As you know I’ve taken up radio control slope soaring usin my Caterbury Sailplanes “Eraser 60”. Well I have to say I’m getting better at it and feel a lot more comfortable up there. For example, my landings are less crashes and generally the plane stays the right way up. I’m not yet good enough to land at my feet like the better flyers but hey, walk 20m to get the plan is a big step forward and a far cry from landing in a tree (yes i have photos).
This weekend we had really good sea breezes and LOTS of thermal activitiy. The change from flying in strictly mechanical lift 9slope lift) to thermal left was interesting. There was more turbulance and you really had to be on your toes as the lift would come suddenly, driving the plane up several hundred meters, but they you might fly into “sink” where the plane decents MUCH faster then simply gliding. At one point the plane was up maybe 300 m and out about 200 m in front of the ridge. i could almost no longer see it so rolled inverted crossed the controlls and let it spiral dive until I could see it. I’m looking at getting a proper digital camera so we might have a few pictures for you this summer.Â
As an aside, I captured a swarm of bees last night that were hanging in a tree. They are in a small “nucleous” box and will be joined to a hive this fall. I pulled out a frame of honey (to make some room ) and had fresh honey, still warm from the hive on some toast. Yummy ….. I hear its been cold up at your end!
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So get yourself a camera and post some pictures!!! I wanna see this new toy. The quality of digital cameras have improved so much that you can’t lose as long as you get 5 megapixels or more. I still like canon for the cheaper ones(ie less than 500 us, but I bought a Nikon DSLR. In the more reasonable range, casio has been getting good reviews. I would avoid Sony…they’ve had some issues lately.
Hey, how do you know that you’re not importing disease into the hive when you capture wild swarms?
Terry
Good advice. I confess that i like the look and feel of the soney H1 cybershot witht he 12 optical zoom at 5.1 mpic. Hmmmm food for thought.
As for the bees, the short answer is that I don’t know that i’m not importing desease when I catch a swarm. In this case I’m 50% certain the swarm came from on of my hives. Second I place them in a “nucleous box” and hold them there for intil late summer. I’ll inspect them for AFB AND Varroa before joining them to one of my full hives. Bee keepers cannot pass up free bees.