Blackburn Mark

It can be expensive, noisy, smelly, heavy, scary and the weather window can be infuriatingly narrow but, if you are lucky you will be one of those who just cant help but shoulder the pain in the ass the sport can be to get your hands on those moments that make it all worthwhile. There is nothing like it! The hardest part is deciding to "do it" rather than "watching"

looks like you have some wild country out there. You would have your hands full crossing some of that terrain but its not insurmountable and it looks like you are spoilt for choice in places to explore from the air. lots of your roadside clearings have power lines. With reasonably tuned spot landing skills and some forward planning, I would say it is well worth it... At times you will have to fly high to keep within glide of landing spots... This can be a bit boring, low and slow is where most of the fun is at I often fly close to four hours... Battery would make the range radius quite frustrating for me in a place like that.

Looks pretty robust to me! You could drop that off a building, dust it off and fly it Bit small on diameter to make sense though. There have been two finger chopping events recently, I personally suspect that the trend for having a larger gap between the hoop plane and the prop is allowing the frame to collapse and delivering fingers directly to the prop BEFORE the frame can destroy the prop (in line/prop snag events, the hand can get pinned to the frame and winched into the prop) I might do some drawing to warn folks of the issue as its making bloody nervous now i know about it.

Ouch! You have my sympathies in your attempts to heard cats. You need a bigger dog

Give us the airport name so we can look at the topography on google maps... I refuse to believe there wont be plenty of emergency landing spots to leapfrog over on any potential xc flights Your xc flights will be limited if you go electric ... Its not uncommon for some folks to remain close to their take-off point for a year or two anyway.

There are plenty of reasons for missing out on usable audio, maybe the camera guy was using an old D5 mk1

People who work differently to you I always found audio a pain in the ass and expensive.

Old thread but in the interests of those searching for info: (Cylinder head Naraku Racing for Yamaha Cygnus, BW 5ML 4V) Anyone with a Bailey V4 motor... This is a "Naraku" performance aftermarket part for the Yamaha Cygnus and looks identical to the Bailey V4 heads with the chevron cooling fins (which I could not find on any other head kits)

I set the update to 1 minute and knocked it off while i was camping in the hopes it didn't kill my phone battery. Five hour flight time (ish) and all was well (60% battery left on a reasonably old phone) It did lock up on the way back so if its critical that you can be seen, you need to keep tabs on it.

Airwhere app ... Overlays on google maps // Speed and altitude I used it for an overnight out and return so the Mrs could keep tabs. She had the bacon butties at the ready for when i landed

Ouch! Six pilots is a busy day for our favorite spot up here. 50 pilots would saturate all interesting spots within a 5 mile radius... On the up-side, it will be short lived.

A more effective and efficient method might be to make direct contact with the pilots in question... In my experience, folks generally do not enjoy spoiling other peoples thing. I doesn't take much to change someone's behavior to your benefit as long as its done with some sensitivity. Don't allow your angst to stew into barking at folks who are likely to be just like you... Enjoying "their" thing. You have put some effort into showing a collaborative front here, put some of that effort into isolating where these pilots are launching from and volunteer the calmest one of you to go and put a "friendly" flea in their ears when they land or put a sign up asking for folks to avoid flying over X Y and Z. There are many casual agreements just like this around most places I fly from in the NW, it becomes "word of mouth" pass-along info that does get policed by pilots themselves who do not wish to either rock the boat or spoil other peoples thing

I think with the kougar 2, it is unrated so adding the weight does not spoil what i assume would be about a "C" rating. A "B" rated wing is sold with, for example, a 90 degree maximum rotation from a 50% asymmetric collapse which would quickly become a 90 degree plus when overloaded (Fail the "B" rating)... But, I am "assuming" this is the cause of what appears to be an anomaly.

Listen to your Dell's and Kurt's with a healthy dose of skepticism (sound like you already do) Mostly (like any niche activity/collective) folks are quick to attempt to help and encourage each other on the endless learning journey that flight is Keep the faith, more people than not are made of splendid stuff.

I cant find any reference to trike weight limit on the Link. My Niviuk Kougar 2 23m allows for 160kg using a trike and 140kg foot launch but without a formalised recovery certification on the kougar, there is no standard over which the extra weight will reveal itself in its obvious increase in dynamic response. You are likely to lose the "B" classed responses if you are over weight... Expect more rotation before spontaneous recovery, more dive exiting a stall and no spontaneous or slow exit from a hard spiral. All those things can be somewhat mitigated if your active responses are reasonable. I deliberately flew an Artic 15+kg over weight for years (free flight) so took a good spanking on it from time to time, I loved that wing! NOT advising you fly over weight... Just giving you a hint at what I might do before a splashed a large wedge on buying a 25m.

I have always assumed they are just different doglegs and interchangeable.... It may be worth doing some research or giving Paul Bailey a shout and asking if this is true. You may struggle to obtain a "mid-style" set and I failed to manage to bend a new set for mine (Stainless is a bitch... needs more heat than I had // or a better bender) They are a pain to get in to (Hands behind your back like you are being handcuffed and drop in) and I always attach the wing before I clip in. Not sure why you would want to "lean forward"... You wear it like a rucksack... Strapped together If you mean you cant get forward to stand with it on your back, it aint easy.. I lean the motor back and rock forward to get onto one knee then stand up from there.

Just had a look at where you where... Kearviag bay is just 8 miles west of you there. I have often dreamed of landing on that beach for the night but the Scottish weather might pin you down for a while if you get it wrong. A woman starved to death in that bothy (pinned by winter weather)... I doubt there are many more isolated spots in the UK A sad end but I can understand why she picked the spot!

"Kick out oil".....? Is that code for "knobble the working class, they can walk!"?

Cliffs are a pain in the ass and mountains are intimidating The rotor behind a cliff can be worse the further back you go but i would think in 6-8mph, it would be more taxing than dangerous and it would depend on how tall and sheer the cliff is. I have always found cliff launches pretty stressful... There are a lot of random variables until you clear the edge. Always fancied flying the west of Scotland... But the gap between a lazy meander and white knuckle pandemonium in such a place is a touch narrow for a pussy like me Hard to beat the view though... A mindboggling place!

Hi Frank I think "club" may be too strong a term, usually you will get loose groups who will fly from a particular spot with varying amounts collaboration... It can be very nice to do an XC mission with whoever happens to be flying that day. I fly from a spot just north of Clitheroe, bit of a trek from Bolton... Its a good spot though, easy to avoid annoying Joe Public and easy access to lots of interesting open country XC flights You simply start turning up and slowly you will bump into the various characters and join in on their adventures... they will to some extent look after you.

Been thinking about this one... Looking at your last photo again, its possible those dog-legs are also a little bent and with them being "high mount" a small bend would have a marked effect. Bending those back towards the cage would have much more effect on the overall frame hang angle than bent uprights. My dog-legs had been bent enough to have caused a bit of a kink which spoiled the rigidity of the tubing so I welded a small gusset in the lower curve. Again, not recommending you do the same (Makes it nice and rigid but creates a stress riser) I wouldn't be shy of bending them to be parallel to the down tubes (while under tension) if they are in good condition though.

This is 15 degrees, your frame looks to be below that... Looking at your top picture does make it look like your motor is drooping. I had a similar issue with mine, it had been quite badly smashed and the uprights had a none obvious bend which took some effort to jack out with a hydraulic jack and ratchet straps. Putting that straight edge against the forward uprights will reveal any issues with those. Been flying the scruffy little thing for years now but i did eventually make a new cage hoop.