slow, and imperceptibly faster than very slow. 

but its lovely lines and airborne grace

remind us that there is a magical delight to be had

from flying, regardless of the amount of carbon fibre

you have on-board.

There's a level of uncertainty as to its origin.

Maybe with those curvy tips its great, great, great

grand-daughter was the prototype Radian.

 Beautiful torsion bracing in the tailplane.

Let's see if the pre-nineties aeromodelling

spotter's guide is able to enlighten us...

...and there she is!

Anyone know what an 'auto rudder' is?

I think one of those sounds like it could

help with my dodgy flying.

Then just when we thought that the 'Fillon's Champion' would

provide all the intrigue of the day, Dave goes and pulls

this XC machine out of the bag!

It was born from an unprotected one-night stand coupling

between a U2 spy plane and a Multi-Phase.

An ASW 28 went in for sloppy seconds that night too....hence the wing-tips!

Despite its mixed heritage, all the elements come together to form

a rather aesthetically pleasing machine.

It climbs on a gnat's fart and turns tighter

than a pair of Spanish Inquisition suspect's

testicles in a standard issue bench vice.

Its dark underside makes it stand out well on high altitude missions.

Meanwhile Adrian's plank lets off a couple of

heat seeking missiles at its master.

Despite the meagre wind speed, Mark's up at

a safe altitude with no buttock clenching evident. 

Down for a quick breather....

...and then off again into slightly better air.

and finally a spectacular ring-twitcher as the Nimbus

slides in on finals and tries its best to relaunch...

another 1 mph landing speed and she would have been

tobogganing down Firle's face.

Mr Snipz takes it all in his usual laid back stride,

and we're good to go again another day.

weapon of choice

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/42032629

Auslanders!

World War 2, the 1966 World Cup, I am a jelly doughnut!

Right, that's got all the prejudices out the way.

It was quite a treat to stumble across a group of Germans

on holiday on the South Downs a few weeks ago...

Archetypal German soaring machinery- a superb little Horten

Its urge for airborne freedom is restrained by

judicious placement of masking tape.

A lovely selection of flying machinery made it across the channel.

Vision controlled micro glider.

Anyone spot the signs of high pressure?

0 to 3mph means that the late afternoon turns into battle of the floaters.

They're packing up :-(

This lovely little DLG is the last down.

Consensus from our guests is that their national soaring

mecca (die Wasserkuppe) isn't a patch on the South Downs.

Gerxit.

Long shadow at Longman.

the eye of soar-on

Always handy to find an unexpected heat source when you're scratching low down.

Fortunately we don't have too many of these on the North Downs....!

Villarria volcano Chile.

Edit- additional info from Eric....

"However we do have something similar in Sittingbourne, albeit on a (much) smaller scale.

I used to fly in the evening on the grassed-over household tip at Borden that had a couple of 20 feet high chimneys used to burn off the methane generated by the decomposing rubbish. They used to produce a reasonable amount of hot air to supplement the warm air rising from the surrounding trees, however I had to very careful that my venerable Sonata wasn't flown too close to the flame otherwise scorched Fibafilm and doped nylon would be the outcome!!"

Teutonic turn-out

Long rubber at Longman.

Full report to follow at some point.....

furry firle

The horror that faced us just before Halloween....

...a sky full of paragliders!

For the record, the airspace had cleared somewhat when

this photo was taken.

Some rather handy tips for flying the Fosa.

Chris's lovely scratch built scalie.

Preparing for a monster launch....

(Eric F photo)

...and with those mitts

it just about flippin' well went into orbit!

(Eric F photo)

Clearing the patch for home time.

exercising the grey matter

An interesting programme on Radio 4 today....