dantheman

I can't post in the general section, is this a feature of not having membership yet ?

That's awful news, he is one of the nicest guys you will meet in the sport, everything is crossed but sounds like it may not be enough

You are right, been down for a week, must be serious !

When my clutch went the prop stuck in position, I suspect you will have a similair problem, luckily it's an easy fix.

I think you will agree that Dave clearly talks more bollocks than me hence his rise up the ranks

Nice pics, the 5D is a super piece of kit, thanks for the comments on mine too ! do you think you will stay with this sport for a while or is it another "adventure" under your belt ?

Definately one of the nicer videos out there, almost worthy of a sticky, hey can the PMC film a better intro to the sport ?

Bloody hell Malcs what went wrong ? how did your motor hang so far back ? I hope you bought a lottery ticket !

I'm working some of that weekend so probably can't make it, sounds like it will be a good one and since I used to run a burger van "Dans Dogs" I would have loved to do the cooking !

Nice one Pete, we will have to call you the phoenix rising from the ashes !

Well done mate this is the best news we have had in ages....please let me come and fly from there, here is the site in all it's glory when I last flew over it.

Now that does not look like fun at all, not compared to being stuck at kids parties all weekend seriously though looks like it was a good one !

LUKE, how many hours do you have ? and what sort of accidents have you had ?

We had a similair issue at Windsor park, we use the kite flying area to ground handle and have done on many occasions with regular visits from the parks police, I have always managed to put my point over and have been allowed to contunue but Ken (Togsie) was asked to leave when he last went there. It's the usual health & safety bullshit that's killing our country Francis has this very good point........

Love chasing the shadow down the beach, man those trimmers don't half flap in the breeze though.

Thanks for the kind offer mate but I'm stuck babysitting all weekend with kids to drop off at parties both days otherwise I would have loved to pop down, long may the nice weather continue and I'll see you at the next one ! Dan

Personally I would buy someones three year old machine/wing and depreciation would be very slight after that point, making ownership just a spare parts bill from time to time

Cool day out, great to see the guys there and the skycar getting some attention. Sorry Mark no piccys of your Atom, it was too quick ! At least someone did some flying..

Hope to see you lot there fingers crossed the kids will love it.

Fred read THIS thread, there is a map and info on one of the Basingstoke sites. cheers Dan

Hi Manny, I'm a bit nearer to you than Basingstoke but if you check out the airmap you will see why no one can fly in your area !! Guildford is an option but at £8 a session it gets expensive so I reckon Basingstoke is still going to be your best bet ! Even better get yourself to Lambourn or Worminghall to meet most of the people on the forum, Basingstoke-Lambourn is a nice short cross country flight for a beginner Who is teaching you at the moment and whats your current site like ? have you met Mike from Farnborough ? cheers Dan

My mapcase only has 2 clips, each one goes onto the end of the frame arms and the windspeed keeps the map pinned to my knees.

I reckon you have packed more into 12 months than I will ever manage ! excellent video mate

www2.wetter3.de/ is my primary site, I look for weather fronts and wind speed, since fronts are the principal cause of significant weather and are to be avoided, and windspeed dictates if it's within our safe limits to fly. This site is better than the met office site as you get an extra couple of days forecast. Click on the down arrow under Bodenanalyse, this steps through the next 5 days and you can watch the fronts moving and see where and when the high pressure will creep in. This is very useful to know as you can plan when/if a front will pass over which is often not obvious on one chart alone. Here you see (in 2008) Wednesdays forecast at midnight, a lovely big lump of high pressure covering the UK, the lack of isobars (lines) shows low winds, high winds would be indicated by the isobars being close together for example at the top of the map. Also the lack of fronts crossing the UK means no significant changes in the weather (usually rain and temperature changes). The next map at 12:00 is virtually the same (not shown here as it just clutters up this section) so we can deduct there will be little change during the course of the day. By stepping through the 5 day forcast you should be able to tell which days are looking flyable and how long the window willl last, and this day looks peachy. Next I like to confirm the weather in the location I want to fly, I know the met office has spot wind charts however I swear by www.metcheck.com/ which translates the surface wind into a very easy to read format. Simply enter your location in the box and step through the days of the week. To confirm what we thought about Wednesdays weather, Metcheck shows the following detailed information throughout the course of the day including cloud cover, windspeed & direction. Metcheck does have an aviation forecast but I find the basic one does the job. I play with these sites a lot, and while there are more sites to look at, these two simplify the forecast so I'd advise you to look at them as often as possible, clicking through the days ahead and see how accurate they are. The weather is like an episode of Eastenders, you can pause one frame to see who's in it, but you really need to watch the episode to see what they are doing. http://www.XCweather.co.uk is a superb realtime windspeed website, use this to check the difference between forecast windspeed and actual windspeed as this gives a very good indication of whether or not it will be blown out. Then there is the Met office balloon forecast's for morning & evening, always worth a look before you leave for a fly to confirm that it will be a nice one ! Remember a forecast is a predicted event, but it has variables, however as the event draws closer the variables reduce and the forecast becomes more certain until the event actually happens, so don't rely on what it says will happen in 5 days, check it each day.

£500 is a big lump of money just to save a few mins clipping a cage together and bolting a prop on. My motor travels in the boot and does not take long to assemble at the flying field, even the reserve only takes a couple of mins to strap on. One bonus of putting it together each time is you are able to give it a nice pre-flight check (and post-flight) wheras if you dump it back in the trailer it would be too easy to overlook a loose bolt or cracked mount. All that aside, I do like the idea of storing it whole in a trailer, just attaching it to the towbar whenever you need a fly knowing it's all there ready to go.