What
a fun weekend and day of challenging British F3F! With the sun shining and barely a breeze to hinder
our merry band as we skipped up the trail to the Ice cream slope it was great
to have the chance to catch up with some old friends as we waited for the wind
to join us.
It also
gave the chance to look around at the variety of models being raced, from
memory the field included.
Device, Mamba, Freestylers, Extreme, Toxic,
Pitbull, an Orden and of course the Saker.
As a judge of models the weekend wasn’t very scientific, the Mamba won
and Devices cam second from the top and second from the bottom of the leader board.
2 sleek models
My own day could be summed up quite well in the first 2 rounds, both times I found myself pushing out from the slope in desperate search for a thermal as my Saker lost height. Round 1 had a re-flight and a top 5 time, round 2 didn’t have re-flight and I ‘enjoyed’ a sedate 88 seconds on course before heading off in search of lift.
As
the wind built and kept swinging around, a heavier approach to ballast seemed
to deliver results for me. Different
pilots were clearly wrestling with the issue of ballasting. It would be harsh to suggest that “if you got
good lift you go fast- if you not you don’t.” didn’t have a large amount to do with
the results with in each round but the better pilots made the most of the good
stuff and managed to minimise the damage of the poor air.
The
Saker was proving itself to be more than competitive in the conditions, only to
be let down by my thumbs on the last round of the day. It’s 2 land out avoiding flights did make me
feel more confident with the air frame and the race conditions.
and thats league 1 done
