The Strawberry Farm

[skyboyken]

Thanks Mike and Andrew!

Like you I buy my planes to fly them! If I don't fly because I'm worried about the plane then what's the point of having it in the first place?

Having said that I will definitely look after the Shooter as best I can, because you're right Mike, it is just about perfect!

Ken.

[skyboyken]

Hi Guys,

in response to Nick's post in the Shooter crash thread, I'm intending to go for a fly at the Strawberry Farm this Saturday 2 January.

It'll be with the Caracho, which I need to tune up anyway so it's all good. I doubt I'll have the Shooter finished that quickly!

So far I have tentative Yes'es from Bananaman, Graeme, Greg and Sean. All welcome of course!!

Hope to see you there

Ken.

[bananaman]

Usually the story comes before the pics. I'll post the pics and the story can be told in due course.


Imprint. Yes, those lines are from leading edges!


Hammer disappears down hole

[thevon]

Out of the right came a Star Wars streak and the meteorite hit the ground at a low angle with a crack like an axe splitting a block of wood. All over in about 1 second. It all happened just below the big patch of sky where I was craning my neck at my Espada circling for lift over the Strawberry Farm. Someone’s model had obviously hit the deck, and really hard. Whoever’s it was, it was a write-off. “Oh, no!” I exclaimed in shock, but wondered why nobody was saying anything. Nick, Ken and Brian were flying over near the winches. A short pause, then Nick says “Guys, I’ve completely lost control”. It took a few awkward seconds to work out that Nick had been watching the wrong plane (Brian’s) and was still watching it as his own Xperience Pro performed a spectacular kamikaze attack on the farm, just about 20 metres from where we’d been standing.

It was awful. Poor ol’ Nick is such a wise, careful and skilful flyer and just made one of those mistakes that can befall any of us so easily. We all felt REALLY bad for him. Not a nice thing at all. It only takes a few seconds.

Brian recounted that he was circling high and another plane was at similar height to his left, then it began to drop and dive towards us, doing big axial rolls. It spiraled at huge speed towards the strawberry rows and about 20 metres off the deck it pulled a really hard turn and shot across in front of us and into the deck on a shallow angle. He initially thought it was my plane and that I was bored and doing some aerobatics and when it hit the deck he assumed that I’d stuffed up. So he was wondering why I wasn’t saying anything.

Where the plane went in was firm soil, but the nose went full depth to the wing (as you can see by the photo with the hammer handle full depth in the hole). In that split second the wing snapped fairly cleanly in the middle of the centre panel and both wings made a full span imprint in the ground. Almost the entire leading edge of both wings is crumpled and/or delaminated. I think there’s about 6” of one wing LE that’s OK. The fuse shattered along the boom (bits missing) and the V-tails opened up and went mushy too.

A very sad incident for Nick, but since the crash was quite close to us, I couldn’t escape the possibility that one of us could have copped it - so thank God for that.

[skyboyken]

It's very sad to see such a lovely model so badly damaged.

It may be repairable, it may not. Commiserations with Nick, we all know how it feels to lose a very good plane. Nick is flying REALLY well by the way, so I'm sure this is doubly disappointing for him so close to Armidale.

OTOH, on the 'it's all part of the hobby' front, I flew my trusty and much repaired Caracho today and had launches up to 250m! That's by far my best ever with the Caracho and it just shows how much I learned in the few days I was flying the Shooter before its crash. Sadly the Caracho still doesn't thermal nearly as well as the Shooter .

So to all those who have a mouldie in their shed 'waiting' to be repaired - get to it I say! I accept that not all planes can be repaired, and the flip side is that they absolutely do fly every bit as well post-repair if they are fixable.

I'm still aiming to have the Shooter at Armidale. I hope we see Nick there too!!!

Go Great!

Ken.

[nick]

yeh bummer hey

i just goes to show NEVER take your eyes off your plane, i only took my eyes of her for about 2 seconds and i looked up at brians plane and then after five seconds it was all over, oh well no one was hurt and it's just money mmmm i wont be at Armidale now as work is about to hot up

regards nick

[mikey100]

Went out to the farm to help out and catch up before going for a bungee. Left before the unfortunate accident...

Nick and his plane earlier in the day after a dork landing.


Grahams NEW Tragi 801...under 2kg.


Tragi's first launch.


Ken's Caracho, flaps down for a safe landing.


Andrew's Espada out of mothballs and many successful flights.

[sean]

I'm so sorry to hear that Nick. I was looking forward to seeing you fly it at a comp. I hope this doesn't keep you out of the air for too long.

[vh7377]

Hello Nick,
I am very sorry that you buried that lovely Xpro, and that you won't make Armidale.
I do hope that you flew immediately after to get rid of the guilts. These things happen.
Hutton

[nick]

thanks for the kind words guys ;D

bugger hey!!!!

oh well in time i will get another F3J model and be back out there but now is't a bit of a bad time as i now get real busy with the preperation of the strawberry fields and so on, and so on and so on, won't stop now untill october but if i get some money / spare time, im sure i could build up an arf f3j, because that's what's they really are hey?

take care all

regards nick

[skyboyken]

Hi Guys,

I'm going to the Strawberry farm on Sunday morning to maiden the newly repaired Shooter.

Please feel free to come along and join me!

(In true Ken fashion the plane will be finished on Saturday night )

Go Great!

Ken.

[skyboyken]

So who's coming for a launching (and flying) session on Sunday at 'The Farm'?

And please note the Shooter is RTF DAYS before flying it (for a change )

Ken

[nick]

howdy

well if ya wanna fly at the farm today you will need waders as where the turn around goes you have to walk through over knee deep water, some of the strawberry beds near there are under water, we had 146 mm last night, i think it will take two weeks for down there to dry out to go flying but i will keep you guys informed

nick

[bananaman]

I think we should invent a new gliding event........................

[nick]

nice editing Brian

you could fly that easy from the farm now