What a 3 days! The Welsh open has a habit of leaving you
feeling weathered and exhausted but with
3 days of flying, alternating from the Crest to Mickies and back to the Crest
on the final day, there were broad smiles on the faces of all Pilots.
First of all the
organising team, I can’t praise these guys well enough. Day 1 had us all skipping merrily over to the
Crest well before the start time and we found Knewt and Mark Treble fumbling on
the start line. I have to admit t being
puzzled at first but the new timing gear they were setting up more than proved
itself. Automated working time, count
down, lap counter and round time- also combined with the times being show on
the safety line- you can’t get much better can you?
The low key highly effective
approach went through the full weekend, even the Buzzing was organised without
the use of cattle prods.
The conditions over a
total of 13 racing rounds were always ‘good’ and often challenging but the wind
stayed between 8 and 14ms al weekend and so the race did not become a contest
of these with the most Tungsten.
Day 1 saw Joel West
show just how to fly a reversals course.
With the rest of the cream was steadily rising to the top myself and
fellow willow flyer Clayton were finding out how important practising on course
is. I’m convinced that I was spending as
much time off course than on it in the first rounds.
Day 2 saw us move to
the far side of Mickies, only a sharp shower stopped us from starting on time
and the course was set up for an immediate start. Perhaps it was the bleary eyes starting to emerge
but day 2 saw the first models damaged that I can remember.
I had been delighted
with the performance of the Willow 2 on day 1 and into day 2, only my thumbs
and a set up that was feeling too soft to race (Devon set up) were holding the
model back. Then 4 rounds in I saw Frank
and Martin fly in front of me and a thermal showed itself for them. I launched climbed beautifully, came on
course a little early to make use of the air and off she went. 16 seconds and 6 of my most enjoyable legs of
F3F I can remember. The Willow screamed,
I pulled her round as fast as I could and she shot around the course. Unfortunately the thermal passed too quickly
and I slowed down before my PB was safe.
With the usual
grumbles of Thermal lotteries from different pilots, the skill of Martin, Simon
and the Dark lord Dakin were a master class and whatever the lift they made the
most of it.
Day 3 and it was a
less than merry skip along the Crest to Mid Wales. The Welsh open Marathon was proving tough,
our number was dropping off and mistakes coming in. My own was to simply hit the hill as I tried
to run along the edge. A cartwheel and
wing recovery later and the only damage was the servo tray coming loose- tough
toys these Willows! The number of pilot
mistakes seemed to step up again but the reaction to this by the Dark Lord was
to fly the hardest and best flight of the day in his last round- stunning!
The weekend is a great
chance to see other models and modellers.
My feeling this year in the UK is that the new models have mainly come
from different ways to bolt various Baudis parts together. I love the look of the Radical Jazz flown by
Daniel. I didn't realise just how many top 10 places Clayton achieved with his Willow 2- really confirms to me that it's my thumbs and not the model holding me back!
Seeing a Spline in the
flesh was a treat. The different set up
and ballasting philosophies from non UK from the continental pilots was good to
see. Less ballast and flown with more ‘ping’
to the turn was reminiscent of the Sting guys coming over. It also showed that choosing a method and
flying it well is probably more important than the method.
So after 3 days the
winners were very worthy and a great competition was well run in fantastic
conditions which sort out the best pilots.
1 Simon Thornton 10949.04
2 Joel West 10873.91
3 Peter Gunning 10780.76
4 Martin Newnham 10606.39
5 Greg Dakin 10602.92