2024 Spring Duration Competitions and Fun-fly

The Club’s Spring competition were finally blessed with some nice weather after being postponed from April. The calm wind and beautiful warm May sunshine saw about 12 members enjoy the conditions with 5 classes run to cater for varied tastes.

The competition got under way at 9:30 sharp with sound of Gary’s authentic police whistle, luckily we weren’t invaded by the police eager to answer the call. The relaxed nature of the competition was very welcome thanks to the organising skills of CD Gary Law.

The wind steadily increased through the morning so by the time the competition had finished at around lunchtime we a fairly steady 10 mph. Most had flown early on and got their times in the calmer air

OMFC Spring Competitions 2024

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In the P30 class Bill Dennis’s Teacher’s Pet showed the consistency for 3 maxes, though retrieval became more and more of a hike as the wind speed increased. Andy Blackburn’s Sweet P30 also covered some distance for it’s max heading for the river, luckily it landing just few feet short saving Andy from an impromptu morning swim

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Position
Bill Dennis	Teacher’s Pet	90 max	90 max	90 max	270	1
Andy Blackburn	Sweet P30	86	82	90 max	258	2
Andrew Longhurst	O/D	90 max	90 max	—–	180	3
Jim Paton	O/D	40	59	—–	99	4

In the Kit Scale class Andy Blackburn’s KK Stinson proved that small models can do well in the competition thanks to a bonus system design to compensate the older and smaller designs. That said 51s is very good for the class though not quite a match in pure duration terms to Andrew Longhurst much larger Comper Swift.

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total	Bonus	total	Position
Andy Blackburn	KK Stinson	51s	41s	46	151	55	206	1
Andrew Longhurst	Comper Swift	39	60 max	60 max	159	0	159	2
Chris Brainwood	Piper SC	20	16	26	62	65	127	3
Bill Dennis	Stinson	57	41	26	124	0	124	4

The Hi-Start glider class was the most popular of the day with a Peterborough rules bungee provided for launching. The class sort of unofficially saw itself split into duration models and scale designs. On the day Andrew Longhurst and Alan Trinder tied for 1st while Simon Roger’s new Schweizer from the Volare kit floated it’s way 4th and best of the scale designs. Later checking revealed an error in the max time so in the final results Alan Trinder wins the class . Having been trimming in calmer both myself and Gary found our models tended to come off the line a bit too soon

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	total	Position
Alan Trinder	KK Dolphin	30	28	72	130	1
Andrew Longhurst	Tops	40	60 max	—–	100	2
Gary Law	CK DAB	40	20	39	99	3
Simon Rogers	Schweizer	21	25	36	82	4
Chris Brainwood	Airspeed Tern	22	17	26	65	5
Bill Dennis	Schweizer	24	14	20	58	6

Gary Law won the FROG Senior and proves that it’s always worth getting 3 timed flights

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	total	Position
Gary Law	Redwing	22	34	49	105	1
Andy Blackburn	Linnet	57	46	—–	103	2
Simon Rogers	Linnet	28	—–	—–	28	3

In the E20 class Alan Trinder was the winner with a fantastic first flight

Name	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	total	Position
Alan Trinder	60 Max	12	15	87	1
Gary Law	19	28	30	77	2