There’s been a long history of competitions held on Port Meadow by the Oxford Model Flying Club, from Andy Crisp’s Dreaming Spires to Charlie Newman’s Scale Fest. These events were open to all but this meeting marked a first with an invitation to the BMFA to run a BMFA National Free Flight Scale class, part of the FF2 ( Flying Only) Championship with Mike Smith as CD. In addition we ran two OMFC classes, Rubber Scale Duration with CD Andy Blackburn and Scale Hi-Start Glider CD Gary Law

The forecast was predicting the wind to increase through the morning so the decision was taken to bring the competition forward to 9am and that proved prudent with many of the flights made in calm conditions. We had a fairly good turnout though numbers were a little down on our Scale event in July due to anniversaries, weddings and other commitments. It was also great to see several FF Fun Flyers enjoying the calm air too which is very much part of these OMFC events

The FF2 Class is fairly new to the BMFA STC FF Classes with an additional workmanship and static score added to the flying score. This is done at a stand off distance and doesn’t require any documentation from the competitors. Monique Lyons took on the judging for the day for the 4 flyers.The competition is flown over 5 flying rounds with the best flying score added to the static score to decide the winner. There was a flurry of activity at 9am once the competitions were underway as we all tried to get our flights in the calm air. Mike Stuart was first away with his Bristol Freighter which put in a lovely scale  flight and set the bar for the rest of the day. The flying part of FF2 is judged on how realistic the flight is compared to the full size example, marks are given for the various stages of the flight, the climb out, cruise and landing approach. The landing itself is not marked as being unable to flare, FF models generally fly into the ground to some extent. The flying speed of the model is taken into account as well, one factor Mike Stuart’s Bristol Freighter did particularly well at, cruising at a very scale speed.

Mike Smith’s Tiger Moth put in a lovely flight climbing to a good height with a nice flat glide down. It actually turned back towards the launch point and on flat and fairly fast downwind glide it did a beautiful wheeled landing in front of us all, unfortunately it was heading straight for my Cessna 170 and was threatening to wipe it out. It stopped just short, almost touching it, much to everyone’s amusement and my relief. The moment was captured in this youtube video along with Mike Stuart’s Bristol flight (https://youtu.be/9cvCxKOlETA)

Both my Redfin powered Cessna and Andy Blackburn’s Rubber Miles Magister put in some great flights and it was very close between the two with just 10 points separating them but it was the Cessna that came out on top with a slightly higher flying score against the Magister’s slightly higher workmanship score. Up front though no-one bettered Mike’s first flight with his twin electric Bristol Freighter and his higher workmanship score saw him the easy winner. Mike Smith’s DC Merlin powered Tiger Moth came a very creditable 4^th with that lovely greaser of a landing

The OMFC Rubber Scale Duration is a new format this year, along the lines of the US Flying Aces rules with a maximum wingspan of 36” for monoplanes and 30” for Biplanes . It’s flown to a 90s max if the conditions allow and with calm morning air conditions very much allowed.

5 flyers took on the challenge with Andy Blackburn leading with his hard working Miles Magister. This is a great way to fly in these competitions, you don’t need a different model for each class just enter the same one and have more air time. It really worked for Andy as his 3 flights of over 50s saw him take the class win. Close behind was Mike Stuart’s Howard DGA-8 with 3 flights in the 40 to 50 second range while I struggled to get above 35 seconds with my Piper Clipper again. I am seriously thinking of building a double size KK Piper Family Cruiser to try and break trend. Mike Smith entered his RANS Courier, a lovely scratch built model of the modern light sport aircraft but the model wasn’t it’s usual self with 3 flights in the 20 second range. It was great to see Peter Brown’s lovely Piper Cub, this is scaled up from the Peck peanut kit and I have seen it flying on rails indoors at Trinity. Sadly outside on the day it decided on a different tack maybe due to the damp conditions early on, it clearly has huge potential though so hope to see it again in the rubber scale duration

OMFC Rubber Scale Duration

Name	Model	Bonus	Flight 1	Flight 2	Flight 3	Total
Andy Blackburn	Miles Magister	10	56 (+10)	57	50	163	1
Mike Stuart	Howard DGA-8	0	42	51	44	137	2
Chris Brainwood	Piper Clipper	0	30	33	35	98	3
Mike Smith	RANS S7 Courier	0	21	19	18	58	4
Peter Brown	Piper J3 Cub	0	11	15	7	33	5

 

The Scale Hi-Start Glider was bit down on entries for the reasons given above but a good competition was still had. Out front was Simon Milan’s own design Vampyr, the model has a beautiful floaty glide, the sort that just breathing out underneath it would see it rising in lift. Simon had some issue getting it to stay on the line but in the end that mattered little as he cruised to victory with flights around the 30 second mark. Behind were the little and large Slingsbys from myself and Simon Burch. Simon’s Skylark is from the FROG kit design while my Eagle is my own design based on Keith Humber’s RCM&E free plan. On the day they were surprisingly well matched doing identical times in the first two rounds, albeit switched round. It was all down to the final round for 2^nd place but Simon’s luck ran out and I came away with the chocolate based prize.

OMFC Scale Hi-Start Glider

Name	Model	Flight 1	Flight 2	flight 3	Total
Simon Milan	Vampyr	22	27	31	80	1
Chris Brainwood	Slingsby Eagle	27	14	20	61	2
Simon Burch	Slingsby Skylark	14	27	11	52	3

These are lovely events on what is fast becoming a unique site for free flight, we are already planning to repeat them next year and it’s worth mentioning that we do have car on the meadow to help set and ferry people out to the flying who would otherwise find it difficult to get out there and back as it can be quite a distance. You can email me at webmaster@oxfordmfc.bmfa.uk for more details or to arrange a pick up on the day.