The 30th annual Area Indoor Meeting took place at the Crawley Leisure Center on Sunday, 6th February. There was a good attendance from both inside the Area and further a field, this is a very popular meeting bringing fliers from great distances as the Center has a good flat ceiling with very little to cause hang ups, although models, being what they are, still manage it occasionally.
We started as usual with a "fly-for-fun" session to get the air warmed up then the first competition of the day being "Hand Launch Glider", for which this year we only had two entries but so keen were they that the competition (best two flights out of six) was decided by one tenth of a second. This competition did not take long so the second session of F-f-F started earlier than scheduled.
The next competitions were the E.Z.B. and Living Room Stick categories. These are what everyone thinks of when they think "Indoor". These are the slow flying, transparent winged models, which stay aloft seemingly for hours, certainly for about an hour in the salt mines of Eastern Europe where the air is dense and still. Following these we had the two "Fun" competitions, the "Butterfly" mass launch and the "Hanger Rat" mass launch. These are for small commercial models that are available at the event and, as the name implies, consist of everyone releasing their models together – and the last one down wins. These are great fun with over forty models airborne together and flying for more than two minutes in the case of the butterflies and even longer with the "Rats", judging gets quite exciting towards the end as the last few always get as far apart as possible – when judging you need eyes in the back of your head and 180 degree vision in both sets.
The last of the competitions were the Open and Peanut Scales, the most popular of the day. Static judging takes place whilst the E.Z.B and L.R.S. models are flying. The "Peanut" scale is for models with a maximum dimension of 13" (span or length) and is in two parts, static and duration, flight times in seconds being added to their static marks. For Open scale the flights are marked by the judges for conformity to scale in operation on take-off, cruise, approach and landing. These points are then applied to their static score to get the result. The winner this year was a superb model of the German "Gigant" an aircraft which started life as a very large glider, capable of carrying tanks, which was towed to its destination by a pair of twin engined aircraft, it was later converted into a powered aircraft, having six engines - it was still a very slow lumbering beast. The model was prepared and placed on the floor ready for departure. The owner then walked away and left the model to make its own demonstration. The engines started in sequence, when all were running they were advanced to full power. The model then took off and climbed to cruising level, when the engines were reduced in power and the model cruised around for several circuits. The power was then further reduced for the approach and landing. After landing the engines were closed down, again fully automatically by the on board timer. Several demonstration flights were made on the same charge. Although the model was around three foot span it only weighed five and a half ounces! Being built mainly of 1/16" square balsa, the main longerons were of obechi.
The afternoon finished with the prize giving, the Southeastern Area Champion was judged to be, once again, John Oulds of the Crawley Club.