Big Cliff Flying at The Needles

Date: July 24th 2010. Wind: Fresh SW breeze

Without doubt, the best flight of my life so far!

For some weeks, I had been contemplating a flight at this epic location. To be successful, it would require good weather, which we certainly had, and a close eye on the timer to avoid a sea landing!

A perfect launch and landing site was found 200m east of Sun Corner, just east of the gully, on 125m high cliffs. Range of the Needles lighthouse at this point was 1.06Km, so it was a little too far to do a flypast of the lighthouse itself, although I did go quite a long way out!

The Parkzone RADIAN was my choice of plane on this occasion, due to the motorised prop in case I were to fly below the lift zone. As it happened, the lift was so fantastic that I never needed to use the motor. In fact, the sea breeze lift was enough to take the Radian in excess of 200m higher than launch height (which beats most hills I can think of), and the lift seemed to extend a surprisingly long way down towards the sea.

After an initial test flight, the Radian was camera-fitted and relaunched.
(The camera I use is the Creative VADO HD which I choose for its W/A quality optics and 720p HD definition; at just over a 100g it has minimal effect on the glider's performance). Ideally, I should have angled the camera slightly less from the vertical to get a bit more horizon in the video, but at least the trade-off is a little more ground view.

After a long 40 minute flight, the battery drain had been negligible.
Back home, I used Nero9 to edit the HD video. With a bit of luck YouTube won't remove the music.

With thanks to Mark for some of the stills he took which appear in the montage.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Parkzone
• Radian
• Needles
• IOW
• Isle of Wight
• soaring
• glider

[MrDazedOne]

Great video! Very jealous, might have to arrange a holiday down that way (it is Isle of Wight isn't it?) and take my Radian with me :-D

Do you recall what sort of speed the wind was on the day?

[Huwtube72]

@MrDazedOne Yes IOW. Wind was quite breezy, as can be seen.

[ateak6]

Wow!!!!!!!!!! 40 minutes O_O!!!! what MAh of battery did you use?

Man that is a looong flight lol. let me know. I would LOVE to see pics of your cam setup!!!!!!!! PLZZ i beg you hehe.  My radian is a slew of ducktape for my cam :( but yours looks so organised. im so jealous! hehe

[Huwtube72]

@ateak6 Stock battery. Set up as shown.

[Mark62Davies]

Fab video Huw! I really enjoyed the day and what a great place to be. Thank you for using some of my photos and acknowledging me at the end. That's great!

[Huwtube72]

Glad you came along Mark, it was certainly an epic flight. I can't believe how perfect the weather was. I'll send you the full length 'Director's Cut' flight video on DVD shortly.

[ansett3429]

Coulde be the best Radian video I've seen. Just makes me want to get out and fly mine. Well done.

[wildsticks123]

I took a walk up to the tennyson Monument at Freshwater Bay to fly my Zagi But wouldnt brave it - far too high up and one hell of a drop and where do you go to see the landing point if it drops below the Hill - Try it there - If you do you have balls of Solid Rock !

[rpfpspfp]

i agree you have some courage flying it over ocean......great footage job well done

[boywaimea]

Beautiful country, wow and nice flight too with one of the best gliders around.

[RC900xp]

Really cool video.. Awesome flying site and I loved the on board camera...

Thanks mate!

[davidamosphotography]

Man you have a lot of guts..... probably THE BEST video I have seen with model planes!!!!

Well done!!