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Nats Part 2, DAY 1
We were fortunate enough to be offered the use of the Walled Garden Caravan Park again to complete our thermal nats and for that we are extremely grateful to Jim and his family for hosting the event.
Thanks also have to go to Andy and Dot Lewis who were the main organisers for this event and to all the helpers from Scotland and from England who stepped forward to run the events on the day, thank you all it they were two great flying weekends.
Saturday dawned overcast but nigh on flat calm, what drift there was came from a less than opportune direction which meant that any thermal activity was going to be awkward to read, follow and use.
SLG
The first event scheduled was the electroslot event, basically the fliers were allowed one charge of their batteries, they then had to fly 4 rounds of 10 minutes. This meant that power management was crucial. Being involved in the competition and making a real pigs ear of it left me with little time to actually see any of the flying being done by others so I have to apologise for the extremely brief non report, all I can really do is say look at the results, they give a clear indication on the flying. What did I do? I mixed up my brake switch and my power switch, which meant I had power on, brakes on and a major over run in round 1 effectively putting me out of the event. The over run left me with no power for the 4th and final flight, so combined with a zero score for the first round I left feeling a bit sheepish.
OPEN
It was decided that we would get 3 rounds of Open in during the Saturday, this would give us a competition result if the weather turned to the rain that some weather predictions had. Fortunately that never happened. The winch lines had to be laid in the direction of the field rather than straight into wind which led to lower than normal launches and the need for the lines to be wound down immediately so that no one interfered with other people's launches. It worked well and I can't recall any lines causing mishap in this way. There were one or two near misses on launch, one or two line tangles and breaks but nothing major went wrong for anyone on Day 1. The only exception was Colin Sparrow who unfortunately lost track of his Sagitta at great distance and even with the help of his team mates was unable to return the model to the field. Last seen it was safely ensconced atop a large tree some 600 metres downwind of the field.
From the start the usual contenders were battling it out for the sniffters of lift that were coming through, turning to wide could mean that you simply flew round the thermal activity rather than climbed in it. Surprisingly most of the slots went the full 10 minutes by some if not all the pilots. This is a credit to their flying skills and thermal judgement, it was nice to see. After 3 rounds the top scores were as follows;
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Ron Russell |
3000 |
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Brian Johnson |
3000 |
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Mark Devall |
2940 |
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Gordon Ballantine |
2619 |
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Jon Stanswood |
2437 |
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All the scores were with the fliers bigger open class models. So with 3 rounds completed the open was finished for the day and the electric fliers were asked to assemble their models for the next event.
30 MIN Electro
This is a simple format event, the pilot has to fly his model for the full 30 mins using no more than 2 minutes of power, the motor can be switched on at any time during the 30 minutes to boost their height but all power on time is recorded and subtracted from their flight time. Only 3 pilots lined up for this event, very disappointing considering thre had been around 10 entered originally. From the word go Jon's model climbed rapidly into the air whilst Gordon and I struggled a bit, there was no way we could match the climb rate of his model. He had done his homework and propped suitably for the power pack he was carrying. We had not. Thermalling was surprisingly good, no one really climbing into the clouds but there was some very light activity at distance so both Jon and I flew out the 30 mins with Gordon only a few seconds behind. In this category there is no point in having plenty of power left in your battery after the 30 mins is up, it is better to convert it into climb rate so that you get up there quicker. Next time I will use a bigger prop. Again the results tell the story.
DAY 2
OPEN
Sunday's possible rain did not materialise, hoorah! What little drift there was came from the opposite end of the field from Saturday which meant that we were flying in the more usual direction for the field. There was still a sideways component in the wind, draft which was taking the lift away at about 45 degrees from the line of the field and the winch lines meaning that we still had to wind the lines in on launch to keep them out of the way of other fliers.
Straight into round 4 and the light lift was again stretching the flights mostly to the full 10 minutes. The high scorers from Day 1 were all a little on edge wanting to make sure they did not suffer a defeat and loose their possible fly off place. Again one or two line breaks and tangles slowed things down but the competition management took it all in their stride and kept everyone happy. Colin was extremely unfortunate again, loosing a second 100 s model, this time to what looked like interference and then his open model came in really hard with the same problem. No one could trace the source of the problem, only his team were on that frequency and they were all switched off. Let's hope he can find the cause of the problem before anything else goes down. Back to the competition, the lift was varying more by now, one slot amongst the high scorers was won with a lowly time of 4 mins 11 secs so it could catch everyone out. As the day wore on and people were tiring the flying became a little ragged and one or two changes took place amongst the fly off contenders. By the end of the 6th round with no discards offered the scores were as below.
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Ron Russell |
6000 |
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Mark Devall |
5940 |
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Brian Johnson |
5933 |
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Andy Lewis |
5253 |
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Jon Stanswood |
5202 |
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Fly off
In these Open events the fly off is set at 2 rounds of 15 minutes. so after all the preparation, winches being moved to ensure all competitors had enough room to launch safely the fly off began. there was no holding back, all competitors went straight on the buzzer. Mark launched and went straight to the right, where the lift had been most off the day. The rest of us hang about in the middle hoping for some indicators, nothing happened. Sink started to develop so RR and LBJ drifted right, RR slightly higher, contact, light lift great. Andy and Jon flew over to join us, they were lower and still able to use what was there gently. Mark lost out and was first down, followed by Andy a bit later. Jon Brian and Ron flew out the slot, Brian taking the maximum points.
Points were tallied and slot 2 got under way, it was almost a repeat of the first one. All the pilots went on the buzzer. Mark went right thinking it must be there this time. Andy and Jon went forward and left above the trees and started climbing rapidly. Brian and Ron were in no man's land in the middle and sinking. In the same time as Andy and Jon got to 1 1/2 times line height we were at 2/3 line height and thinking about panicking. Ron decided to go right and contacted some really light lift, Brian noticed and followed but was some 20 -30 feet lower, he still reached the weak stuff. We were maintaining our height and began slowly climbing, relief. I gained maybe 100 ft over 3 - 4 minutes flying, Brian a bit less and then realised that Andy and Jon's lift had gone and that they were trying to reach us. Mark, by this time was struggling and having to land. Andy and Jon reached us but were lower, unbelievable. Brian fell out the bottom of the lift followed by Jon and Andy leaving me on my own. I managed to stretch it for a further few minutes then decided to line up for a landing making sure of the landing bonus. I was not sure what sort of lead I had so every point was valuable. Fortunately I nailed it, hit the centre of the circle, broke the peg holding the tape and the Open event was completed. It was really satisfying to hear the ripple of applause from the fliers when I landed, that kind of appreciation means a lot to all the fliers. Thanks guys.
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Ron Russell |
1988 |
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Jon Stanswood |
1715 |
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Andy Lewis |
1693 |
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Brian Johnson |
1675 |
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Mark Devall |
1203 |
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The full score sheet is detailed below, have a read through it. |
