By Graham Roscoe
Well we have now come to the last of the events for this year on the clubs schedule, and over all the Club Competitions went very well, with a very good turn out and a wide variety of models on the flight line along with some really good flying and some competitions.
After the dreadful weather we have been having, I was beginning to wonder whether my idea of cancelling the original date was a good one, but after the day we had I concluded it certainly was!
Dad and me were down on the field on the Friday and got the strip cut ready for the weekend events,
many thanks to Ian Botell for helping out as well! We filled as many of the horse divots in, but I think there was at least one person that got caught out by them!
With the weather forecast to be as good as we could expect for this time of year it was set to be a good day, and through the whole day we got away without rain!
Me, mum, dad and my sister were down nice and early on the Sunday morning to set up for the day’s events, met by Colin Martin who helped us set up (many thanks Col, much appreciated)
Shortly followed by Roy and Joan who kindly offered to help out with the catering.
We even had our own windsock in the shape of a plane (mums idea, honestly!!)
With everything set up, flying was set to start at 10:30am with the comps beginning at 11:00am.
Unfortunately due to an incident that occurred involving a plane crashing, the comps did not start until around 11:30am, but not a club to be deterred we did not let it get us down, we carried on and were determined to enjoy the day, which was greatly helped by the regular cups of tea and coffee and the egg and bacon butties in the morning, many thanks to Tracy and Laura Roscoe again for providing a great service and keeping us all refreshed and topped up!
The first event was the Scale event with 8 competitors and judged by Alf Witherup who kindly took the time to come down and do some judging for us, thanks Alf, much obliged!
With Alf set up and ready to judge, Ken Todd on the PA system and the pilots prepped and ready to go, the day was finally under way.
There were some lovely examples of scale models and all who flew put on a really good display and flew extremely well, even attracting visitors throughout the course of the day.
Our second event was the F3A aerobatics first round, and was judged by Brian Dillon.
The hardest thing I find when flying F3A is keeping the manoeuvres crisp and precise as well as trying to keep them in the 60-degree box.
This event had three competitors; Colin Martin flying the QQ Yak 54, 
Lindsay Todd flying the YT Rush and Graham Roscoe flying the Lorenz Cocaine.
All pilots flew extremely well considering the ever impeding cross winds and each pilot bounced off one another to try and achieve the best they could.
This event was followed by the Electric round, this is basically which ever model (electric powered only) impress’s the judges, the best then wins.
Again there were some brilliant electric models that were flown, again with a lot of people who wanted to take part, and the range of models were fantastic, ranging from all out 3D aerobatics to slow and scale electric models.
It just proves how much the electric models have advanced in the past few years largely due to the introduction of the Lipo battery, models flying on the day used batteries as small as 2 cell lipo’s up to the more expensive 4 cell lipo supplying nearly 15 volts of current!
After these first events the day was drawing on and an off the peg session was organised to give some people who had not come to compete the chance to fly.
Half an hour or so later once the pilots had been refuelled as it where the competitions carried on.
The afternoon session to be stared with the freestyle aerobatics event.
This event requires quick thinking and even quicker thumbs and usually involves down on the deck, hair raising aerobatics, now known as 3D aerobatics.
There were a couple of entries
in this event and each pilot gave it their all to impress the judges, who were Alf Witherup and Ian Macdonald.
This event was shortly followed by the exact opposite in the aerobatics world by the second round of the F3A aerobatics fixed schedule.
This time the pilots flew in reverse order and the pressure was on to perform!
All pilots who flew gave it there all and put on some really good flying, even attracting the public who were watching the day unfold.
The day turned out to be one of the best events this year, the weather stayed good for us and the turn out was brilliant, nearly all of the membership turned out to either compete or have a relaxing day and enjoy the flying.
A big thanks to everyone who helped set up and the judges for putting the time in and judging the events.
And as sods law would have it after the work myself, dad and Ian put in on the Friday night cutting the strip ready for Sunday, the council then cut it on the Monday after the event, but oh well!
There were four trophies up for grabs, F3A aerobatics, Freestyle aerobatics, Scale and Electric.
I was very fortunate to have an exceptional days flying which resulted in me walking away with all of the trophies!!! But thanks to everyone who competed.
Please see the pictures that were taken on the day, kindly sent in by Mo and Ian Botell. Also congratulations to Ian for passing his A earlier in the month!.
Many thanks to everyone who made it a fantastic day and hope to see you all down the field soon.
Happy Flying and safe landings
Graham
Check out the photos in the gallery section.
