Think I need a faster computer, my Picasim video capture using Taksi is a bit choppy, but it gives you an idea of how it all works. Danny has some better video's on his site, check them out here
Picasim from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
Monday, 24 December 2012
Monday, 17 December 2012
Picasim on Windows
Danny Rowlhouse has made his awesome slope soaring sim available on windows, which is great for me as I don't have a smart phone. Hooked up my trusty Futaba Transmitter to the laptop and can now practice F3F in the comfort of my own home, how cool is that!
Its pretty realistic, although EM turns are difficult, reversals are easy enough, although I haven't managed to go any faster than 39.xx yet!
Have a look here
Its pretty realistic, although EM turns are difficult, reversals are easy enough, although I haven't managed to go any faster than 39.xx yet!
Have a look here
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Hawes F3F Practice - Video
Apologies for the shaky camera work, just too much wind!
Hawes F3F Practice from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
Hawes F3F Practice from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
Cold and Windy Hawes
Well I went all the way to Hawes and didn't do any flying, shame on me. I don't have any excuses apart from not having much love for flying in 55 to 65 mph winds. I thought I'd just shoot video and take photo's instead of my more hardy compatriots, but even this was too difficult with the unrelenting wind making the camera difficult to hold and my eye streaming so much I couldn't see anything through the view finder.
Even worse was we were lucky to get Jon Edison to visit our slope and bring the course with him, so I missed out on getting some timed practise.
Rich Bago managed fastest time of the day with a 28.xx but with a crow through, Paul Upton was 2nd best with a 32.xx (also with a crow through) but the computer was predicting a 25.xx until Paul made a few mistakes, sure had the wings bending well on the Needle 124. Could probably have handled more ballast, if Paul had any more but not so sure about the wing joiner.
Keith had a problem with a flap seal catching on a wing skin, leaving one flap hanging, although he managed to expertly land it, fix it and get it flying again. A couple of others also had similar problems, don't know why maybe the wind or the cold causing problems.
Frank and Mark also flew, so well done to them, landings were tricky in that you could get blown too far back, but everyone managed who flew, as long as you picked the best spot with the smoothest air.
We saw a couple of Police on Husky trail bikes patrolling the green lanes, the farmer came up to say hello, think we owe him a bottle of Whisky now if we want to start having proper competitions up there in the future, but turned out a pretty successful day.
Pretty cold on the bases, 5 layers of clothing, goretex boots, balaclava, wooly hat and wind proof gloves were not enough, think its time to get some thermal long Johns or turn the central heating down at home!
Fastest Times – HAWES
Even worse was we were lucky to get Jon Edison to visit our slope and bring the course with him, so I missed out on getting some timed practise.
Rich Bago managed fastest time of the day with a 28.xx but with a crow through, Paul Upton was 2nd best with a 32.xx (also with a crow through) but the computer was predicting a 25.xx until Paul made a few mistakes, sure had the wings bending well on the Needle 124. Could probably have handled more ballast, if Paul had any more but not so sure about the wing joiner.
Keith had a problem with a flap seal catching on a wing skin, leaving one flap hanging, although he managed to expertly land it, fix it and get it flying again. A couple of others also had similar problems, don't know why maybe the wind or the cold causing problems.
Frank and Mark also flew, so well done to them, landings were tricky in that you could get blown too far back, but everyone managed who flew, as long as you picked the best spot with the smoothest air.
We saw a couple of Police on Husky trail bikes patrolling the green lanes, the farmer came up to say hello, think we owe him a bottle of Whisky now if we want to start having proper competitions up there in the future, but turned out a pretty successful day.
Pretty cold on the bases, 5 layers of clothing, goretex boots, balaclava, wooly hat and wind proof gloves were not enough, think its time to get some thermal long Johns or turn the central heating down at home!
Fastest Times – HAWES
1
RICH BAGO 28.72
2
PAUL UPTON 32.37
3 FRANK HULTON 33.38
4 KEITH
WOOD 34.11
5 MARK TREBLE 39.82
 |
| Keith getting ready to brave the cold wind |
 |
| Flying was brisk but sparse. |
 |
| Its as cold as it looks |
 |
| Ronnie and Frank |
 |
| Long shadows from the low autumn sun |
 |
| Rich and his rarely seen Big Bird |
 |
| Mark and his trusty Needle 100 |
 |
| Can you see me? - Jon Eddison |
 |
| The warmer side of the wall |
Saturday, 10 November 2012
Tow Scar Practice
After the rain came the November sunshine!
Rich, Keith, Paul and Ronnie came to play on a perfect Tow Scar with the wind square onto the slope, we need to get ourselves a course next!
Tow Scar from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
Rich, Keith, Paul and Ronnie came to play on a perfect Tow Scar with the wind square onto the slope, we need to get ourselves a course next!
Tow Scar from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Northern Winter League 2012 / 2013 Rd1
With a good forecast 20 odd pilots showed up at the Hole to be greeted with dense fog for the majority of the day, we managed to start the comp late in the afternoon with little daylight left to complete the 4 rounds required. Unfortunately the light wind eventually let us down and we lost the comp with only 3 rounds in the bag. Still was a good day out to catch up with the latest gossip and banter. Greg Dakin provided new entertainment with his musical vario, but Greg had the last laugh by winning the comp even if it wasn't to count towards the league!
2012 / 2013 HoH WL Rd1 from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
2012 / 2013 HoH WL Rd1 from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Eastbourne 2012 BMFA F3F Rd 7
Mandy and I made the long journey down to Eastbourne at the weekend about 5.5h from sunny Lancaster, if you travel at stupid o'clock (5:00 a.m) Saturday morning. We went for a walk at Beachy Head, those cliffs rise about 165M straight up and would be awesome to fly off, unfortunately no wind today. We then walked the seafront at Eastbourne and resisted the urge to jump off the pier into the aquamarine blue sea, even though there were many signs telling us not to!
We had the obligatory fish and chips, before continuing our walk on the pebble beach looking at the Lobster boats coming back with there catch that had to be hauled up the steep beach, carving new slip ways in the pebbles. There is an old Napoleonic Fort called the The Redoubt, which seemed to consist of a brick and concrete squat building complete with Cannon emplacements and dry moat. There was some sort of Historic Reanactment going on, we could hear the loud cracks of the rifle's going off inside and the clouds of gunpowder smoke rising above. Although we only got as far as the entrance bridge before a man in a bright yellow jacket challenged us with the admission price of £6 each, we decided to pass this time.
We then walked back through the town centre, resisting the coffee houses full of delicious cream cakes to make our way back to our accommodation in Alfreston, although we stopped on the way for a quick walk up to the Long Man.
A small meal washed down with some Golden Best Ale at the Smugglers Inn and I felt pretty shattered and Mandy was a bit out of sorts so it was an early night in preparation for tommorrows race. Unfortunately the weather forecast had taken a turn for the worse and it looked like our trip may had been in vain with lots of rain predicted for Sunday.
Sunday dawned and we had a cracking cooked breakfast from our B&B hosts and then it was up to Butt's Lane to stand in the rain, wind and mist deciding whether to pay the parking fee or not as we might not get a comp in. At about 10:00 a.m. we were summoned to the hill as the clag looked like it might lift and after erecting our sports brella, racing eventually got under way by 12:00pm
I had decided to try the EM style that I have been practising after doing badly at the Long Myndd, for the first time in competition as I had confidence in finding the bases, but was struggling with the climb outs, my sollution was to fly light with less ballast to help me out, and things turned out no worse than if I had used the trusty reversal. Got a 57.xx, 57.xx, 51.xx and a 58.xx I got a cut in the 2nd round so the 57.xx wasn't too bad considering, the 58 killed me though, but it was just bad air, as the model came on step too late on the last leg.
Team GB were there fresh from the recent WC at Rugan, they were pumping out 45.xx and 48.xx times and were in a league of their own. With the bad weather there were only 15 of us, and we were lucky to squeeze 4 rounds in 2hours before the clag came down. I ended up in 6th, but wandering what it could have been if I hadn't cut. In the video is my 51.xx run which wasn't as quick as the run I cut, but with a bit more practice hopefully I can tighten up on those bases and perfect my left hand turns.
Video & Photos below.
Eastbourne 2012 BMFA Rd7 from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
We had the obligatory fish and chips, before continuing our walk on the pebble beach looking at the Lobster boats coming back with there catch that had to be hauled up the steep beach, carving new slip ways in the pebbles. There is an old Napoleonic Fort called the The Redoubt, which seemed to consist of a brick and concrete squat building complete with Cannon emplacements and dry moat. There was some sort of Historic Reanactment going on, we could hear the loud cracks of the rifle's going off inside and the clouds of gunpowder smoke rising above. Although we only got as far as the entrance bridge before a man in a bright yellow jacket challenged us with the admission price of £6 each, we decided to pass this time.
We then walked back through the town centre, resisting the coffee houses full of delicious cream cakes to make our way back to our accommodation in Alfreston, although we stopped on the way for a quick walk up to the Long Man.
A small meal washed down with some Golden Best Ale at the Smugglers Inn and I felt pretty shattered and Mandy was a bit out of sorts so it was an early night in preparation for tommorrows race. Unfortunately the weather forecast had taken a turn for the worse and it looked like our trip may had been in vain with lots of rain predicted for Sunday.
Sunday dawned and we had a cracking cooked breakfast from our B&B hosts and then it was up to Butt's Lane to stand in the rain, wind and mist deciding whether to pay the parking fee or not as we might not get a comp in. At about 10:00 a.m. we were summoned to the hill as the clag looked like it might lift and after erecting our sports brella, racing eventually got under way by 12:00pm
I had decided to try the EM style that I have been practising after doing badly at the Long Myndd, for the first time in competition as I had confidence in finding the bases, but was struggling with the climb outs, my sollution was to fly light with less ballast to help me out, and things turned out no worse than if I had used the trusty reversal. Got a 57.xx, 57.xx, 51.xx and a 58.xx I got a cut in the 2nd round so the 57.xx wasn't too bad considering, the 58 killed me though, but it was just bad air, as the model came on step too late on the last leg.
Team GB were there fresh from the recent WC at Rugan, they were pumping out 45.xx and 48.xx times and were in a league of their own. With the bad weather there were only 15 of us, and we were lucky to squeeze 4 rounds in 2hours before the clag came down. I ended up in 6th, but wandering what it could have been if I hadn't cut. In the video is my 51.xx run which wasn't as quick as the run I cut, but with a bit more practice hopefully I can tighten up on those bases and perfect my left hand turns.
Video & Photos below.
Eastbourne 2012 BMFA Rd7 from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.
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