By Graham Roscoe
Over the past several years the club has not really had a Fly-In as such, so when I was given the job of Comps Secretary I thought we had to have one this year.
Leaflets went out nice and early and I was really pleased with the amount of people that turned up to have a good day an enjoy themselves.
Thanks to all the people that were down nice and early to help set up and help to make it a cracking day.
Well after arriving at the gate at Champions entrance we hit our first problem, the ranger had failed to tell me about the huge Bikeathon happening on the same day as we were having our Fly-in, the ranger had failed to mention both parties events to each other and as a result neither of us knew anything about the other.
But after some quick decision making and talking to each other we decided that we would just have to be careful and watch out for each other and just be safe.
Apart from this we could not have asked for a better day to hold our fly-in on, the weather forecast was sunshine all day and that’s exactly what it did, 24 degrees constant all day and most people were down in their shorts and T-shirts!
There were a steady arrival of people throughout the morning and the Pilots’ briefing was set for 10:30am
It was nice to see so many people down on the field, I think I counted around 30 or so cars down and most of the people there were there to fly.
The event was advertised round a few clubs and in local model shops and we did have a few visitors from another club, which was nice to see, but I was really pleased at the turnout from our own club, everyone pulled together which was nice to see.
I haven’t seen that many people down at the flying field for a long time and everyone seemed to have fun and enjoy themselves and the atmosphere down there was brilliant.
Following the Fun Fly that we had earlier in the year, I decided that instead of trying to organise some competitions that we missed out on at the fun fly, that it would just be off the peg flying all day, which was the general opinion of everyone there as they had all come down to have a relaxing days flying.
Once the bikes had died out and their event had finished we could all relax a little bit more and enjoy the flying, with regular food and drinks all day and the weather finally on our side and with a freshly cut strip, it was set to be a good day.
There was all sorts of models flown on the field from big petrol powered models
flown by Graham Roscoe, Steve Muscat, Roy Worsey and Colin Martin, to small electric models and trainers as well
as the sport models etc in vast quantities.It was nice to see everyone having a go and getting up and flying, all apart from John Lewis who somehow managed to avoid flying yet again! We’ll make sure you fly next year John!
It was unfortunate about the crashes we had, I think I counted five crashes in the end, which none of us ever like to see.
But spirits were still high as Colin Martin finally got to burn that Katana model of his, I know you have been waiting to do that Col!
I know how hard it is when you loose a model, even if it’s one that you hate, but everyone that was unfortunate turned round and kept smiling and had another burger! Well done guys!
It was nice to see so much interest in my big World Models Extra, everyone stands and watches as it rolls out on to the strip and it does have a great presence in the sky, the sound of the big Zenoah 62 adds to the effect and sounds great and the low growling sound it makes just before I power up and perform a low Knife Edge along the strip always gets people watching!
Similarly the sound of the Zenoah 80 twin in Steve Muscat's Cap gets people standing to attention, it makes an awesome sound and sounds almost full size as he powers the model through the downline, added with the superb smoke system on it makes it a great display model!
These are just a few of the superb models that were on the field, all equally well flown and presented and looked great in the air.
It was great to see such a variety of models down on the field.
Watch those fingers!
They say it comes in threes and unfortunately the unlucky three struck again.
Alf Witherup caught his hand in the prop of his model on Friday which meant that he was unable to fly on the Sunday of the Fly-In, however it was great to see that he made the effort and came down to enjoy himself, thanks Alf.
The second incident was on Saturday, Brian Jones again caught his hand in the prop doing a fair bit of damage, although he was unable to attend the Fly-In I hope he was still able to go on holiday!
The third and final accident was that of Steve Muscat, he again caught his hand in the prop of his Canard model, as flames came out of his model he tried to put them out and with it being a pusher got his hand in the prop, fortunately he was not badly hurt and managed only to come away with a cut on his finger which soon stopped bleeding.
So please guys watch those fingers, once they are gone no more flying! So luckily everyone kept their fingers, but just be careful guys!
Memories of the day
I would just like to thank everyone that turned up to the event, we had about 30 flyers and this was great to see, thanks guys!
I would also like to thank Tracy Roscoe for supplying the food and refreshments all day which was greatly received by the club and its members!
Thanks to all those who helped set up on Sunday and thanks to those who got involved in grass cutting on Saturday, you know who you are guys and your help is greatly appreciated.
Lets hope this is a taster of better events to come in the future!
Happy flying and safe landings,
Graham
Check out the photos in the gallery section.
