2024 Free Flight Scale Fly-in

The Free Flight scale fly-in was a wonderful and well attended event, as well as general FF flying there were 3 closely fought contests for Flying Only, Scale Glider Duration and Kit Scale Duration. We had 11 entries in the flying only , 10 in the kit scale and 10 in the scale glider class which is fantastic for a new class.

It was good to see some sport flyers and few spectators too. Howard Metcalfe brought along an array of reaction motor powered models which could occasionally be seen and heard fizzing overhead, leaving smoke trails in their wake

Peter Smart launches his BV 222

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Photo Andy Blackburn

Many thanks to Andy Blackburn and Pete Fardell for the photos

There’s a youtube video here of some of the flying

Flying Only

The Flying Only class was pretty evenly split across the various forms of power with 4 I/C models, 4 rubber powered and 3 electric. As the name implies there’s no static judging, the competition takes the form of flying rounds flown in front of the CD and Judge Bill Dennis during which the models are marked on scale realism through the various aspects of the flight : climb out, cruise, landing approach etc. After 4 rounds the best scoring flight counts and awards are duly given.

Jim Paton had a nice Blackburn Monoplane with electric power which put in some nice flights while Charlie Jeffreys had entered his Rumpler Taube from the APS plan with DC Dart power. Part of the skill or luck with Flying Only is to get the model to perform at it’s best in front of the judge with just 4 attempts, not easy in free flight. Charlie made some qualifying flights but his later flights were much better as he fine tuned the model.

Peter Smart entered a very impressive 6 engined flying boat, the Bholm & Voss BV222. This was built as an indoor model and had flown at the Indoor Nationals early in the year where it struggled to turn in the hall. Allowed the freedom of the outdoors and the BV222 proved it is a good flyer to the delight of Peter. With it’s 6 electric motors humming in unison It is a very impressive sight and sound in the air.

Ivan Taylor had entered a couple of models, a Heinkel He51 and a P51 Mustang. The I/C powered Heinkel put in some very good long flights and showed off it’s impressive glide to effect but a tightening turn under power dropped its scores. His rubber powered Mustang fared much better claiming 6^th spot. Andy Blackburn split Ivan’s models with his newly completed rubber Miles Magister. This is from the Mike Midkiff kit and is a beautiful flyer with just the right sit in the air, it could be one to watch in later competitions as Andy refines it even further. The competition proved to be very close with 2^nd to 7^th covered by just 75 points

Pete Fardell flew his very successful rubber powered Bleriot XI. It had suffered some undercarriage damage at the Nationals a couple of weeks before but after some in-competition trimming it was back to it’s old self producing some wonderfully evocative flights to claim 5th

Chris Brainwood entered a couple of models a Miles Falcon and Cessna 170. The rubber powered Falcon was flying nicely but wasn’t climbing a much as usual, with a new motor installed it was climbing away much better and it gained 4^th place.

3rd was Mike Smith’s DH4 Mail Plane. This is a large and very impressive superscale FF model equipped with a timer operated throttle which cuts the motor to a tickover for the glide and decent phase of the flight. On the day a slight stall crept in and Chris Brainwood’s Cessna 170 managed to squeak ahead by just 15 points to take 2^nd.

The run away leader though was Mike Stuart with his very impressive Bristol Freighter with twin electric power. Like the BV222 Mike built the Bristol primarily as an indoor model but the light air on the day proved ideal for it and it put in some very good flights. As it climbed out overhead with that twin engine sound, it was hard not to imagine yourself at Lydd airport watching the latest BAF flight departing for Le Touquet. The last time Mike had flown the Freighter at Port Meadow was it’s maiden flight when it unfortunately turned the wrong way and collided with a chair leg damaging an engine nacelle so it was even more fitting that this time out it scored the best flight of the day to win the class and the John Blagg Trophy

Name	Model	Power	Flight score
Mike Stuart	Bristol Type 170 Freighter	electric	935*	1
Chris Brainwood	Cessna 170	I/C	875	2
Mike Smith	DH4 Mail Plane	I/C	860	3
Chris Brainwood	Miles Falcon	rubber	820	4
Pete Fardell	Bleriot XI	rubber	815	5
Ivan Taylor	P51 Mustang	rubber	805	6
Andy Blackburn	Miles Magister	rubber	800	7
Ivan Taylor	Heinkel He 51	I/C	700	8
Peter Smart	Blohm & Voss BV 222	electric	643*	9
Charlie Jeffreys	Rumpler Taube	I/C	625	10
Jim Paton	Blackburn Monoplane	electric	570	11
* + Multi-engined bonus

Scale Glider Duration

The Scale Glider Duration class was new this year and has proved very popular with many new models made specifically for the event. Mike Stuart only managed to get his Schweizer painted a few days before, Pete Fardell finished his DH Sparrow with just a day to spare, while Colin Sharman was still finishing his Slingsby Prefect at 1am the previous night.

The competition was a total flight time over 3 rounds with a max set at 60s. Any flight over this time is scored as a max at 60 secs with the highest total winning. There were a couple of timers on hand and competitors also took turns to time each other making for a very relaxed type of competition. A Peterborough rules bungee was provided for launching and while this is primarily aimed at 36” glider class it is clear from the scale results that size does matter. A few of us went for smaller 36” and under gliders such Colin Sharman’s and Alan Trinder’s Slingsby Prefects and Simon Burch’s Slinsby Skylark from the VMC kits along with my own Airspeed Tern from the Aeromodeller plan but struggled to get the times of some of the larger models.

Pete Fardell’s new completed DH Sparrow put in some good flights on it’s maiden outing but couldn’t match the enlarged Earl Stahl Schwiezer TG-2 of Bill Dennis

Simon Rogers also went down the enlargement route and scaled up the Veron Slingsby Prefect to around 2x enabling him to achieve double the flight time of the best of the smaller gliders. At 60” and 140g it was the largest glider there but it seemed to cope OK with the Peterborough rules bungee even in the calm conditions

Peter Smart had scaled up his own design of the Willow Wren which recently appeared in Aeromodeller, it looked very pretty in it’s yellow design and was my personal favourite. It didn’t just look good it was also performing very well with one flight just 3 secs short of a 60 sec max. The only max of the competition went to Mike Stuart’s Schweizer SGU-2-22 from the Volare Products kit. Designed by Tom Hallam it’s parallel chord wings make the most of it’s 36” span and 50g weight as Mike proved when the model found some good air.

Simon Milan came out on top with 3 very consistent flights of over 40s with his own design Hannover H1 Vampyr, an unusual german glider from 1921. Simon based his design on the drawings in Martin Simon’s book ‘Sailplanes 1920 -1945’ using an A2 airfoil from article by Jim Baguley in the Aeromodeller Annual 1972-73. The model is around 1/12^th scale at 44” span and weighs 84g

The competition was a great hit and it is hoped to run it again next year. I for one will be building something a bit bigger

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	flight 3	Total
Simon Milan	Vampyr 1921	46	44	44	134	1
Mike Stuart	Schweizer SGU-2-22	25	60 max	11	96	2
Peter Smart	Willow Wren	12	25	57	94	3
Simon Rogers	Slingsby Prefect	21	24	42	87	4
Bill Dennis	Schweizer TG-2	28	10	43	81	5
Chris Brainwood	Airspeed Tern	16	21	17	54	6
Pete Fardell	DH Sparrow	18	8	12	38	7
Colin Sharman	Slingsby Prefect	14	9	6	29	8
Simon Burch	Slingsby Skylark	10	6	11	27	9
Alan Trinder	Slingsby Prefect	4	5	7	16	10

Kit Scale Duration

The Kit Scale Duration attracted 9 entrants though Simon Milan elected not to fly. The competition is the total of 3 flights like the glider scale but with an added bonus aimed at leveling the playing field so a small kit is as competitive as a larger models

Chris Brainwood’s Piper Clipper suffered a broken motor after the first flight putting him out of contention .Many of the entrants showed they had their models trimmed for the BMFA Kit Scale precision and both Bill Dennis’s Max Holste and Mike Smith’s Aeronca produced several flights around 30s. Pete Fardell managed to get more out of his Fairchild and with a couple of 40s + flights managed a great 3^rd place.

Charlie Jeffreys was flying a lovely Taylorcraft Floatplane to good effect and Mike Stuart’s Auster Ambulance was going well too with one flight of 51s.

Ivan Taylor’s Mustang showed us all the way though with an impressive 3 maxes and the best flight time of the competition. This was the same Mustang Ivan flew in the Flying Only though this time with few more turns. Just in front by 2 points and winner of the class was Andy Blackburn’s Miles Magister using the same strategy of adding more turns than in the Flying Only competition. Andy only scored one max but the bonus awarded for being built from a kit as opposed to Ivan’s OD gave him the edge.

By lunchtime the competitions had all been run and prize giving was held with bottles of wine for the winners, beer for runners up, certificates for the top 3 places and smiles all round.

Name	Model	Bonus	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total
Andy Blackburn	Miles Magister	25	60 max	41	56	182	1
Ivan Taylor	Mustang	0	60 max	60 max	60 max	180	2
Pete Fardell	Fairchild 24	25	29	46	40	140	3
Mike Stuart	Auster B4 Ambulance	10	37	51	34	132	4
Charlie Jeffreys	Megows Taylorcraft floatplane	25	30	22	32	109	5
Mike Smith	Aeronca Defender	10	29	30	35	104	6
Bill Dennis	Max Holste	10	30	23	27	90	7
Chris Brainwood	Piper Clipper	35	24	—	—	59	8
Simon Milan	Piper Pawnee	0