The End of August
and I took the plunge to enter the Whitesheet Thermal lottery (sorry English
Open). I took 2 Willow 2 models along
for the weekend and it was great to see 3 other pilots with various Willow
versions. It was interesting to see the
Willow 2 with a Willow 1 tail that Joe Cubitt has been enjoying so much- it
certainly looked to have a good turning control in the light air.
John Bennett flying
his Willow 1 looked his classy self all the way through the race.
The delay in the
start of the race gave time for the almost no wind conditions to be well
established and start to swing off
course whilst the factor 30 to be liberally applied. With ballast completely removed the Willow 2
behaved impeccably and was placed around the top 5 in the first 2 rounds. Flying in conditions which demand reliability
and performance seem to be right up the Willow’s street.
A rush of blood and
optimism that our change of slope and slight increase in summer breeze had me
gambling on ballast and loosing.
The Joy of
Whitesheet is the variability of conditions.
A summer’s day flying the slope is one of soaring’s great pleasures and
should be enjoyed- even when you are racing.
This does mean that in racing at Whitesheet you are buying a ticket for the thermal lottery but this is
not news and the variability of F3F has always been one of it’s great
pleasures.
Perhaps it is the
low nature of the Whitesheet slopes that seems to emphasize the variances in
lift more than other sites. Whilst I do
not see the English open Ever rivalling
the Welsh Open in terms of speed or prestige it’s a great place to fly with
some excellent company.
After a fun evening
meal and an interesting night under canvas and massive rain it was time to
convene for day 2. A dash of common
sense and we were drinking coffee in a local pub garden. Although the bad weather meant that there was
no racing on the Sunday, the 4 hours it took to read out the previous day’s
scores mean that the rain had stopped in Devon on the way home.
I had the chance to
fly some more and test out my latest Merlin.
It’s very tempting to pack a Merlin and a Willow for the Welsh open-
next to the BaroccaJ
- Not a bad end to a fun weekend!
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