Friday 23rd August 2002

It had been raining for a short while Friday morning was a little dull. But the weather soon improved later in the afternoon. Some HPR flying was done on Friday for a short while, but we decided to go for Saturday instead.

Sean had been preparing hs Pheonix to fly on a J570W. He had spent ages on site building a payload section for the GWhizz rather than rely on the motor ejection alone. The fins had also been modified and used some special fibre stuff that was VERY strong. In the end it did not fly and he put the GWhizz back into the upscale Estes Thunderhawk.

A newcomer to the IRW was Gary Blinco. He had brought a very nice PML Thunder and Lightning to fly that afternoon. He had also brought along some very nice designed rocket gliders. These used 18 and 24mm motors with a Large Delta wing design. Sean, Andy, Richard and I decided to build and upscale version!! I had some foam wings that I had made many years ago.

An image of Gary's rocket plane taken by Darren is given below. David is by our 'incomplete' upscale plane.

We cut out a profile from ¼ inch ply and had the basic shape completed quite quickly. The profile section was lightened by drilling it with lots of holes.

Propulsion would be by two sets of 3 x D12 motors either side of the rudder. The elevator would be set to neutral for boost and the ejection charge would then trip the elevator for glide at apogee. It glided well when thrown by hand.

Unfortunately the HPR overtook events and we did not have to complete the glider for Sunday. Maybe we would have it ready for next year?

MODEL FLYING FIELD

The UFO was modified to fly on 3 x D12-0 motors instead of the 3 x D12-3 the previous day. The flight was not quite as stable and the blow through form the D12-0's scorched the body and separated the upper section from the main body of the UFO. The image below shows the UFO incoming !!!!!

Richard Parkin again flew his Anubis on another D12-5, this time it attained about 500 feet then it decided to go horizontal. This was also accepted by the rocket gods and never returned. Richard blames the motor...

Goto report for Saturday 24th August 2002