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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.