I picked up my first 2.8m Swift from Uwe Freitag (Fridayfly) in December 2019. I’ve not flown it very often – usually a few times each year in Hahnenmoos on Lavey – but have had great fun with it. It’s the ultimate slope racer – so fast, and so robust, excellent for heavy duty slope conditions.

As the waiting list for Fridayfly planes is very long I immediately booked a building slot for a new plane when I picked up the 2.8m Swift. In December last year (2023) I got the long-awaited email that my building slot was coming up in June 2024. The really cool thing about Fridayfly is that you can decide on what plane you would like to have built in the months before your building slot comes up – in addition of course to any customisation of the plane. After a friendly call with Uwe I decided to go for the new 3.06m Swift. When I ordered it he had just maidened the new glider and was very pleased with the performance. As for the colour I decided to go for yellow with nice black and white stripes on the underside of the wings. Uwe completely built the plane for me – including installing the motor and all servos. All that was left for me to do was install the ESC, receiver, backup power and battery – and of course program the transmitter. My new Swift is now ready to maiden – watch this space!

I’ve sold my 2.8m Swift to my boss, the President of the Swiss Aeromodelling Federation, who will undoubtedly have loads of fun with it. I’ve also booked a new building slot – the next available was for the end of 2030…..

And finally the winter fog cleared! Yesterday afternoon I took the Fridayfly Swift S.1 (2.8m, 4.6kg) to our airfield for its maiden flight. Start was using our club’s catapult. The leomotion motor (L4031-2550, with 6.7:1 gearbox and RFM 16×13 Prop, running on 6S) has plenty power. It needed a bit of up elevator, and the throws are quite large. Unfortunately the conditions were far from perfect for flying, incredibly bad visibility and a low sun meant being very careful. And this time of year you can just about forget about any thermals, especially with a heavy plane like this of course (it’s meant for the slope, not our airfield). It flies incredibly well though, and I’m looking forward to taking this to one of our local slopes soon, and Hahnenmoos in June….

My Fridayfly Swift S.1 (2.8m) is now ready to maiden. The plane was mostly built when I picked it up in Germany a few weeks ago. I was hesitating whether to fit a motor or leave it as a glider. The problem is that the winds on most of our slopes are not that reliable and I don’t want to have to land this baby way out. Also, I have enough light planes, and this one can do with half a kilo of extra weight for the motor. So Urs from Leomotion.com built me a nice and powerful little motor :-). Programming the plane was easy, now waiting for the fog to clear, so I can maiden it on our airfield….

Quite a few projects have been coming together recently. In July 2017 I ordered a Fridayfly (Uwe Freitag) 2.8m Swift, which I went to pick up at Uwe’s place in Germany last week. It’s fully built, including all servos, so not much work before I can get this one airborne. Today I installed the SBUS hub, receiver and programmed the plane. I also had some fun doing the decals. It doesn’t always have to be a Swiss flag on a plane and I’m proud to fly one with the flag of my other nationality ;-). And the registration number is quite obvious if the country code is OO……