News    17 July  2004

Not a lot of flying in the last seven weeks. I keep everything ready to make use of any brief spell of flyable weather. The forecasts don't help much.

I'm making an effort to improve reliability. With so many models it's tempting to take a different one each time I go out. The plan is to take the same model for five or six sessions, to fine-tune it, and to record all throws and trims, and to make a pre-flight check list specific to each model.

I'm still finding new ways to crash 'em. Two recent solo hand-launches failed to get away, incurring some damage. In my haste to get the launching-hand back on the stick, I nudged the aileron trim, unawares. Both models were set-up with a very small aileron movement, not enough to counter the trim error. Guards are now fitted to the trim knobs.