A fantastic day blessed with glorious model flying weather.
The club’s Free Flight Scale comp saw 3 classes run, with a Flying Only and Kit Scale Precision CD’d by Bill Dennis and a new event Kit Scale Duration CD’d by Andy Blackburn. The idea was to run the competitions in the morning with results declared around lunchtime and this pretty much ran to schedule
The Flying Only was an all in competition , so any form of power all in the same class. The models are judged on flying realism by the flight judge Bill Dennis with scores given for various stages of the flight – climb out, cruise, transition from power to glide and things like that. The competition was flown in 4 rounds with 15 secs of flight required to qualify as a scoring flight.
Multiple entries were permitted but only the highest scoring model counted. 7 models were entered from 4 modellers which proved a good turn out for the class . Conditions were good with only light wind though it gradually increased as the rounds progressed so some of the best flights were the earlier ones.
The class was won by Ivan Taylor’s new SE5a. This model was only on its 3rd flight at the start of the competition and is a credit to Ivan’s building and trimming skills . The SE5a is modelled on Albert Ball’s machine and Ivan has created a wonderful rendition of the man himself to pilot the model. Ivan tells this was created from a balsa base and car body filler, the results are superb. The model is powered by an Irvine Mills .75cc which provides more than enough power for such a light model. Ivan was awarded the John Blagg Trophy
The rubber powered Miles Falcon of Chris Brainwood took 2nd spot flying nicely now that the rubber motor size has been reduced a bit. Third was Mike Smith with his Tiger Moth. This from the Mercury kit plan but Mike has changed some of the outlines to give a better scale representation.
The new Kit Scale Duration proved very popular with 6 entries. Mike Smith won his Aeronca Defender with John Winfield’s Comper swift 2nd being proxy flown by Andy Blackburn. Chris Brainwood was 3rd with his Piper Super Cruiser just 2 points ahead of Mike Stuart’s Nieuport 29
Kit Scale Precision is flown with a target time of 30s. Every second of deviation from that is recorded and after 3 rounds the winner is the model with the least deviation. It was won by Mike Smith’s Aeronca with just 11 seconds
There’s a video here on YouTube of some of the day’s flying
Full Results are below.
Congratulations to Ivan Taylor and his SE5a for winning the John Blagg Trophy
Competition results
Free Flight Scale – Flying Only ( All in)
| Name | Model | Power | Flight score | |
| Ivan Taylor | SE5a | I/C | 825 | 1 |
| Chris Brainwood | Miles Falcon | Rubber | 745 | 2 |
| Mike Smith | Tiger Moth | I/C | 725 | 3 |
| Chris Brainwood | Cessna 170 | I/C | 715 | 4 |
| Ivan Taylor | F16 | Electric | 680 | 5 |
| Ivan Taylor | MIG 3 | Rubber | 655 | 6 |
| Mike Stuart | Consolidated Fleetster | Rubber | 625 | 7 |
Kit Scale Duration
| Model | Flyer | Bonus | Flight 1 | Flight 2 | Flight 3 | Total | |
| Aeronca Defender | Mike Smith | 13 | 52s | 37s | Max | 162 | 1 |
| Comper Swift | John Winfield
Proxy Andy Blackburn |
13 | 38s | 37s | 30s | 118 | 2 |
| Piper Super Crusier | Chris Brainwood | 13 | 28s | 27s | 23s | 91 | 3 |
| Nieuport 27 | Mike Stuart | 28 | 27s | 23s | 11s | 89 | 4 |
| Piper Pawnee | Simon Milan | 13 | 13s | 13s | 21s | 60 | 5 |
| Vultee Vigilant | Bill Dennis | 13 | – | – | – | – | 6 |
Kit Scale Precision
| Name | BMFA | Model | Flight 1 | diff | Flight 2 | diff | flight 3 | diff | Total | |
| Mike Smith | 66560 | Aeronca Defender | 29 | 1 | 36 | 6 | 26 | 4 | 11 | 1 |
| Mike Stuart | 105510 | Nieuport 27 | 19 | 11 | 31 | 1 | 24 | 6 | 18 | 2 |
| Chris Brainwood | 146191 | Piper Super Cruiser | 19 | 11 | 16 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 40 | 3 |
