Ok, so, the event now...
We were 6 to travel to the 20th Menez Hom meeting from Ireland.
The annual Menez Hom meeting is a meeting dedicated to what we call the GPRs (Grands Planeurs RC - Big RC Gliders) and all you need, is a 4m+ glider to participate.
Gliders pit is made of 99% of scale gliders, and you have the odd alpina 4001, 5001 and some other machines that do the 1% left.
This year saw 50 pilots, from 4 different nationalities (France, Belgium, Germany and Ireland) with 80 gliders at anyone time on the pit at the slope (don't know the total of gliders, but well over 200 seeing the amount of gliders that were not put off the vans on the car park!)
Conditions were, let's say, challenging! Big winds, but unfortunately, not straight on the slope, but from the left, coming from the "petit Menez" for the one who knows the slope. So that's a lot of turbulences on the lower layer, but plenty of lift in front of us.
Landings were the big discussion on the day, with, for some weird reasons, 99% of the landing approaches were made on top of the car park, the public and the glider pit! When you have a 7m machine 2m from the cars and the public, this is quiet a sight! No clue why this was advised to be done that way, as there is at least 20 football field of space to land a glider on top of the slope! So we decided for a short landing path instead and land in front of us. Easier and safer!
Oh, and with Ronan, we were doing them in tandem with our 2 ASW15. On the spot each time and applauses from the pit :clap:
We are not that bad :lol:
Same way taken by the rest of us, and I am happy to report that we did not had any landing incident (Ok, I broke one of my rudder link on the Pilatus on the first landing! And that's a 20Kgs steel wire! Don't know why, as the landing was fine, but if you think that built up rudders on big models are too weak, think again! I was sure that the rudder will give up before the steel wire! I guess there was a weak spot were I crimple the wire, but the cut is slightly further up the line... Weird!)
Talking about gliders, I am happy to report that the Pilatus B4 flew great! First flight was a non event, and at 6Kgs, very light! (maybe too light!)
The Crystal is now trimmed after I modified the servos etc, so all good. 12kgs in the air is a nice sight, and thanks for that in the big wind we had!
ASW15.. Well, that's the asw15! :lol:
Ronan flew is Pilatus B4 and his ASW15, Ralph his KA8b, Kevin his Bergfalke, Les his Solution, and finally John, flew his ASH26, Minimoa and got lots of interest in the Fouga Magister with some nice flying.
Can be proud of the Irish team!
:clap: :clap:
All in all, a very nice event, a good bunch of friends, and if you want to see some big machines, this is one of the place to be!
More later about the trip :mrgreen:
