Hello from the U.S.

[Freedom Flyer]

Didn't work, I'm having a heck of a time. Tracy

[Freedom Flyer]

Hope this one worked, This is one of my favorite sailplanes a Craft Air Freedom built it in 1986 been recovered once about 7 years ago.

[Freedom Flyer]

Hey guys I think I'm getting this thing figured out.  My two brothers and I generally take a few different types of planes when we go, we are not yet into the hi-tech era.  Since we are the only 3 guys who fly slope around here, and our hobby shop isn't much of a hobby shop, we don't have a whole lot of access to carbon fiber and the building knowledge that goes with it.  :evil: There are a few guys that live about 125KM away that have some higher performance planes.  In fact one is very knowledgeable and is building some very beautiful planes, he is however, very much an elitist. and has made some negative comments about our "Old School planes." Thankfully he doesn't live close enough to be around us much.  Well gotta go for now I'll get some more pics of our planes, some launches, of our slope and some of the beauty we get to view from atop our slope.  Tracy

[Freedom Flyer]

This is a Picture of our slope, notice we are Land locked, no coast here, there is a road to the top, flyable from South West, West, North West,  North, North East, and East.  We are at about 1500 meters altitude



 This is my Brother Wayne Launching his Gentle Lady off of a Bluff overlooking the city of Billings, about 230km (142mi.)east of us.



Just a fly by with my Craft Air Freedom



This is an old plane I scratch built back in 1985 from RCM plans, it's called a Pierce Aero Ridge Rat


This is me Launching my brother Wayne's scratch built Freedom






With our altitude we do get some winter flying, okay, a lot of winter flying, more than we care to have in fact.  However, this winter has been very strange, in the town I live (Belgrade) we don't have a lick of snow on the ground. Very unusual.  The Pic with my brother launching his Gentle Lady, the temp was about 4 below zero degrees farenheit. Most of my planes are all balsa and Monocote.  Our landing zone is about a mile across and flat as can be, there is some rock but not much, quite abit of grass to land in.

[gerryb]

hi tracy, glad to see you got your photos up.  very nice they are too, a  fine selection of models.  pity there aren't more modellers around to share the good times with ye.

is the bird of time kit built or arf?  i have a kit built version myself and my son, an arf version.  lovely models to fly in light air.

[Freedom Flyer]

Gerry,
The Bird of Time is my brother Wayne's, he did build it from a kit and did a nice job, it flies very well.  My oldest brother Arlen also has one but it is the ARF version, he made a power pod and takes his up that way.  Wayne flies his with some assistance from me as well as on the slope.

This is a pic of my brother  Wayne and I about to piggy back his BOT, it's what we do when there's no wind.  This flying site is great because it's a pasture out Wayne's back door, and only two miles from my house.  The Power plane is a Senior Telemaster 8' span with a Super Tigre .75 glow motor.




This gives you a bit of an idea  of what our LZ looks like, pretty spoiled





Wayne launching his Bird of time off of our slope "Table Top"

 

[Happy Days]

There are times when I’d give my right arm for a landing area like that! :lol:

A good selection of models too. I recognise the Sprit Elite. I quite envy you, apart from the very cold winters. :wink:

Interesting pictures, thanks for sharing them Tracy :clap:

K.

[gerryb]

hi tracy, fantastic flying sites and all that glorious sunshine too, lucky lads!!

have a look at some of our models, go to forum, click scale, go down to tountinna gazette and click on it.  photos on pages 3 and 4.
tountinna is where we fly in the mid west, located approx. 10 miles north east of shannon airport.  lovely spot overlooking lough derg.  you and 'the brothers' will have to come and visit some time.

[Freedom Flyer]

Gerry and K,
       We do have the Sunshine, lots of it, that's what makes the winters more bearable.  Even with the sub zero temps, the sun makes you feel warm, we don't have a lot of humidity here very dry, so that helps a lot too.  Our site is absolutely wonderful when the wind cooperates, which is more often than not.  It's my schedule that doesn't cooperate so much. We get a bit of roiling air behind the lip but not bad at all.  We can usually land within 20 meters or so, unless it's really howling, but having so much flat ground to land on is a real blessing.
       I went to your tountinna gazette sight, my turn to be envious of you, that place must be huge!!!! The grass is always greener right? In your case that's true due to all your moisture :mrgreen:  :mrgreen:  :mrgreen:. There are truly some beautiful planes there as well, looks like some fine craftsmen over there. Also appreciate the fact that there's some folks still flying some Gentle Ladies over there.  I've got the first one I ever built back in 1982, I love that plane, I take it with every time I go out, just a good ole standby.  
 I'll keep going through my pics and sharing here and there, don't want to show them all at once . Thanks for the kindness and interest you've shown, I look forward to more conversations.  I've also enjoyed the humorous posts too! :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol: Goodnight. Tracy FF

[Alan_Perse]

Hi Tracy. Welcome to the forum. That looks like a great slope. I wish we had more sunny weather like you have.

[Freedom Flyer]

Thanks Alan,
      Always great to make new acquaintances, I'm enjoying your guys forum, and am in awe of the size of the slopes over there.  I just can't imagine flying on a slope so large.  Someday maybe  =P~  =P~ .
      We do have a valley about 150 miles from where I live called the Beartooth Highway that I tried to fly this last summer. From the valley floor to the top of the pass is 5447 ft, making the top of the pass 10,947 feet. But go figure, I took several planes along and there was no wind. My wife and I were on an anniversary trip, I hung around for nearly 3 hours hoping for wind, nothing! Maybe next time through. You should Google it, it is quite beautiful as are the two National parks we have in our state as well, Yellowstone and Glacier National parks.   I'll have to be happy with what we have around here.
       We do have a lot of blue sky, our state is known as Big Sky Country, and we even have a little community 45 miles from us called Big Sky, one of the best ski resorts (Lone Mountain) in the Nation is 45 miles out our Back door.  Too bad I don't ski :oops:, too expensive  . Lots of beauty around us, just not the huge flat faced hills of Ireland.  Another place on our list My wife and I would like to visit. Thanks for the post Tracy. FF

[Freedom Flyer]

Gerry,
     I've been looking around the forum and Google Earthed some of the cities you gents are from to get a lay of the land.  What a beautiful country you live.  I've got a friend who was a missionary there in Drewstown. He left there about 10 years ago but was there for about 7 years. He liked it very much.

      I was also looking at the size of the country, square miles and such.  Having grown up in Montana, I've always known that our state is the 4th largest in our Nation, Alaska of course being the Largest.  But when I look at the different sizes of whole countries, it makes me realize how big our state is.

      Montana is 145,545 sq. miles, you could fit 4.5 Irelands within our state borders, and 1.8 Great Britains within our state borders. Yet Ireland has 4.6 times as many people and Great Britain has 62 times as many people.  We just broke the 1 million population mark.  So there's only 1 million people spread out over 145,545 square miles.  That's why there's only 3 people that fly on our slope :shock: , pretty crazy huh? I think if we really looked here in the valley we might be able to find some college kids that fly sailplanes but there just doesn't seem to be anyone else around, Kind of sad really. Oh well, we keep trying to convert some of these electric guys from the dark side     .  I think the hard part for them is it's a 35 mile drive to the slope, when they can go down to the local park and fly.  We keep telling them to bring  their electrics along, if the wind isn't blowing they've got something to fly. .  Well, I've rambled enough for now, I need to go cut up my deer. FF

[gerryb]

hi tracy,

that sure is some size of real estate!!  no problem finding a nice, quiet corner for yourself if you nee a bit of peace.

here in ireland, if you live anywhere in the midlands, you can be on almost any coast in about 2-21/2 hours easy.

because ireland is such a hilly place, most of our gliding is slope soaring.

  i was on tountinna today with a new glider.  most enjoyable it was too. the glider is a ka-3 to 1/4 scale which i built from a short kit supplied by fred.  i hope to have photos up soon.

tountinna isn't such a big place as you might think, but it has good slopes facing n through w onto s.  landing areas are all heather.  an added bonus for us is the road all the way to the top. ideal, as several of our members are no longer in the freshness of youth and don't really fancy long uphill climbs.  facing all of us, i suppose.

[Happy Days]

Hey Gerry, you flew your new Ka?….and it was “most enjoyable” (Sounds like a typical English  understatement to me) So how did it fly?
We want to know!

I was up on the Big L today. (Mount Lienster for the benefit for our new friends.) It had been cloud bound all morning but it cleared around midday. I got onto the west slope at around 1pm,………….and the wind dropped! Can you believe it, :twisted: ……….    what a bummer. :cry:  

Managed to scratch around finding little pockets of lift with the Phase 6 ( controls set to max camber) but as the wind dropped further I gave up after half an hour. :!:

Only light winds forecast for the next few days. Time to revert to models with propellers me thinks.

Tracy,……..I think life teaches us all different things as we each walk our weary paths, and one thing I’ve learnt is that bigger isn’t necessarily better by any means. Here’s a case in point.

Not far from me are some sand dunes. They’re only about 20 - 40 feet high but I’ve spent many hours enjoying myself flying off of them. They’re quite challenging actually because the lift zone is rather narrow.
It’s all a matter of horses for courses, of course, but as a (drunk) young lady once told me, “Enjoyment has nothing to do with the size of the ship,…..but the motion of the ocean!” :lol:

Save me a piece of Venison. I like mine cooked ‘medium’. yum yum!


Ireland,……..Land of a thousand Welcomes!

Keith

[Freedom Flyer]

Alan,
     I'm sorry I got you mixed up with someone else :oops:  :oops:  :oops: .


Keith,
     The deer Tastes great  I might try for one more this weekend, last weekend  for the weapons restricted area.  I think I'll ask before I post, but I have a couple of pics of my two boys with their first deer, okay to post those?  I did on one forum in Australia and go a lot of back lash for it, it seems to make some squeemish  :-&  :-&  :-&  :-& FF