Scale aerotow report - Brisbane Australia

[BrianF]

Hi, there used to be a section for this, but it had minimal activity. A lot of AUS scale soaring news has gone to Facebook, I dabble, but generally its a platform I tend to avoid as do many of the pilots in our area beyond family ties. Our little core of aerotow diehards have been active for 25 years at different locations in this part of the world around Brisbane, because of that we have called our interest group SEQSA, South Eastern Queensland Scale Aerotow. Anyhow, I do a short report after each of our monthly "days", its a small audience, may as well post the reports here too if you'd like, might find them interesting.

Our group has some amazing talent, Jilles for a start, and me, incredible builder and pilot (when I'm not broken or overcome with procrastination) and others with truly exceptional skills as designers, builders or pilots, all good people. You won't know all the names mentioned, I don't know all of yours.

We currently fly at MRSSA's (Moreton Region Sports Soaring Association) field, I happen to be the president of that club, around 50% of the members are also interested in Scale Soaring. That site has a 2000ft height and 1000m radius approval, just right for what we like to do there. We even have neighbours who like to watch what we do.

................ The report ................

Hi, a report from yesterday's flying. A really good day, not a huge crowd, quite a lot of relaxed flying, some comedy and tragedy.
The weather was great, warm and dry, the thermals were big when you found them, but not frequent.
The shelter now has an artificial turf floor, the facility has improved a lot since we started there. The strips were quite good too, compared to the moon craters we used to have.

Evan (Cub) and Kris (Extra) did the bulk of towing duties, thank you for your efforts, always appreciated.
Karl bought out an old model of his that he has been restoring, a 36yr old Pilot Big Rainbow. It was a typical r/c aerotow tug in its day. The NGH38 4 stroke in it runs well but isn't a powerhouse. We tried a couple of tows with it, see below.

I flew my 7m ASH31, Minimoa 4.3m and the 2m ASW27. The 31 is a big model, it flies on rails and I intend to fly it a lot more than I have (when I'm able). The nerves have gone now, so time to explore its limits. Holds its energy very well, to be accurate coverts potential into kinetic energy with minimal losses.

The Minimoa hasn't flown for a few years, still needs some TLC in the tuning department, it's quite well put together for an ARF. Its modeled on Goppingen G03 HB-232, apparently an early version, hence the different canopy shape. I read somewhere, that the fullsize was started but not completed until many years later, its in a museum now.

The small fully molded ASW27 I got cheap at a model auction, the owner decided it was unflyable after a few attempts ending in bingles, it wasn't badly damaged, but he moved it on before he did destroy it. My gain, I completely replaced the controls, that was most of the problems solved. Its first ever flights, for those who saw them, seemed to confirm the original owner's opinion. A bit of tweaking has it flying quite well now. It looks tiny among the other models and seems more like 1m span. It is 2m however and with those skinny wings needs to fly quite fast, it thermals OK and I did that yesterday. I did a couple of launches behind Karl's Rainbow.

Evan also had his beautiful home built 6.7m ASW22 out, as usual it performed exceptionally well.
Kris, had his trusty DG1000 flying and did have a go behind Karl's Rainbow. After the excess power of our usual tugs, it was curvature of the earth climb after a long ground run. You need two good pilots doing multiple laps to be able to climb up to a decent height. It looked scale, but more like scale from the early days of full size aerotow, where the fullsize aircraft were underpowered as well. That was the comedy.

Jilles and John had their reliable 5m K6's out, always nice to see in the air. Jilles also flew his Govia, I remember, a while back, he thought it didn't thermal very well. It certainly did OK yesterday. The tire split in two on the first landing, some CA and circumferential tape got him going again.

Kev, the MRSSA secretary was fitting out the new solar charging station and Mark helped out Evan and flew an F5J model at times, he is planning on getting a tug and scaley.

You are all aware I've been filming some of our activities for a while. Initially with on board cameras like Mobius and Run Cam, then iPad and phone. They have their limitations, particularly if you want to record something more than 10m away. So I purchased a secondhand Sony CX405 camcorder. It was cheap, was budget camera of the year in 2018, however for fast moving models needing zoom capability if the light isn't just right it is very slow to focus. So I bought another, a second hand Sony FDR AX700. It can film in 4K, but films exceptionally well in ultra HD for what we do. The clarity and focus is so much better for moving objects (industry leading according to reviews). Links to the two videos from the day are below. All recent videos are in 1080p HD, you may need to select that when you play back.

The tragedy was that Kris' solidly setup 10yr old Extra was destroyed. On decent after a high launch it went off air. It contacted the ground, well clear of everyone on the other side of the western creek. No one ever likes seeing that, Kris was stoic, and will being towing again soon. The cause was not evident at the time.

Thanks for a great day out, for those not there hope you can make the next aerotow day, Saturday 3rd October. We might be down two tug pilots, myself and Kris. Hopefully those with tugs can pencil in this date please?

Karl towing Kris -
Yesterday's flying -

Cheers
Brian

[Max Wright]

Thanks for posting them, Brian.

I might have to bring my Grunau up there for a run.

[Cliff Evans]

Yes Brian, thanks for posting, always good to see what's happeneing down under!!

[terry white]

Brilliant Brian, More of that on this forum.

[BrianF]

OK, I'll post more reports as they occur.

Max, as soon as the states allow movement, come on up. Just a 4000km round trip, btw I lived there for 4.5 years.

[Max Wright]

Thanks, Brian.