Full Circle Flyers

Ringmaster Fly-a-thon 2013

I took my Ringmaster for a fly this morning and clocked up 8 flights for the Ringmaster Fly-a-thon between 8:30am and 9:30am before the wind and rain came along. I was flying solo so I tried out my stooge for the first time. It works a treat!

My stooge - "As flash as a rat with a gold tooth!!"

One of the problems of flying C/L alone is retrieving the model and getting it back to the pit area without kinking or tangling your lines in the grass so I quickly made this handle holder yesterday.
Just drop the handle into the slot and grab your plane and carry it back to the pits. Now that I know it works extremely well, I will build a prettier one. I just used junk that I found in my shed. The reason for the “Z bend” in the holder is to allow the handle to pivot around much more easier than if it was just a straight shaft. The handle is left in the holder ready for the next flight.

Retrieval handle holder.

I did not trip over the holder during flights because I always step back 3 paces after take-off to give a good safety margin between the plane and the pits. Now I know the stooge and holder work so well, I am looking forward to more solo flying.


I had tank problems with the filler pipe being blocked off with solder. So I flew all flights with the uniflow pipe blocked and the overflow pipe open. The engine leaned out during every flight.
The tank was tested after I built it and everything was OK. But then I soldered a strap to the side of the tank to secure it to the fuselage and the position of the strap was exactly where the end of the filler/uniflow pipe was attached inside the tank, so the solder inside the tank melted and closed off the pipe. I unsoldered the end of the tank and cleared the pipe, reassembled and tested OK.


It's getting windier as the day goes on so I will have to wait for tomorrow. The forecast looks good anyway... Fingers crossed.

Sunday the weather was as forecast so Lyal Cameron and I made the most of it and clocked up some more flights on Sunday morning. On my first flight, I decided to see how close I could land to the pit station and ended up just clipping my chair with the wingtip.

You can see in the photo the chair was a bit too close to the takeoff/landing point. Tore the wheel off and snapped the fuselage.

That little wrinkle on the end of  leading edge is where it hit.

                                                                                                                                                  

Video of the "Ring Ding".

I had to share Lyal's Ringmaster with him for the rest of the morning.We put up 8 flights each. Lyal left for home and it was back to the hanger (shed) for me, glued the fuse back together with some 5 minute epoxy and half an hour later I returned to the field for another 15 flights. On the first of the 15 flights the tank decided to fall off. The tin strap holding it to the fuselage had fractured.

This is how I held it on with bits and pieces that I found in my flight box. A bit wobbly but it did the job.

Number of flights:  John Moody, 30 flights,  Lyal Cameron,  8 flights.  Total for Tasmania is 38 flights.

And now on to Townsville........

Bob McKenzie, Alan Beggs and Jim Greenwood put in some flights at Townsville Aeromodeller Society's field on Saturday. A couple of TAS R/C flyers had a few flights using Alan's Ringmaster.

TAS Oak Valley field

Charles Mulroney Park.

Bob, Alan & Jim continued flying Ringmasters on Sunday at Charles Mulroney Park.

The number of flights put in by Townsville was 50.

Bob McKenzie   15

Alan Beggs         16

Jim Greenwood  11

Paul Deidun          2

Geoff Luke           3

Cameron Mocke  3

Final Results for the 2013 Ringmaster Fly-a-thon is a new record of 2332 flights.

Next year's target is 2500 flights.