After a string of cancelled F3F races nature finally relented and the weather was favourable for a competition in East Lomond. The wind was blowing SSW and after the course was set up and a test flight made we moved the course a bit more to the south. After round two the wind had swung a bit further south which entailed yet another moving of the course. Apart from that the wind blew fairly steadily about 20-25 mph with conditions at their best early afternoon.
Peter Gunning showed everyone a clean pair of heels and took round one with his Cyril. Dave Watson retaliated by taking round two and giving a hint to the final result. Ian Stewart flew his Strega and took round three and Mike McCracken won round four with his Extreme. Ron won round five with his bitsa Viking and David Loomes won round six convincingly with his Kyril. Ian switched to his Skorpion and won round seven and I fluked it and won round eight with my Vikos. Ian Stewart took round nine and Martin Gibbs took the last round with his Viking.
I completely messed up my landing after round ten and watched my poor Vikos get caught by a gust and slowly flip upside down breaking a tailplane joiner when it hit the ground. I wasn’t the only one having problems landing because something weird happed to one of Ron’s and we were all getting ready to run at one point but control was regained a successful landing made although not quite where it was originally intended to be!
Dave Watson had a great round 2 and held the fastest time for several rounds before David Loomes wrested it from him in round 6. Then in round 8 some jammy beggar (me!) got some great air and managed to hold it together to take FTD. Not sure how that happened because it didn’t feel that fast although it was nice and smooth air.
Looking at the results spreadsheet although Ian Stewart took three rounds and everyone else won one round, Dave Watson’s consistent flying saw him win the competition although it was always going to be close between him and Peter Gunning with the lead passing back and forward a few times. The scores were pretty close between Ron, Ian and David and also between Mike and me.
It was good to see some of the regulars again because it is ages since we flew a competition, the last one that ran was in June. This was only the third competition run this year because we have lost six F3F competitions and one aerobatics so far. Great to get some proper flying in at last though.
I hope we get some good weather again in a fortnight for the Scottish National Championships.
No comments:
Post a Comment