South of England open- one of the best

   The south of England Eurotour was one of my first races for a long time and it turned out to be the first competitive outing for JP and his Saker.  Although my own limited thumbs mean that I am always very much an outside bet I love multiday events.  The prospect of meeting up with some European as well as more local friends had me heading off to the glorious slopes of East Sussex.

  There is an argument that many F3F models have come together in terms of design.  3m span models certainly dominate and to the untrained eye you’re very much relying on trademark colour schemes to separate them.  I’m not decrying these models- they clearly work but it does tent to draw you eye to those models that stand alone.

  The Caldera T, flown by Deiter Perlick really stood out.  Deiter makes beautiful models which have tended to the smaller spans over the years.  Not surprisingly the T ailed model flew ‘as if it was on rails’ and showed a remarkable ability in the turn.

  Deiter, in common with many of the better pilots, did not stick to 1 turn style.  As the weekend unfolded you could almost see him learning what worked on the hill as the conditions changed.  No one was better at doing this than the eventual winner Markus Meissner.  Markus was 16^th after the first round but hunter England’s Mark Redsell down, round after round.  Mark lost first place in the very last round of the competition.

  The greatest change in fortunes came for John Philips.  After day 1 he was in 17^th, including a fight with the local plant life- que John bringing out his Saker and producing one of the most dominant day’s flying that I can remember- Day 2 was JP day.  I don’t think her was ever out of the top 4, as the Saker showed the way through some challenging conditions.

  My own performance was also improving and more than keeping up with the improving form of many pilots.  Being able to watch John fly my design with such success was almost as good as flying them myself- the Saker is without doubt capable of mixing it with just about every other model out there.  I could tell you about the bad luck I had with the lift fading as I flew the last flight of the day but lets not…

  Weekends like this are about far more than the podium finishers or just the racing.  Those long days in the sunshine and wind were finished off perfectly with a ‘debrief’ over a cold drink or 2.  It’s at times like that when friendships are made or strengthened as well as many of the best memories of the weekend.  F3F at it’s best is about more than racing.

  Possibly more than anywhere else, UK racers know that you can go from last to first and back again very easily and this does not affect your welcome each evening.  If you have suffered some damage, you might even get a pint put in front of you!

  Although my car was full of models and I carried 2 Sakers to the tope of the slope each day, my Saker was rock solid and was the only model I flew all race.  In some conditions that would have challenged many models in previous years the Saker was always well behaved.

  After a weekend like this, my enthusiasm is certainly re-invigorated to get things ready for the next UK summer league.

  Now how about a bit of sport flying fun and an evening out before the summer league outing?