SLOPING OFF...
...the Newsletter of Christchurch and District Model Flying Club for...December 2025
SLOPE SOARING AT WIN GREEN ON THE 18TH APRIL
by Dave Bicker
Well’ even although there were posts on the club’s Whatsapp, I was the only person who flew at Win Green that day. A missed opportunity for sloping enthusiasts. I took along 6 planes & flew all of them, some multiple times. Conditions were good. The wind was slightly to the west of ideal to start with at 10am, but by lunchtime it had swung onto the bowl & just got better as the day went on. Plenty of thermals coming through that were warm enough that you felt them on your face as the wind dropped away as they came through.
I notified the Compton Abbas tower, but there was a constant flow of low flying light aircraft, some of them flying very low directly over the bowl. Not exactly making you want to duck, but making me dive my planes down to play on the lip of the slope until they had passed over. This happened repeatedly, so I guess the pilot was giving the passengers a bird’s eye view of someone slope soaring!
There were 3 Red Kite, a Buzzard & a Kestrel over the bowl for much of the time. One Red kite took a liking to my Weasel & followed it for about 5 minutes. I did a 45 degree climb with my powered red V-tail DLG-type model to get away from one that got a bit too interested in it. They even followed my Phoenix 2400 around several times. I’m sure it’s a combination of curiosity & checking out the “opposition”.
A lovely Daimler 250 V8 and a pristine red E-Type turned up as well as one of the boxy (but immaculate) BMW 316 saloon from 1990 too. The only thing that irritated me was an off-road bike (a big 4-stroke single) was left idling for about ¼ hr, propped up on the side of a van. Totally unnecessary!
I tend to limit each flight to 20 minutes to avoid fatigue / lapse of concentration. I managed around 10 flights over a 5 hour period, so airborne for over 3 hours!
