See you all at the NEC this weekend

See you all at The Flying Show

Extreme Tea Drinking - at 500' !

Here is a must-see from Ben Ashman's YouTube channel.

experiments with a map on one leg

I have been experimenting with ways to navigate using only one leg for my map....and the simplest is to photocopy 1:1 my map and assemble and laminate a slice 17cm (approx 25 st.miles) deep x 60cm in length (allowing for a flight of 75 st. miles E-W or vice versa) and wrap it around my leg (and ends joined with velcro) in a tube which can be rotated around my leg.

I have also made a prototype "window", secured to my flying suited leg top and bottom, which will direct airflow over the map to stop it lifting, but which could also have scale on it, and which could provide, as this trial does, a 1/2 hr or 17mile (at trim speed) view. It is made from A5 laminate sheet and secured with sticky-backed velcro.The window might over-complicate things though.

To keep your place you could even have a magnetic circle on the window-top and a metal disc inside the window, then slide the circle to approx position before doing other things.

This slice allows for a flight from Rougham to Sywell, taking in Sutton Meadows and Sackville.

Note
Incidentally, no map was harmed in the making of this prototype. (well, strictly speaking, a 2006 map of Poland was sacrificed. It was rescued from a Flylight skip after the championships)


Another method would have to be employed if flying a similar distance N-S. I have a few cunning plans in mind, like a variation on this instructable, which I have made, which takes up a space on the leg of roughly A6 *(see note), yet can accommodate 75 miles in any direction. But this can get complicated to use, and will need development ....especially if I am to use it with gloves on). It involves flaps folding left to right or up and down, variously.

* Note
ref A6. This is the size of A4 folded in half twice; I have also folded an A3 map to do something similar - though in both cases this solution requires more folds than that and includes a cut or two, so don't use originals unless you are a wealthy flier

RT kit

I am blogging less, as sitting here is bad for my back...and I want to save that for when it is less windy!

But while not flying I have been thinking about communications. Buying RT kit is a nightmare of variables and expense. First you need the right radio, then, they will tell you, an interface (at a further couple of hundred pounds), then headphones....the whole lot costing easily £600 or so. - and no two pieces of kit necessarily automatically compatible with each other...so you have to think well ahead. Well, here I tried to think outside the box, and with friends' advice, concluded that an SSDR pilot is really a slightly scaled up paramotor pilot, so I don't need an interface. I just need paramotoring headphones with a two pin plug which connects straight to a radio.

I have bought a second hand, but very well regarded Icom IC-A22E and after a very great deal of to and froing, bought an ex-demo pair of Microavionics headphones, with side tone (so you can hear your own voice transmitting - therefore no need to shout) and with a year's guarantee and the assurance that any mods or alterations to be done by the manufacturers will be FoC! That great deal comes from Alan Thomson, a fellow teacher, as it happens.

RT comes in at well under £300, even having bought a charger from ICOM, which is quite a result! I haven't transmitted yet, but enjoyed monitoring Lizzie's radio calls when she was doing circuits a couple of weekends ago.

And along the way I have made a new mate, Steve Taft, who responded to my Mayday on the BMAA forum and has provided reassuring and sensible advice. And while most others responded by offering to sell me something, Steve offered the loan of some of his kit to experiment with and decide what sort of set-up I really want. I didn't take him up on his offer, but what a generous one it was.

Flight of 28th Oct . GPS overlay on Google Earth

Our flight

Click images to see blown up.

I have yet to work out if there is a way that I can publish files
which can be used by readers in G. Earth, so that they can be navigated


Ickworth House, SW of Bury St Edmunds


RAF Honington, over-flying the runway


Rougham (formerly RAF Bury St Edmunds), Home base

"sector recce"

Yesterday I did my "sector recce", which Steve (ex-RAF navigator in Tornados) tells me is the RAF jargon for having a look around the area you are going to be flying in for a while. Being airborne again was fantastic, though no sooner was I up than I realised I needed to land, as my breather tube, normally retained in a hole in one of the panels (which I had decided to fly without), was blowing about and had been unceremoniously shortened by the prop. Damn. Steve realised I was in trouble and came back and landed behind me, though by the time he was down, I had taped the breather out of the way and was ready to take off again.

I flew in an open-face motorbike helmet (with scooter visor). Until now I have always used my Microavionics one, but then I have had the use of a school headset. I need to get myself one. I'd wondered how noisy it would be. But really it was fine. A friend has been trying to convince me of the merits of a Flycom helmet, which cuts out loads of noise and cold but I have to say that these are not necessarily advantages. It is good feeling the air on your face and hearing your engine. I don't want to feel detached from the experience.

I had my balloonist's altimeter in my see-through pocket and it appeared to work rather well. Steve appeared always to be higher than me, though this may be an illusion. The rate of climb is conservative, to the say the least, but I realised pretty soon that I tend to pull on speed, thus losing height or reducing my rate of climb. The trim position is actually a fair stretch. What I need is a vario/vsi (I nearly got an old one on ebay last night)

It was wonderful settling down into the experience of the flight and taking in the sights, circling to enjoy the details, like when I turned quite tightly to look at a church tower near Ickworth house and to return the wave of children on a half-term outing. The House itself looked fantastic from the air and made me feel that if I spend my time sightseeing from my Dragonfly, I need never go abroad again. There is so much to see here...and possibly no better way to see the country than from above. The layout of gardens and vineyards, avenues of trees etc is impossible to appreciate at ground level.

One thing I will HAVE to do is find a way to rig a camera, ideally with a screen to give a field of view...or some kind of wire frame sight....so that I can record what I see. One thing that can be recorded is the route. I think my Etrex can already be made to do this - I haven't explored it yet - but Steve sent me a Google map overlay of our route, as recorded by his own GPS system. It would be terrific to be able to keep a record of every route flown.

A highlight of the flight was a recce of RAF Honington. Steve got us permission to fly in close and have a really good look at the runway. I gather that the base is only now used for NBC training and at one point I saw a gaggle of airmen looking up from the door of what to this amateur looked like a bomb shelter, but which may well have been a gas hut like the one I trained in when I was in the TA. We had to walk around in the CS gas, and take turns at taking masks off and giving name, rank and number before exiting the building, coughing our guts out, our eyes streaming. I remember that I hadn't been issued my army number yet, so I just gave my phone number.

Being now free to fly into the area of the former MATZ will be excellent - though Lakenheath is still out of bounds. We had to keep a keen look-out because there were a number of KC130s flying in at about 500' above us. I had thought it would only be possible to fly beneath the panhandles, but providing we take account of those Lakenheath aircraft, we are a lot more free to fly North of Rougham now that the RAF have stopped ops at Honington.

My landing at the end of the flight was sweet....a darn sight better than my earlier one, which had been very pendulous - very hairy indeed. I think I am going to really enjoy flying my "sector", operating from Rougham....and venturing out further afield.

I talked to some of the chaps flying radio controlled models back at Rougham and one, Kevin, told me about two Tornados he had seen beating up the airfield at about 200'! I am going to have to be on the look-out for that sort of thing, and with that in mind, I MUST get my radio licence. Let me know, folks, if you hear of an affordable radio. I am planning on not bothering with an interface, just using an OPC499 with a GA headset, or similar rig.

Yesterday was an important landmark for me. From now on I am an independent operator. Free to fly.

rigging and de-rigging solo

I have no pics of the flying itself (must do something about that in future) but it was glorious (why do the most expressive adjectives sound so old fashioned?)

While I was unloading, Steve crept up behind me in his Dragonfly. I was amazed that, whether because I was just too involved in getting organised or was up wind of him (noise, not smell, lol), I didn't hear him taxying, let alone land.

Steve Wilson in G-IWIZ

My wing outrigger (for loading and unloading solo) works brilliantly. I did most of my rigging myself, insisting that Steve didn't make it easy for me (though I did ask him to do a few battens, just to speed things up); and once we had landed after our "sector recce" and said our goodbyes, I was de-rigging solo for the first time and very much aware that nobody was going to bail me out if it went wrong. So I was delighted that I packed my wing away very tidily indeed.....and got it up on to the van roof-rack with ease.

de-rigging with nobody to bail me out if I got into trouble

ready to load up van

I took lots of pictures of the trike and of the narrow gauge undercarriage. The day before I'd made a gizmo for keeping the ramps parallel too, and was pleased that it seemed to work ok.

the trike before the narrow gauge wheels are put on



Both sets together, before the wider set is retracted for transit


lifting narrow gauge wheels onto trolley raises undercarriage off ground


retract main gear


dispense with trolley

load up.
(the narrow gauge wheels fit the trike in the van and will run it through my front door, where the trolley makes it manoeuvrable -sideways etc- indoors, where space is restricted)