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3rd Area Meeting Results / Ashdown Forest / 22 April 2007

See report from Gary Oulds

BMFA Combined Rubber

1	K Taylor	East Grinstead	7.30 + 7.48
2	G Stringer	East Grinstead	7.30 + 5.02
3	M Richardson	East Grinstead	7.30 + 3.37
4	A Cameron	Crawley	7.12
5	P Cameron	Crawley	7.09
6	N Allen	East Grinstead	6.41
7	R Taylor	East Grinstead	5.44
8	P Norman	Crawley	2.30

RAFA Combined Rubber

1	K Taylor	East Grinstead	7.30
1	G Stringer	East Grinstead	7.30
1	M Richardson	East Grinstead	7.30
4	A Cameron	Crawley	7.12
5	P Cameron	Crawley	7.09
6	N Allen	East Grinstead	6.41
7	R Taylor	East Grinstead	5.44
8	P Norman	Crawley	2.30

BMFA & RAFA F1H

1	M Cook	MFFG	9.21
2	D Bird	MFFG	8.03
3	J Oulds	Crawley	7.37
4	G Oulds	Crawley	7.21
5	T Page	MFFG	5.14
6	K Taylor	East Grinstead	4.18
7	J Richardson	MFFG	3.11

RAFA F1C

1

N Allen

East Grinstead

2.46

RAFA points

			class	%	points
1	K Taylor	East Grinstead	C/R	100	15 + 7
2	G Stringer	East Grinstead	C/R	100	15 + 5
3	M Richardson	East Grinstead	C/R	100	15 + 3
4	A Cameron	Crawley	C/R	96	13
5	P Cameron	Crawley	C/R	95.3	12
6	M Cook	MFFG	F1H	93.5	11
7	N Allen	East Grinstead	C/R	89.1	10
8	D Bird	MFFG	F1H	80.5	9
9	R Taylor	East Grinstead	C/R	76.4	8
10	J Oulds	Crawley	F1H	76.2	7
11	G Oulds	Crawley	F1H	73.5	6
12	T Page	MFFG	F1H	52.3	5
13	K Taylor	East Grinstead	F1H	43	4
14	N Allen	East Grinstead	F1C	36.9	3
15	P Norman	Crawley	C/R	33.3	2
16	J Richardson	MFFG	F1H	31.8	1

RAFA Points

	1st Area	2nd Area	3rd Area	total
East Grinstead	20	21	85	126
Maidstone	16	35	26	77
Crawley	0	26	40	66

Weather - SW 5 to 10 mph, warm, light overcast
Compiled by Mike Cook - CD

Report from Gary Oulds

Wind direction: fairly constant southerly variable light – moderate wind speed. Generally hot and sunny all day

Initially we were quite surprised to see no one parked at Friends car park thinking the forecast was going to be south westerly…. Dennis Bird also appeared at a similar time to us and he followed us on the drive round until we eventually found all the early arrivals at Roman road. 

Ken Taylor having spent some valuable time trimming his models the previous day said the wind direction was the same…a Southerly. Ideal for trekking up to Camp Hill then. Most flyers were soon setting off laden with supplies up to the sunny summit.

Although CD Michael Cook, with file in hand, was actually slightly delayed, still finishing building his new A1 on site which still smelt freshly doped…just those minor things to do like plugging on the wings, balancing the model etc, but he was suitably prepared for this as on the ground in front of him was rather a large strip of lead flashing which looked like it had fallen off of an old church roof. (Surely he wouldn’t need all of that) A smaller piece of which was attached by sellotape to the nose and the following hand-glide looked promising.

Meanwhile Maidstone’s Dennis Bird having appeared at Ashdown early then disappeared for a couple of hours, reappearing again shortly before midday to start flying A1, the reason being having left some of those useful items like his towline, tracker etc at home.

Up on Camp Hill we were very exposed to the suns rays and some fared better than others there was very little shade for flyers and models. By midday we were all cooking!

In glider John Richardson was doing ok after his first flight went away for a max but he had some trouble towing his A1…maybe the warped fin he discovered later on hadn’t helped and the heat of the day was really energy sapping. Club mate Dennis was also just ahead of Dad and myself after two flights, before running out of steam.    

Dad had to re adjust his flying tactics when the alloy bunt-roller on his glider, on a trim flight just sheared off, he then dropped an early flight, but finished well with maxes sending out two models to save time towards the end the competition.

I completely fizzled in the sun and even slipping in the stream didn’t cool me for long my patience boiled away near the end in the heat and the result was, a real mixed bag of flights finishing with two identical sub maxes after a good third.

Pick of the Glider flyers today though was Michael Cook, amazingly his freshly built model had trimmed out in one flight, he was able to circle tow the model well, successfully picking off the maxes one by one. Now on four he looked likely to become the only glider flyer on the day capable of making the fly-off.  His last flight was in the balance, Geoff timing thought it had every chance of making the max but unfortunately we’ll never know for sure as his luck run out when the flight was suddenly cut short when the model unexpectedly DT’d. Down almost a minute early…what a shame! Still great effort and top glider Area wise on the day.

The day really seemed to favour the Rubber flyers, particularly East Grinstead who are generally strong in this event. Now all-flying to the new BMFA  50 gramme rule for the first time this season.

There was certainly a mixture of models eligible to fly in the Gamage Cup event today, some of the  flyers were flying with new specifically built 50g models, like Martin Stagg and Mike Richardson. Bob Taylor was flying a Classic Yardstick. Peter Norman a Senator, Neil Allen, and Terry Paige were armed with Norman Marcus design Dynamite and Bazooka models. Alex Cameron was once again flying a modern F1B along with Geoff Stringer. And finally Peter Cameron and Ken Taylor both flew adapted open rubber models.

Martin Stagg’s model was apparently quite badly damaged when it ploughed in, Alex dropped a couple of seconds on his first flight, maxed the second, then just missed the air on his last, his dad Peter dropped just the first then finished with two nice maxes. Neil Allen surprisingly missed his last with his Dynamite. Terry Paige’s Bazooka struggled somewhat over loaded he turned to an Elton Drew “Druid” A1 later in the day, Peter Norman maxed comfortably with his first Senator flight but unluckily had to abandon any further flying as the tail plane tether line had snapped during the "pop-off " DT decent, the separated tailplane last seen wafting away in the thermal.

In the end just three made it through to the fly-off stage Ken Taylor, Geoff Stringer and Mick Richardson.

All started preparing their models at the same time. Ken Taylor looked to be very calm; as did Geoff Stringer, both were finished winding quite early in the fly-off round and Geoff was cranking on extra hand turns to keep the torque up whilst waiting for an indication and a good opportunity to go. Mike though was struggling a little now, having just burst two motors winding. Ken took the lead, launching his model away first. And early on the model looked to be climbing very nicely into a useful patch of air. The performance in both climb and glide was notably very impressive, considering the reduction of power available. The overall all up weight reduction seems to be of greater benefit at this time of the day. Geoff followed Ken a minute or so after and the air was still good enough for a five-minute plus flight with his F1B. Last away on the buzzer with literally no time to pick and choose was Mick Richardson’s neat tough looking compact 50g model which did well to clear 3mins

But it was Ken Taylor’s day, his model had made a fabulous flight well over 7mins. A local walker who obviously meant well had picked the model up before Ken could get out to it. Fortunately Ken received a phone call to say it was safe and it had been taken to a house in Crowborough, a detour which delayed him somewhat…I’m sure Ken was grateful and its always nice to get a model back intact. Ken also recovered Pete Norman's Senator tailplane.

I guess, with the advent of tracking technology and a good line, most flyers are now fairly confident of eventually recovering their own models…unless its an extreme “fly away”  So maybe its worth considering better placed or worded labels on models informing the public on the day that “generally the models are not lost” and the owners are actually following or tracking and it is best to leave the model carefully in a safe position near to where found.  

With models all safely packed we chased the sun down on the way home, it had been a really tiring day, I hope everyone drove back safely.

See you all next meeting.