4th FF AREA MEETING - Ashdown Forest - 7 May 06
Words and photo from Gary Oulds (full 4th Area results)
“We’ve got the Forest back”
Great news quickly filtered around the South East Area at very short notice flyer’s received either a buzz by phone or via E-mail confirming the fantastic news from BMFA head office. C.D Mike Cook rushed out an e-mail titled “We’ve
got the Forest back”, and one from Neil Allen “Ashdown Rules” pretty much said it all. An enlightened letter from the Ashdown Conservators had been received granting us permission to continue to fly on the Forest, just in time
for all concerned to dust down and check out their models in preparation for Sundays 4th BMFA Centralised free flight Area event. Before I ramble on and on, I think everyone that flies at Ashdown would wish to thank all those that have been involved
working on this over the last few months and not just those I’ve listed here as I know there has been support also from all flyers not directly negotiating from the BMFA and SE Area
Thanks to
Roger Bellingham, John Jones, Keith Miller, Mike Cook and Neil
Allen.
Sunday, the flyers met up on Ashdown Forest for the first time this year, initially at Stone Hill car park. Naturally everyone was very pleased to be back on the Forest again…. the morning weather was pleasant but a complete surprise to me, considering the Met office forecast I’d seen which showed a graphic cloud symbol with a large single rain drop stuck on it, so I was expecting a real drizzler coupled with a light North Westerly wind …Thankfully it was not raining as I’d forgot to put my lightweight wax jacket in at the last minute and anyway the weather looked to be warming all the time. Although Slightly overcast at first until the clouds cleared becoming much more broken later, I did see the occasional dark looking thunder cloud pass by later on but ultimately it just turned into a gloriously hot sun soaked day… Ashdown is always full of surprises not least the wind or lack of which was to play a big part in the way things panned out.
When Peter Norman (who later flew a Senator in MV) launched Tony Clark’s glider away on a trim flight, all eyes focused on the small ascending model, a brief ripple of applause marked its towline release and the model glided down silently safely to the forest floor below.
Not a lot of people might have been aware of this (I certainly wasn’t) that what seemed like just an ordinary flight was quite a poignant moment really that it was also made by a flyer that I found out later from, had actually first flown on the Forest way back in 1955 (51 years ago) so I guess that fittingly highlighted our return on the forest.
Ever keen Ken Taylor was also soon away with a great flight in Open Rubber, which I believe tree’d later but was recovered ok and
he was eventually to max out in this event and still have enough time and energy to squeeze in a further two events, Mini Vintage and A1 glider…. fantastic. Trees also unfortunately played a part in denying Peter Cameron a first flight max,
also flying OR when the last knockings of the flight were obscured and it had to be clocked off short of a max.
Mid morning, new CD Mike Cook, made a good decision for all to move round to Bushy Willows and set up on the more favoured far side of the forest, when the wind shift sent a couple of models straight over the trees south of Stone Hill car park due to the North Easterly. Once the signs were up and control was set up a deck chair bound Mike was now suitably relaxed and able to watch all the action unfold in front of him in comfort, and what a great backdrop (nice) better than TV… Live Wide Screen Ashdownavision…
Unfortunately, due to the short notice of Ashdown’s availability, Mike was already pre booked to play golf, and it was agreed that when he went Neil would take over for the remainder of the day.
By Midday the weather at Ashdown had turned completely hot and balmy with little or no wind, great for all the rubber flyers, tricky on glider though. 1) There was next to nothing to tow a model up on and 2) normally it’s nice to know what direction to run in to tow a model up…After a run of two duck scores on the trot by Gary Oulds, he and John Richardson seemed to form a comedy act when they hit the dreaded doldrums period, along with return flyer Richard Alford. At one point all three were lined up facing three different directions waiting for the Ashdown breeze to show figuring at least one of them would be facing the right way…The Mylar went up followed by short spells of scurrying foot work …and shouts of it’s down…Both flyers were now on second attempts so it was all the more important to get away next tow. When the wind finally gave one of them a chance there was some frantic foot work followed by a crack and Alfords models aged wings folded…
John Oulds, Terry Knight and Alex Cameron coped with it best and a tactical move down into the valley bottom to squeeze in their last flights really paid off. When they all rattled off a run of good flights…to finish on. It was at this time that Jervis Shepard was spotted still apparently searching the valley floor looking somewhat lost with his Bio-track receiver in hand strangely waving it in a sweeping motion pointing downwards, kind of like a metal detector. And an extensive search effort along the valley bottom had so far failed to reveal his mini vintage Hepcat’s whereabouts… Eventually it was spotted by eagle-eyed Bob Cherry, much to Jervis’s relief, I’m sure.
Apart from the obvious all-rounder candidate Ken Taylor, rubber wise, Martin Stagg probably would have been in the running for man of the match I think (if there’d been one up for grabs) he had a particularly good day: all his lightweight rubber models really excelled and I believe he maxed out in both Open Rubber and Mini Vintage today - terrific performance.
In F1C power Neil Allen was doing more than ok - his model was singing high right on song - until his 4th flight when his model surprisingly got sucked down in under 2 minutes. It seems amazing it could have missed from such a height? It must have fallen through an uncharted hole in the ozone layer. He thought he just had time to push for three mini vintage flights late on in the day by flying two models together with the thought that maybe he could retrieve one of the models before time ran out. But it didn’t quite work out, one was tree’d on the edge of a field just down from Kings Standing and the second was spotted down by Geof stringer and myself but only located after the competition had ended…. when it was discovered the on board tracker had failed as suspected.
That pretty much sums it up; I think everyone hopefully had a brilliant day.
Whether flying or not there was a lot going on, lots of support. It was good to see Keith Miller, and Nigel Lee making an appearance on his Motoguzzi, knowing he finds Ashdown a bit hard going these days. As ever Mike Richardson turned up and hopefully it may encourage him to appear again one day with a model, Harry Hutchings supporting and also Derek Cash who’s not flown in earnest for a while now…………That was a taster meeting now we’re back!
Lets make the most of it while we can ……Ashdown is god…. Free Flight Forever …………………….
These are the Days