BMFA National Championships, RAF Barkston Heath

BMFA National Championships, RAF Barkston Heath

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Our thanks to David Phipps BMFA CEO, the BMFA Nationals organisers, and the Commandant of Cranwell Collage.

F3A Organiser and Contest Director: Matt Hoyland.

Public Relations: Ashley Hoyland

Scoring: Computer tablet system maintained by Matt Hoyland.

Judges: Pilot Judges and scribes aided by Mark and Linda.

All competitors should be congratulated for helping to set up and clear away on Monday afternoon leaving our area as we found it.

Saturday was a good day with a breeze blowing in most of the day until by evening it dropped to leave Barkston in evening sunshine and almost still air.
I would like to thank John Morton for helping with the PR side on Saturday. The free flighters had a good evening.

Hard to believe that by morning it was cold and a fresh wind was blowing 'out' but by lunch time we would have settled for that as the rain and squalls came through all afternoon. (I was sorry for the traders, as many had their stock blown off tables and rained on). We had meetings at 2pm and 4pm but it was decided to abandoned flying for the day.

Monday morning was again cold but the wind was straight down the runway and strengthened through the morning until flying ended just after lunch time. We had completed five rounds for everyone and we only lost one full round over the weekend. By the time we finished the wind was around 17mph with gusts of 27mph. As we cleared away the wind started to drop and by evening it was calm again.

We agreed to modify our flying programme for the Nationals Championship/Team Selection from the original planned 3 from 4 'P' schedules and 1 from 2 F' schedules to 2 from 3 'Ps' and 1 from 2 'Fs', all other competitors flew 5 rounds.

Unfortunately a few competitors could not attend and some pulled out through the weekend which made reorganising the flight schedule a bit time consuming and tedious for our CD, but pilots were kept informed and given the alternative at every step before voting.

Podium. Clubman: First Place Joe Wotton, 2nd Matthew Bacon. (Graeme Jones (DNF)

Intermediate: First Place Philip Lewis, 2nd Michael Broad.

Masters: First Place Mark Allan (Keith Riel DNF).

FAI 'P' Schedule only: First Place Steve Underwood, 2nd Place Chris Halgreen, 3rd Brian Hoare.

Team Selection and National Champion flying FAI 'P' and 'F' schedules:

First Place Matt Hoyland, 2nd Keith Jackson 3rd Adrian Mansell.

Photographs: Ashley Hoyland and Mike Wood.

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GBRCAA National League Bury St Edmunds 30 June 2018

GBRCAA National League Bury St Edmunds 30 June 2018

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Hosts: Bury St Edmunds MFC

Contest Director: Peter Jenkins

Judges: FAI Pilots

Score recorder: Peter Jenkins

As luck would have it, the first competition to be held at the Knettishall site of the Bury MFC was blessed with amazing weather although the wind speed could have been a bit lower for the Clubman pilots, it was, at least, straight down the strip.

Knettishall is an old WW2 B17 base but all that’s left of the main runway is the intersection with one of the secondary runways. However, this means a great F3A field backed up by a large contingent of Bury MFC members who did the setup, provided the spotter function (this is a full size Aero Club on the airfield) and drove a great BBQ as well as providing hot and cold drinks throughout the day.

So, many thanks to the Bury MFC for allowing us to use this great facility.

We had been scheduled to have 6 pilots flying for the first time in a GBRCAA competition but medical problems and a crash the day before reduced us to 4 but the 2 who had to withdraw were there on the day to watch, learn and soak up the atmosphere. All bar one of these pilots had attended either a Clubman Day or an NPOD before and this helped them to make the jump to a full competition quite successfully.
The great thing was that no one had a woopsie and all of them enjoyed themselves. Some have already joined the Association and we’ll see them at Warboys.

There were 2 FMS Olympus aircraft flown by Paul Day and Dennis Lambe (the Olympus really is good value and competitive), while Richard Clouting flew an Axiome BP biplane. Richard has only recently passed his A test so did very well to come 3rd in Clubman. Richard had been helped by Graham Gooch who was flying his Wolfgang Matt Joker that he used at the first NPOD I ran in September 2012. On that occasion, his son beat him! This time round, despite having problems with getting the engine to run reliably, he turned in a cracking performance in the last round and took first place but only by 10 points from Paul Day.

Mick Broad had his first competition flying Intermediate and flew his Caelus for the first time. He turned in a pretty sound performance for his first Intermediate comp. Thanks to Mick for encouraging his Club mates to enter the Clubman competition.

Eddy Scott stepped back into competition for the first time after a long lay off. He said that he thoroughly enjoyed it and would be entering more this year. Al Williams has been having a rather chequered year having lost his beautiful Agenda to radio failure and then had a tooth extraction the day before this competition. He put up a good showing with his Gaudius (yes, it’s still going strong Gerhard!).

Mark Allen has been plagued with lack of practice time but managed to put it all together when it mattered and won Masters with his Spark.

Eugene Anker was another flying in a class for the first time – FAI in this case - and was chuffed to get 3rd place. Sadly, both Mel Garlick and Peter Jenkins withdrew part way through. George Drever seems to be getting to grips with his transition to electric power and put in a solid performance but could not rattle Garry Peacock who, as expected, put in three excellent flights and took 1st place.

All of this was made possible by pilot judging so a big “thank you” to George, Mel, Eugene and Garry for doing the business. Everyone seemed to agree that this worked well. Just as well as this seems to be the standard for an increasing number of competitions until we manage to attract more judges to the fold.

Thankfully, the brisk wind made the completely cloudless conditions bearable and no one appeared to suffer too much from the blazing sunshine. All the competitors gave this new site a big thumbs up so I shall be negotiating with the Bury MFC to hold another competition next year.

Interestingly, we had one visitor who had seen the competition advertised in the BMFA News. So, it seems that advertising does sometimes work! Finally, on behalf of the competitors, I’d like to express a huge thank you to the members of the Bury MFC for giving up their site for a day and for helping to make the whole event so enjoyable for the competitors. We are very much obliged to you chaps.

Podium

Clubman Schedule: First Place Graham Gooch, 2nd Paul Day, 3rd Richard Clouting.

Intermediate Schedule: Mick Broad.

Masters Schedule: First Place Mark Allan, 2nd Al Williams, 3rd Eddy Scott.

FAI P19 Schedule: First Place Garry Peacock, 2nd George Drever, 3rd Eugene Anker.
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GBRCAA Championships BMFA Buckminster 19th 20th May

GBRCAA Championships BMFA Buckminster 19th 20th May

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Contest Director: Matt Hoyland.

Venue: BMFA Buckminster.

FAI Judges: Bob Ailles and Nico Bleas with Steve Hunt, Brian Hoare and Chris Halgreen.

GBRCAA Judges: Several 'P' pilots.

Computer scoring: Matt Hoyland

Cd's little helpers: Ashley Hoyland and Steve Hunt

Saturday Evening Meal for 15: Tollemache Arms, Buckminster.

What a fantastic weekend made even better with perfect weather, even on the Friday to set up and on Monday to finally vacate the site.

. I think everyone is impressed with the site and all the effort that has gone into providing such wonderful facilities. Thank you David, Manny, Andy and all the friends of Buckminster who volunteer their services.

With a good entry, the best we had had at our Championships for some time, we just had time for 5 rounds and for the Team Selection Competition this meant flying 2 'P' Schedules, 2 'F' Schedules with the best flight in each to count and 1 Unknown schedule which had to count. The Unknown schedule was computer generated and finished up with many knife edge manoeuvres making it one of the most different schedules flown for some time. The Team Selection competition attracted 9 pilots, the best entry we have seen for many years and they all showed great skill in completing the full 5 rounds.

The FAI 'P' Only competition attracted 8 pilots and Chris Halgreen took every round with Adrian Harrison and Brian Hoare close behind.

Flying the Masters schedule Mark Allan had his best two rounds in 2 and 5 with some very consistent flying.

After his promotion from Clubman last year John Morton joined Phil Lewis in Intermediate and took one round from Phil but Phil managed to take the other 4 rounds to win the Intermediate competition.

Bonaero.co.uk did us proud again by offering a Axeome BP kit for the winner of Clubman with other really good prizes from Optipower and Ralph Schweizer (CRS Contra).

Nerves are a big part of flying schedules in front of our judges and this showed in the first couple of rounds for both Matt Bacon and Graeme Jones but they improved through the competition. Joe Wotton in second place took home the Optipower LiPos and other goodies whilst Michael Broad took the honours and the Axoime BP kit from Bondaero.

Podium:
BMFA Team Selection and GBRCAA Championship title: Matt Hoyland, 2nd Kevin Caton, 3rd Adrian Mansell.

FAI 'P' Only Schedule: First Place, Chris Halgreen, 2nd Adrian Harrison, 3rd Brian Hoare.

Masters: Mark Allan.

Intermediate: First Place Phil Lewis, 2nd John Morton.

Clubman: First Place Michael Broad, 2nd Joe Wotton, 3rd Graeme Jones.
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F3A National League Skelbrooke 07 04 2018

F3A National League Skelbrooke 07 04 2018

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Hosts: Skelbrooke Model Flying Club - Thank you to all for allowing us to use your field.

Contest Director: Ashley Hoyland

Judges: Peter Cappleman and most pilots

Score recorder: Steve Hunt

None flying helper: John Morton, thank you John and John Harrop for their scribing duties

After a week of wet windy and aweful weather the question had to be asked if the competition should go ahead. With the weather being so localised I would very rearely cancel a competition to a forecast unless it was likely I was going to be the only one who turned up.

The morning strted warmish with little wind but we did have a shot shower just as we were going to begin flying and we started flying in the light rain. The morning was good but shortly before lunch the rain came down quite hard for just over an hour. When it stopped the conditions were just about as good as you can get with a grey sky, but it did get warmer through the day and the wind was very light.

It was good to see the P19 in competition. Dan brought his new model and Les had refinished his last years model and added a few bits, no surprise there then.

It was obvious that many had been out practicing and there were no accidents.

The most improved pilot through the day was Matt Bacon who although we all thought had made a good landing unfortunately dislodged a undercarriage mount on his least competition flight.

May I thank again all those who stayed and helped pack away our equipment.

Podium: Clubman Matt Bacon

Masters: Mark Allan

FAI P19: First Place Dan Workmann, 2nd Kevin Caton, 3rd Leslaw Przytocki.
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Minsthorpe 18 February 2018

Minsthorpe 18 February 2018

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Contest Director: Paul Wilcockson

FAI Judges: Ashley Hoyland and Alan Clayton.

GBRCAA Schedules judged by most pilots.

Score recorder: Leanne Clayton

This was the last of the three team selection competitions for this season and was well attended with 13 pilots flying in three leagues.

There was a distinct improvement in the quality in flying since the first competition flown at this venue in November last year.

Congratulations to Liam Clayton, Paul Wilcockson and John Gaynor for making the top three in the Team Selection league. The World Championships I believe will be in March 2019 in Crete.

Our 'C' Pilots have received some welcome extra competition this season from Tom, Charlie and Simon Wood and show much promise. Alan was way out in front through most of the season and it was good he received the league trophy at our 'F3P The Future' meeting after the competition.

Our 'B' league scene was set at the first competition of the season and the finishing order did not change all season. Rory Tooley won every round and I suspect he will do very well next year in 'AP' if he decides to take promotion.
Lee Backrath in his first season in 'B' held second position with some very close competition with John Day also in his first 'B' season.

IN FAI Liam Clayton showed the way all season although Paul Wilcockson was close on several occasions, but Liam held his nerve with some impressive flying. John Gaynor soon came to terms with the new schedules and came third in the Team Selection League. Both he and Adam Lomax had some good competition as Adam actually won the 'AP' league. Although Luke Oliver took promotion this year he was suffering from lack of practice but managed to fly the 'AP' schedule which is an achievement. My congratulations to all pilots

Podium:

BMFA Team Selection: First Place Liam Clayton. 2nd Paul Wilcockson 3rd John Gaynor.

GBRCAA 'B' Schedule: First Place Rory Tooley 2nd Lee Backrath. 3rd John Day.

GBRCAA 'C' Schedule: First Place Alan Clayton. 2nd Tom Wood. 3rd Charlie Wood.

For the eagle eyed amongst you, I must sort out the podium photos.
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