Park Fly session  - Port Soif common 22nd July 2009

The club recently held a Parkfly session down at Port Soif early one evening, dedicated to 'parkfly' models; however, the prevailing weather -  particularly the wind, decided that quarter scale models would be best suited to the prevailing conditions! However, the GMC members rose to the challenge and flew their Depron & EPP models with little regard for the blustery conditions and had a good time doing it too. Later that evening, a few hardy souls decided to do a little night flying just to prove that neither wind nor lack of light will deter a committed Guernsey modeller!!

Here's a few shots from the Port Soif 'runway'.....

Just a few of the models which braved the conditions... Ben Le Prevost's Graupner Stinson in the foreground, Dave Wilkinson's electric heli (TRex range) in the middle distance, and my own Depron - 'Shock Hazard' lurking in the background.

Mick Wilkinson readies his 'Mini Funtana' for its first flight of the evening. This model coped very well with the windy conditions and the speed downwind was incredible.

Steve Glass always has something unusual to show us, and this night was no exception. His own design aircraft was very aerobatic and had no problems with the wind. Unfortunately, the canopy decided to go in a different direction to the rest of the airframe and was lost at sea.. just another hazard of living on an island I guess!

Ben Le Prevost decided to see if his Graupner Stinson would take off from this grass 'ramp' - no go! It appears that the prevailing technology of the era lacks the 'oomph' of newer brushless and Lipo technology. Never mind, a decent hand launch soon had it zooming around the sky just like in the old days!

Ben's dad - Les, brought along a 'Sky Surfer' to try out, and it was quite an innovative model. I think that on a still night, it would have been a real bundle of fun, but the wind that night did prove a little tricky a times.

Shane was coerced into launching the model and to be fair, it made a good height quite quickly. In fact in made a lot of height quite quickly, in fact it made an awful lot of height very quickly !!

Les had to use a special descent technique - known as the 'spiral dive' to ensure that the model didn't end up in Alderney that night. Luckily, a relatively soft landing in the adjacent bramble bushes meant that Les could fly the model again that night. The next flight was more controlled and showed how the model could be tamed and flown in a very small space. Certainly a 'different' craft and quite good fun I'd say.

All in all, a pretty good evening's fun, even though the wind was a bit blustery at times. I'm sure that we will be having more of these evenings as the summer progresses. See you there hopefully, either as a flyer or a spectator.