site seeing

Phil Hayward's personal website

Known to his mates as 'Phil the Fridge' apparently, this is Phil Hayward's very nice personal site.

As the site states under the main title, it is 'mostly model flying', but there are quite a number of other interesting elements to the site as well, as you can see from the main navigation menu shown below. From the Information page, for instance, you can go to a Tree Surgeon's List - intriguing!

Phil is a keen slope soaring man and is a member of the South Cotswold Soaring Association that is featured on club scene. His model flying interests are covered on the site on a number of pages - weather information, model pictures, videos, club links and particularly Slope News which is a weekly news sheet that Phil produces on the activities of his club.

From the Information page you can go to a page on NiCad batteries which carries a brilliant article Beginners Guide to Nickel Cadmium Batteries and is well worth a read even if you don't class yourself as a beginner! Click the link to 'memory' on that page and you will find two fascinating items on the question of 'memory effect' which we've been talking about recently, both of which strongly support the view that this really is a myth and giving a much more logical reason why we might need to discharge our batteries from time to time (referred to on air space this issue).

It's a nice site to poke around - discover Phil's other interests of ham radio and his cats (and see one on cats corner), find a bargain on his 'for sale' page, smile at some good jokes (sample on hotchpotch) or even hire a builder (or a tree surgeon!) in the Stroud area.

You can tell how much I enjoyed it - as you can see, there's bits of it all over the place in this issue of ModelFlight!

http://www.fridge41.freeserve.co.uk

Here's news of a couple of sites that I've featured before, but which have been subject to recent re-vamps, new designs or additions that make it worth another visit if you haven't been there recently! These thumbnails are of the previous versions of the sites.

Vince Cockett from Guernsey has comparatively recently taken over as Webmaster of the Southampton Soaring Society website and has completely re-designed the site as well as adding quite a few new features.

The site is full of extremely useful information both to club members and site visitors alike. For example, there's a very comprehensive Sailplane Database providing an A-Z of model sailplanes. Here you can find information on the manufacturer of any particular model, with either direct links to their website or contact addresses where there's no website to refer to, and there are even some video clips relating to some of the models. There are some good features such as Articles and Tips, Aerobatic Schedules, Classified adverts and a novel Spotlight on a Modeller page, currently featuring SSS member David Briggs.

My favourite section on most sites is the gallery, and this one is most enjoyable! It has several sub-sections covering specific events plus a section exclusively for members' models and there are wonderful shots of some of these big, beautiful, graceful models some of which you will find elsewhere on this issue of ModelFlight (and carrying the hallmark of quality that suggests they may be the work of Tony Baker, professional photographer and founder of the club).

The new site also has a new URL; take a look at

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sssrcsoaring

John Cinderey has been busy giving his site a serious make-over! John's site is a personal one, although it doubles as a site for his club, West Cumbria RC Fliers.

John has given his site a major overhaul, with some new pages appearing such as media articles, model kit lists and one or two other items on the main index, as well as a few others having disappeared. But this site is BIG and you can find many items as you browse the site which are not obvious from the main index - such as the Jet Smart page featuring models from this manufacturer, including their new Vulcan.

John is a disabled flyer who is doing great things to encourage other disabled folk to participate in the hobby and also to make clubs and event organisers more aware of what they can do to make it more 'user-friendly' to those suffering from handicaps of one sort or another, particularly those confined to a wheelchair. He has just had a second article published in BMFA News which further promotes the cause! John's personal profile appeared on ModelFlight #42.

Visit the site at http://www.westcumbriarc.f9.co.uk