Maybole has been used in the past and a successful Nats was held then. This year however the weather really tried to scupper them. It is a comparatively small site, banked by trees which can cause turbulence and lift dependant on the wind direction and ferocity.

 The scheduled use of West Drip Farm nr. Stirling was unfortunately cancelled due to the poor weather in the previous weeks and farmers being unable to lift their crops in time, it's been that kind of summer.

This years Nats was organised by Andy and Dot Lewis with a little help from fliers South of the border who volunteered to run individual events. Our thanks go to them and all the timekeepers and workers who helped the day go so smoothly in trying conditions.

Strong winds on the Saturday meant that the 100s competition suffered with highly turbulent conditions due to the wind and adjacent trees creating a rotor effect in the field, landings were a little fraught. Fortunately the winds did start to abate before the HLG got underway, but by no means was it ideal conditions.

Taking part in both events on the Saturday meant that the fliers were involved in at least 30 competition flights that day. 32 if you made the fly off in 100s. An incredibly busy and tiring day for all concerned.

Sunday morning and everyone was greeted by the not so gentle patter of the rain that continued all morning and probably most of the afternoon turning the site into a quagmire. This meant that the Open class and the 2 electric classes had to be cancelled. I have it on good authority that they will be rescheduled.

4 fliers then went through to the fly off which was 2 rounds of 12 minutes duration. R1 saw J S hanging back a little and taking advantage of the others marking the poorer air he then knew to avoid, enabling him to pick up the 1000 points. RR was a not too close second. R2 saw all the other fliers going on the sound of the horn, in the hope of finding the thermal that no one else would reach, J S held back again and when he launched he pinged off meaning that a relaunch was necessary. This negated any advantage he had from the first slot and he then knew he had to outfly RR and the others to win. It was looking poorly for MDV and TP by this point as MDV had headed way down wing but found nowt so was already considering his landing approach. TP seemed to be fairing a little better but had no luck either. RR had found that wee bit of lift that JS could not reach and played it long enough to get the score needed for a comfortable win. 

I have included pics of the 100s fly off contestants and the HLG fliers to whet your appetites.

The comp was held in what was probably the best air of the day as the wind was dropping off. Unfortunately so were the thermals.

Everyone was busy watching all the other fliers 'planes hoping to be able to launch into their thermally air. This tactic did pay off for some at the expense of ensuring getting 5 launches in, but with only 3 to count it seemed a sensible option. The Discus launches seemed to be getting a bit higher than the bungees for a change and certainly they had more of a chance to launch into the thermal by moving across the ground to a different throw point before they heaved their models into the air. The launching method is always the choice of the pilot and in this case worked well. No one knew how the scores were going as the comp progressed as there was only a short breathing space between slots. A full hour of flying later, the comp was over and everyone was delighted that it was completed, their models were mostly intact and their batteries had lasted the duration of the comp.