A bit of Sloping today, left me with a big cheesy grin.

Had a half-day today and the forecast said WNW....
It had said NW for the last couple of days and the actual wind had been smack on West so I took a gamble (I needed the walk) and yomped from the IceCream carpark to the Westerly slope of Mickeys at the Bwlch. It's such a nice walk 😎.

It wasn't directly on the slope, but it was great to get some cross-wind practice for a bit and when the thermals came square through...... so much speed!

I had a play with CG's today. I discovered that the Needle is 'flyable' with a very rearward CG (107 ish) , however it is VERY uncomfortable. Whisper quiet but sooo twitchy with very savage reactions to changes in the air, which tend to happen nearer the ground...

I popped a little more lead in the nose of the Precision after a very squirrelly flight which made her fly like a pussycat. probably shifted the CG to 104-ish. I'll measure them both when I've got them where I like them.

It is so nice to be flying two very fast planes 😋

The wind did square to the slope just before I was leaving, but it chilled substantially and I had to feed the fur-babies. They were rocking.

Weather, repairs and Big F3F events

We've had some interesting weather lately and after thawing out since Sunday, today I've managed to get the needle structurally repaired again. The resin is currently going off and I'll crack it open in 24 hours or so.

Hopefully this time I'll leave enough material on the fuz and it won't snap again. Landing sideways was never going to help though....

I'm also going to have to have a think about relief of the wing skins and wipers. Probably tape will solve that one.

I have a free weekend and there are two winter league competitions in the UK this weekend. The Midlands one is on Saturday and I'd like to apologise to the regular blokes as I have entered and the weather doesn't look good. The Southern one is on Sunday and the weather looks pretty poor for that one too. I'm yet to enter that one, but I'd love to.

I've also entered the North of England Open in June and the Welsh Open in September. I imagine those two will be my only big events for the year.

I've been looking at foamies lately as I need a couple for teaching the kids to fly. Adam is keen. Mia probably won't, but that is OK! Just a couple of delta wings like the good old Zagi or X-it will do nicely. It might be a bit of a pipe-dream, but I'd love to be able to spend time with the kids on the slopes. Especially now that they are able to deal with the cold better.

I also pulled out the Wasabi to have a look as I had some spare resin in a pot going to waste. I had completely forgotten that I had started the repairs on her. She'll be galavanting about on the slopes soon! She will always look like a battered bird, but she knows I still care ;-)