Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

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Ghost Flyer
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Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by Ghost Flyer » Mon Sep 25, 2017 11:53 pm

Hi folks,

The weather forecast is looking good for tomorrow, Tuesday, for slope soaring at Lawrencetown. Some of us will be heading out to the slope in the early afternoon. Steve R. and I hope to be arriving there between 1 and 1:30pm. The more, the merrier, so come on out and enjoy the last warmest day of the year! (humidex up to 35 degrees in the city!) Pack a lunch or snack, some water, a chair, plus maybe some but repellant, and bring something to fly.

AC
Andrew C.

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retiredVTT
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by retiredVTT » Tue Sep 26, 2017 1:22 am

I like THIS site that John O' showed us last week, that shows the wind direction as "arrows".. https://www.windy.com/?44.498,-62.872,9,m:eTWaepY

Have a peak at Wednesday's forecast: beautiful "arrows" coming from the sea toward the cliffs..!

Bill
Bill
HEFA #5
MAAC #13708

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JohnOSullivan
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by JohnOSullivan » Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:36 am

Tuesday Aft winds 20 kph gusts to 30 from Southewst. Should be good. I will be there
John
MAAC #5401 L
MACI (Ireland) IRL#26

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JohnOSullivan
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by JohnOSullivan » Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:11 pm

Good Flying this Tuesday afternoon from 1:15 to after 4pm.
Eight fliers out in winds from 20 to 30 kph. Nice to get that many out on a spur of the moment call.
Great flying was had by all.
Unfortunately, I put my 1.7m Sky (the new one with veneered wings), into the woods to the east, Thick gnarly spruce with zero visibility.
Hopefully it will turn up, but I have little hope as the bush is so thick you could pass within 5 ft. without seeing it
John
MAAC #5401 L
MACI (Ireland) IRL#26

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JohnOSullivan
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by JohnOSullivan » Wed Sep 27, 2017 7:59 pm

After a search for my lost model yesterday by Steve Ryan, Andrew Curran, Chris Dean and myself in the nasty woods, I returned home without any expectation of recovering it.
This morning, I had a call from Andrew Curran with news that it had been found. He had talked to a man who then spent some time searching without success. The man then brought along his son and after about 15 minutes located the model on the ground, having penetrated thick tree cover. He had lost Andrew's business card but traced him through the Halifax Library. Thanks Andrew for your help in locating him. I visited the man today and got the model back. Apart from a small area of dented leading edge on the wing and some dislocation of one of the carbon wing tubes and a slight stress crack on the fuselage everything was perfect. Fifteen minutes of repair time will see it flying again.
There are still good people out there.
John
MAAC #5401 L
MACI (Ireland) IRL#26

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AndrewS
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by AndrewS » Wed Sep 27, 2017 9:27 pm

glad to hear you got here back safe and mostly sound, John

Andrew
Andrew Smith,
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MAAC 76250

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Ghost Flyer
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by Ghost Flyer » Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:03 am

What a fantastic story, John! I'm so happy that you have your Sky glider back. I have to add something... Yesterday morning, right after saying grace, I added a short prayer for someone to find your glider without too much damage and for you to get it back. About 20 minutes after arriving at work, an email was sent to everyone in my department, from the main office, asking whoever the IT person was that was flying out at Lawrencetown, to call them. They had received a call from someone (also named John), who had your glider! Perhaps it was divine help. Perhaps Tom Foote's spirit was watching over the slope.

Steve Ryan and I flew the slope for as long as possible, until the sun had started slipping behind the horizon, literally. It was a great day for sloping and one of my best spent vacation days all year. I was surprised to see so many slope pilots there, which made it even better.

Here is a picture that I snapped seconds after landing my final flight of the day. Incidentally, this was taken maybe 30 minutes after meeting the person who had returned the next day with his son to find your glider.

A great day. A great story.

Andrew
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Time to call it a day at the Lawrencetown Slope.
Time to call it a day at the Lawrencetown Slope.
Andrew C.

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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by rhyneheimer » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:05 pm

that's great news john! my search efforts were minimal this time, wearing just shorts, t-shirt, and crocs, but i did get a pretty good bearing on it when i glanced over at its entry into to the Enchanted Forest, and showed the search guy my best guess, so hopefully that helped. gotta say, spiders are the largest at this time of year and there were some HUGE ones with giant webs guarding the edge of the woods. kudos to anyone braving those monsters, blech

Andrew C:
IMG_1861.JPG
Steve Ryan -
HEFA/MAAC pilot, slope soaring fanatic, electric enthusiast -
I am not a drone

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JohnOSullivan
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Re: Anyone up for some slope soaring tomorrow afternoon?

Unread post by JohnOSullivan » Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:15 pm

Thanks Steve:
The very most important thing when a model goes down is to take an accurate line on it using topographic guidelines such as prominent trees or other markers. As I recall your alignment and my alignment matched closely. This gives at least a narrow well-defined area of focus and avoids searching in non-defined area. This approach has been developed from my 50+ years of prospecting in the bush, where poor navigation can lead to lost people.
While we focused on searching the high tree areas, the model had penetrated the foliage and was actually found on the ground.
The young guy who located the model is an Air Cadet and he and his father are interested in models and plan to visit us at Shannon. Maybe we'll get another couple of model addicts.
John
MAAC #5401 L
MACI (Ireland) IRL#26

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