2025 has been a year for cancelled model flying competitions and the OMFC Autumn Competitions were no exception with the original August date being postponed due to the poor weather. The new date of October 18 were were luckier but only just as the long spell of calm weather broke over that weekend.
This was another OMFC event that was open to all BMFA members, our 3rd this year, it was round in the Southern Coupe League run by Gavin Manion and Colin Sharman was running an E20 as well as classes for Classic and A1 gliders, CLG and our own Scale Rubber Duration.
There’s a youtube video here of some of the flights and fun-fly
The Coupe Class attracted 4 entrants from the Etienvre, a commercially available kit, to vintage plans and own design models. We had hoped to run to a 2 min max but although things started off well with near calm conditions the forecast was for winds well over 10mph by lunchtime so we decided to limit it to 90s max.
The club Gazebo and flight line were setup as far to the SE of the car park as possible to cope the forecast wind direction which meant a long walk out, although the taxi service from the car park to the flight line is always available. Even with the flying area maximised the flyers that did manage maxes ended up using pretty much all of it . One of my flights ended just yards from the river.
With the wind forecast to increase the rush was on to get as many flights in during the calm as possible. Bill Dennis’ was quick off the mark and his first flight with the Les Trumeaux was over 2 minutes gaining a max. Bill followed this with another 2 maxes for a clean sweep across the 3 rounds. Closely chasing was Gavin Manion with his OD Coupe and after 2 rounds had two maxes. The last of these flights Gavin had RDT’d down on the edge of the field into the clutches of a large tree, fortunately it was fairly low down and Gavin was able to retrieve it with just some torn covering on the tail. On his final flight though the tape repair to the covering seemed to cause a slight stall and he missed the max by just 1 second giving Bill Dennis the deserved win with his Trumeaux. Just a few seconds behind them was Chris Brainwood with an Etienvre. After a two maxes the third flight was in poor air and to add to it the D/T went off before 90s bringing it to a early end, it was only 10’ or so up at the time so probably wouldn’t have made the 90 s anyway but it was annoying never the less. Ray Elliot put in some good flights for 4th place narrowly missing a Max on his 2nd flight.
Coupe D’Hiver
| Name | Club | Model | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Flight 3 | Total | Position |
| Bill Dennis | OMFC | Les Trumeaux | Max | Max | Max | 270 | 1 |
| Gavin Manion | B’Ham | OD | Max | Max | 89 | 269 | 2 |
| Chris Brainwood | OMFC | Etienvre | Max | Max | 83 | 263 | 3 |
| Ray Elliot | Croydon | Bilgri | 67 | 85 | 18 | 170 | 4 |
The E20 class was another very closely fought contest with all the competitors achieving at least one Max. Colin Sharman’s class is run largely to NFFS rules with a 20 sec motor run and a 60s max , 4 flyers took up the challenge. David King’s Dixielander got off too a good start narrowly missing a max on his first flight and gaining one on his second. He didn’t make a 3rd flight flight which put him behind Alan Trinder’s VMC E20. Alan had a max on his first flight and missed a max by just 3 seconds on the second with similar results on his third. Out in front though were Pete Brown and Simon Milan with 3 maxes each. Pete’s Idiom was very impressive with his maxes being achieved with a 15 sec motor run rather than using the 20s allowed. In the end it came down to a fly-off which was won by Simon Milan’s OD E20. Simon’s times are remarkably consistent across the rounds, this is clearly a well designed and trimmed model and very worthy winner.
E20 CD Colin Sharman
| Name | Model | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Flight 3 | Total | Fly-off | Position |
| Simon Milan | O/D | max | max | max | 180 | 42 | 1 |
| Peter Brown | Idiom | max | max | max | 180 | 37 | 2 |
| Alan Trinder | VMC | max | 57 | 55 | 172 | 3 | |
| David King | Dixielander 20 | 54 | max | – | 116 | 4 |
The Classic A1 proved a popular class with 6 entries. Both Simon Milan with his Mock Turtle and Paddy McMahon with his Jetstream managed a max in the first round, Bill Dennis missing out by just 6 seconds. Paddy followed that up with his Jetstream with two more good flights to see him take the class win from Bill with his consistent performing Aiglet. Simon Milan came third with his Mock Turtle after loosing out a bit more as the wind increased. Andrew Longhurst was fourth after a poor second flight with his Barbers Pole and Charlie Jeffreys fifth with Pjerri which couldn’t quite match the performance of the other models. David King managed just 1 flight with his Aiglet before retiring
Classic A1 Glider
| Name | Model | Club | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Flight 3 | Total | Position |
| Paddy McMahon | Jetstream | PMFC | max | 83 | 70 | 243 | 1 |
| Bill Dennis | Aiglet | OMFC | 84 | 77 | 70 | 231 | 2 |
| Simon Milan | Mock Turtle | OMFC | max | 49 | 63 | 202 | 3 |
| Andrew Longhurst | Barbers Pole | OMFC | 73 | 23 | 49 | 145 | 4 |
| Charlie Jeffreys | Pjerri | SAM 35 | 60 | 29 | 28 | 117 | 5 |
| David King | Aiglet | OMFC | 34 | – | – | 34 | 6 |
The Classic Vintage Glider class attracted 3 entries two of them Caprices. Andrew Longhurst’s example managed a max on his first flight but as the wind increased so his time shortened with a couple of flights around 50 seconds leaving him in third behind Paddy McMahon’s Lulu . Paddy was hand towing his models, the only one to do so, the rest of the glider flyers using the provided bungee. His technique clearly worked with 3 consistent flights of over a minute , two of the heading towards a max saw him take second place from Bob Lee’s Caprice. Bob’s Caprice was in fine form with two maxes and final flight of over a minute winning by 11 seconds in the end.
Classic Vintage Glider
| Name | Model | Club | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Flight 3 | Total | Position |
| Bob Lee | Caprice | OMFC | max | max | 64 | 244 | 1 |
| Paddy McMahon | Lulu | PMFC | 70 | 81 | 82 | 233 | 2 |
| Andrew Longhurst | Caprice | OMFC | max | 53 | 50 | 193 | 3 |
Scale Rubber Duration is a new OMFC class aimed at building scale models capable of longer duration and is flown to a 90 second max . The class allows a maximum wing span of 36” for monoplanes and 30” for multi wing models and encourages lightly built tissue covered models where fitting a DT is recommended. It is hoped the class will be attractive to duration flyers who would not otherwise consider building a scale model as well as those who favour simpler less detailed scale models capable of good performance. This year we have seen just such models competing, among them Ivan Taylor’s new Auster which showed just what can be done at the July Scale meeting with Coupe like performance.
At this meeting there were 3 entries with Andrew Longhurst showing us the way with his large lightly built tissue covered Comper Swift. Andrew’s model was capable of times almost double the rest of the field which saw him take a very impressive win. David King did well with his small KK Piper Super Cruiser beating my own Piper Clipper with just two flights. My Piper suffered a few issues including a couple of broken motors and finally a broken prop. Both Andrew and David went home happy having won an Aerographics Chipmunk and VMC Sopwith Triplane kits respectively . Next years competitions will feature model kits as prizes too so if you fancy having a go get building or bring along your rubber scale model.
Scale Rubber Duration
| Name | Model | Bonus | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Flight 3 | Total | Position |
| Andrew Longhurst | Comper Swift | +5 | 80 | 78 | 68 | 231 | 1 |
| David King | Piper Super Cruiser | 0 | 32 | 28 | – | 60 | 2 |
| Chris Brainwood | Piper Clipper | 0 | 26 | 21 | 11 | 56 | 3 |
The Catapult Glider class ended up being a battle between two top flyers Bill Colledge and Dylan Roberts. The performance these two were extracting from their models was quite extraordinary to watch. The competition was for the best 5 flights out of 7 allowing a couple of lower scoring flights to be dropped. In the end though that didn’t help Dylan as Bill managed a full house of maxes to take the win. Dylan chased him all the way and was only 5 seconds for second. Alan Trinder was third with what ordinarily could have been a winning score
Catapult Launch Glider
| Name | Model | Club | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Total | Position |
| Bill Colledge | OD | OMFC | max | max | max | max | max | – | – | 225 | 1 |
| Dylan Roberts | Hossier Kitty | BMFA | 12 | 41 | 44 | max | max | max | – | 220 | 2 |
| Alan Trinder | Oxcat | OMFC | 18 | 24 | 14 | 21 | 21 | 18 | 25 | 109 | 3 |
| Simon Milan | Sting 15 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 320 | 4 |
Aside from the competitions the fun-fly part of these events is very much part of the meeting. Charlie Jeffreys models were notable amung those. Star of the show was his lost Vic Smeed design called the Shove Ha’penny. This is a large 50” or so pusher type FF model that Vic Smeed designed in 1950 as a fore runner to the Pushy Cat design but no plan exists for it. Charlie with the help of Leigh Richardson have recreated the model from just two photographs using model building techniques Vic may have used re drawing the design to create a plan. The model flies beautifully and is a credit to both Vic Smeed’s wonderful designs and Charlie’s building and trimming skills. The design will feature in a future Aeromodeller as a free plan