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7th FF AREA MEETING - Ashdown Forest - 8 October 06

from Gary Oulds of Crawley DMAC (full 7th Area results)

“Slipstream”

There had been some heavy rain over the Southeast mid-week, so it was great to see the weather had cleared up nicely for the final free flight gathering on the Forest.

The wind direction was pretty much as predicted, due south all day and variable in strength, so to avoid a repeat performance of several models “wooded”, as had happened the previous meeting, C.D Mike Cook sensibly ordered everyone up to Camp Hill from the flyers vehicle base at Roman Road car park…he then mysteriously vanished, around about the same time Maidstone’s Eager Eagle John Richardson seemed ready to start flying, he wasn’t delayed long and soon in the air, team-mate Mike had gone back down for a cuppa and to collect his own models. Retrieving was treacherous as usual across the bogs and John sensibly kept in contact with Mandy via two-way radio.

Maidstone were short of representatives for team glider today, being minus recent forest returnee Dennis Bird, both Jervis Sheppard, and Peter Harris also missing. Good to see Mike Riggs supporting, convalescing from a very recent op. He informed us that Peter Harris was actually on holiday. Martin Stagg elected to fly F1G so it was left down to John and Mike to challenge in glider.

Crawley Club were also up on the rise trimming early, preparing models and almost ready to go, just waiting on Peter and Alex to arrive. Discussions then focused around who were likely candidates for the A and B glider team.

Alex had already been more or less pre-elected in his absence, along with John Oulds and Terry Knight…. in theory a pretty strong team. The B team though was a minor disaster really, I failed to get any joy at all from my A2, which at one point suffering a duelling scar to the tail plane …via B team mate Robin (the menace) Willes, tailless model…whose team was he on again, ha ha. A late switch to an A1 proved worse, having not checked out the model, it just spiralled in for a measly 20 seconds, so naturally I packed up in disgust. Tony Clark, also in the B team, lost patience with his A1 - actually folding the wing down across his knee on the field! The only highlight for Crawley B was a very late effort by a supercharged hyper Robin Willes, who was bouncing about all day somewhat like the character Tigger from A A Milnes Winnie the Poo, flying just about everything he could throw in the air, either rubber powered or towlined up. Unluckily his glider flight, which wasn’t that bad at all considering what had gone before, ended up clouting a tree which decided it rather fancied eating the raspberry coloured wing tip…. delicious!

Always enthusiastic and ever trying, Crawley’s Peter Norman was enjoying the day but wasn’t overly impressed with either the frustrating up and mainly down performance of his tailless model which seemed to be in a “harder you try, the less I will fly” mood. …Or the quality of the rubber he was winding when he broke 12 strands of 1/4  flat straight through, shot the lot, on what looked seemingly low-ish turns.

East Grinstead’s rubber squad were mostly flying F1G, with the exception of Neil Allen flying F1C, Bob Taylor and Mike Richardson being joined by Ken Taylor, who also flew glider, obviously trying to hammer home even more points having already gained an unassailable RAFA Shield advantage; (game set and match East Grinstead I think) We had some light relief though when Ken, I believe, took an early bath after his attempting the miracle of walking on water failed and he sunk whilst crossing one of the infamous boggy streams running through the valley bottom…He was ok though just a little soggy. Terry Knight meanwhile lost a lot of time on his first flight, Dad thinks now maybe the tow hook on the Seja had possibly released ok at full towline height but the constant tension on the line kept the tow ring hanging in the hook recess, as eventually the model zoomed off very low and like Gary’s was over the 20 seconds. Subsequent launches were much better but the glider like many couldn’t escape the turbulent air that was killing many flights across the valley. Terry had also recently acquired a Biotrack so at least he got the opportunity to test the system out...although funnily while he was scanning Ken came by and said, “It’s over there Terry”. Kind of defeating the object of the exercise a little bit. 

John Oulds' flights all seemed to follow a similar pattern, he had three very good looking bunt launches followed by flights that looked initially to be doing better than they actually were, more being thrown across the valley than flying smoothly. The distance one of his flights had gone up the hill baffled both Terry and myself, when comparing it with other flights at that time it didn’t seem possible it could have gone so far up the hillside and yet it DT'd at 2.08, almost half a minute short. The only explanation was pilot error setting the timer DT scroll wrong coupled, with the variable wind conditions. But it certainly seemed odd at the time. John’s last flight was his shortest, but this proved by far the worst to retrieve. Watching through bins on how he was progressing, it soon became apparent that he hadn’t moved very far towards the model during a 10minute spell and was really struggling to work his way down through the clumps to the model. At times Terry commented “he’s now down crawling over the clumps on his hands and knees again, eventually John returned safely exhausted and with the model intact.

Mike Cook, having started well, ended up second best this time, with maxes either side of a poor middle flight. (Bit like buying an expensive bap with no sandwich filling)

Later in the day Geoff Stringer’s Wakefield was watched away by a small group of hikers, I think they were actually quite impressed on the whole with what they saw, the flight looked very impressive straight from launch and as it smoothly climbed away to great height - it eventually DT’d around 1.20, landing high up the slope, pretty much confirming an increase in drift around fly-off time.

Shortly after the trimmer flight from Geoff, Alex, being the only flyer to reach the fly-off, launched the final flight of the year ….It craned off pretty well from what was a good bunt. The flight itself didn’t look overly spectacular but at the same time it wasn’t bad either at just under 3mins considering it spent most of the flight fending off the turbulent air around - it was a pretty good ending to the year really.

Being an early finish everyone met back down at the car park, for a chat and tea break before finally heading off.

Looks like the shows almost over again for another year; we’re just waiting now for the final results in John Richardson’s Plane Paper to arrive through the door.

And after that, we’ll all just have to wait and see who’s got what (who won an Oscar who didn’t etc) at the annual prize giving when arranged, hope to see you there.

Ashdown is God - roll on the all change all new 2007 season