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Ian
Benson's 'Bargain Basement' Corsair looking good on a
fly-by
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It was almost too good to be true - three
consecutive dry and flyable meetings on Pendle Hill!
The meeting time had been put back to 11am because of the
forecast of mist and light wind, and upon arriving just
before 11am I found I was the first there and that the
forecast was correct!
Simon Hardman arrived soon after, and was
proved correct in his guess that the breeze would soon
blow away the mist. The wind was North Westerly, my
favourite direction on Pendle, its the shortest walk and a
good slope. Soon after 12:00 we were flying, and the
wind picked up to a most acceptable 18kts later in the
afternoon, and it also stayed dry. There were only
about half a dozen PSS fliers, with a similar number of
sports fliers coming and going during the day. Rather
unexpected this late in the year there were some nice new
models, coming as a welcome surprise after a poor year for
new stuff.
I flew my P-40, Ki-61 and
NA Fury, which once again was mistakenly identified
as a Sabre! Odd, that an aircraft which served as the
US Navy's front line fighter should be so little known.
In fact, documentation on the Fury is quite sparse and
difficult to find.
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Ian Benson
brought an excellent second hand Vought F4-U
Corsair, all built up and quite light for its
size, and converted for PSS from a power model kit.
It flew very
nicely and had a good speed range, the slow end of
which proved particularly useful when landing. |
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Jack Jackson came along from Chester with
Alan Hulme and brought a Pat French DH Vampire built
some time ago by Steve Buckley. Around 48" span, it
has balsa covered foam wings, a glass fuselage pod and balsa
booms with an AUW of around 4lbs. The fuselage is
painted, while the rest of the airframe is filmed.
Unlike most Vampires I've seen on the slope, this one
actually flew, and flew well!
Jean-Luc Belon had a nicely finished 71"
span Flair Me-110, intended for 2 380 electrics but
rigged at the time for PSS. It weighs about 55oz and
is covered in matted Solarfilm painted with Humbrol, and
flies very nicely.
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Steve Kemp
turned up mid afternoon with a new Vortex Me-262
that he'd finished just an hour before!
Covered in
brown paper and PVA following the techniques
developed by 'Mr Vortex' Steve Davis and
painted up with car enamels and matt fuel proofer,
it looked really good. Steve enlisted Simon's
assistance in balancing and test flying it, and
after a couple of short flights the addition of a
little lead in the nose brought it into trim and it
was flying around like a good 'un. The flying
weight is somewhere between 3 and 4lb.
This model is
a very good example of the improved realism that
Vortex has been introducing into their EPP kits
recently, as I have commented on before. |
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No awards were made, and the meeting drew
to a close fairly early in view of the fading light.
Now we face the winter lay-off before we can look forwards
to some more good PSS meetings in 2005.
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