Welsh Open 2012 Results

Well you just can’t have a Welsh Open and not expect a few drops of rain. After two days with only one refight for rain the weather was going to play its part.

The hope was for us to get a few more rounds in to get a second discard, but the weather just wasn‘t playing ball. Low cloud was giving real concerns for landings and this soon turned to rain. So halfway through the second round of the day we had to call it day.

Not quite the finish that we would have liked for one of the best Welsh Opens in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, we didn’t enjoy any of the blistering air that we can get on the south west facing slopes but what it did give us a very close and very intense competition.  The fastest time for this year’s competition went to the Swiss F3F Champion Stefan Bertschi with a 36.07.

So close was the competition a only a couple of seconds in one round made all the difference between getting into the top three places and defending Champion Joel West didn’t give his title up without a determined fight and it was only bad luck with poor air in the last two rounds of day two that stopped him getting a top three finish.

In contrast Mike Evans few a fantastic second day which cemented a base for him get third place this year.

The Welsh Open has always been kind the Spanish Pilots and the slope record holder Inaki Elizonda just edged in front of Mike Evans by six and half points to take second place.

Before announcing the Welsh Open Champion for 2012 there is the small issue of the team prise and this was taken by Team GBU who packed all three pilots, Kevin Newton, Simon Thornton and Martin Newnham into the first six to take a deserved team title.

Thanks to every one who helped out that kept the competition going. Ian Mason for helping with the registration and Mark Abbotts and Frank Hulton for collecting the money. Simon, Joel and Martin who got the course up in double quick time each day and not to mention Mick Walsh, Mark Treble and Paul Garnett who shared the Buzzer Supremeo over the three days.  

If I have missed anyone else please accept my apologies and thank you for your help.

So the reason for the three days of competition was to find a new Welsh Open Champion for 2012. That pilot was someone who has been knocking on the door for a major win. Not only that he has been tireless in promoting F3F over the last 18 months which made him a very popular winner. So the new Welsh Open Champion for 2012 is Martin Newnham, well done for a much deserve win.

I am sure Kev will do a more in depth write up with some stunning photographs so keep an eye on is Blog site.

Thanks to all of your for your continued support the full results are below. I look forward to seeing you all soon and all the best

Andrzej

     Individual Results

1	Martin Newnham	10271.60
2	Inaki Elizondo	10164.07
3	Mike Evans	10157.53
4	Joel West	10072.60
5	Simon Thornton	9972.50
6	Kevin Newton	9886.64
7	Greg Dakin	9706.08
8	Jose Luis Alvares	9692.70
9	Adam Richardson	9631.18
10	Stefan Bertschi	9523.42
11	Fernando Moro	9480.98
12	Mike Shellim	9460.83
13	Lazaro Martinez	9446.78
14	Richarg Bago	9425.87
15	Tom Foreman	9359.28
16	John Phillips	9322.51
17	Jack Cubitt	9291.76
18	Paul Garnett	9242.72
19	Keith Wood	9196.01
20	Mick Walsh	9190.40
21	Scott Ravenscroft	9150.05
22	Dave Rumble	9091.48
23	Peter Gunning	9089.46
24	Mark Abbotts	9068.16
25	Ronnie Lampe	9035.75
26	Andy Burgoyne	9026.61
27	Mark Treble	9025.03
28	Frank Hulton	8924.61
29	Dave Wright	8891.87
30	Andrzej Tabero	8861.93
31	Mike McCracken	8818.37
32	Inigo Herrera	8676.76
33	Jon Edison	8667.66
34	Ian Mason	8658.59
35	Ian Webb	8562.73
36	Tom  McPherson	8457.95
37	Rob Coles	8449.13
38	Paul Stubley	8344.27
39	Tony Robertson	8091.89
40	Vic Eldridge	7898.49
41	Bob Runyard	7764.50
42	Martin Drewit	7763.12
	Teams
47	Team GBU	30130.73
48	Mickey's Massive	28685.48
49	Team T9	27560.46
50	Tea Swillers	27486.54
51	Team Willow	27316.38
52	Slope Junkies	25303.74

Smiling Stinger Sunday

Last week I failed to maiden my Stinger because of clag on the mountain. This weekend was looking promising. However, I couldn’t fly Saturday because I was celebrating 22 years of happy marriage to my darling Sylv.

I should have supported the BMFA league at the Long Mynd but I was aware that after a day of partying on Saturday getting up early on Sunday was going to be a problem. Added to this probably the fact that five or six two minute flights wasn’t really give me a chance to get the Stinger set up. So I opted for the sensible lie-in and a day on the slope setting the Stinger up.

I awoke the next day a little jaded from the previous day. The forecast suggest I would be on Mickey’s but there would be clag coming in around 4 o’clock. By the time I had parked and walked up to Mickey’s the cloud was starting to build. There was quite a bit of south in the wind so I would be flying by the dew pond just before the cattle grid.  Like the previous week the forecast gentle 15 to 20 mph breeze was a 35 to 40 mph blow.

So I started to rig the Stinger. Now I had turned my back on the weather and was busy getting the Stinger ready and when I turned around the clag was really coming in and the radio masts on the opposite slope had disappeared. If you are flying this is usually a good time to land and not launch!  

With this the clag really started to roll in three hours early. I waited for half an hour but things were getting worse and not better. There was way too much south in the wind for the Meio (the slope I used last week) to work. However, there was one other slope I could try but I haven’t flown this for a few years now and this was Heol –Y-Cym, which is just to the left of the wind mills you can see from the M4.

This was a complete contrast to the Bwlch, bright and sunny and a gentle 5 to 10 mph wind, but was only chance I would get to fly. This is not that efficient a slope so I left the ballast out and put the Ceres up first. The slope was working but there was a definite ceiling to the lift and getting much more than 30 to 40 metres above the slope was hard work.

The Ceres was soon moving nicely around the sky so it was time to commit the Stinger. I had set her up as to Vaclav’s directions. Having copied over the memory from my Ascot and I adjusted the throws to Vaclav’s measurements. Nothing for it but time to launch! No drama just a click of up trim and she was happy.

I was still struggling to get a lot of height so a dive test was out, but inverted flight only required a little down to keeper level, suggesting the C of G wasn’t far off the mark. The differential which had been copied over from the Ascot felt okay but was difficult to tell in the light conditions.

The only thing that was out was the crow breaking and she was rearing up quite hard when the brakes were fully deployed. I fed in a bit more down elevator compensation and this was soon rectified. This is probably due to a neat trick Knewt showed me on the MPX4000, which means I can get a lot more throw on the flaps than with other Tx, so that explained the difference in elevator compensation to Vaclav's settings and they are an excellent starting point.

With conditions so light there wasn’t much more that could be done. I just enjoyed flying the Stinger around for the next hour. It felt really good. It felt as quick as the Ceres in the same conditions and very responsive to any lift coming through on the slope. But these were hardily race legal conditions for F3F so a bit early to generate a really opinion on her for this discipline. The conditions were getting quite cocked off to the right as more west was coming into the breeze. This is not good on this slope as there is a ridge that runs out on the right that generates quite a bit of dirty air onto the slope.

The Stinger felt good in the crossed conditions and just pushing the nose down and she penetrated well into wind, but the wind was light. She felt very solid in the turns and even in the dirty air on the right she never felt like letting go.

The wind was now getting quite westerly so it was time to call it day. It would have been nice to see how she responded to some ballast but by the end of the afternoon I was struggling to maintain any sort of height on the slope , but all in all a very satisfying day!

The lack of stick time will probably mean that she will stay home next week for the Welsh Open unless the wind is quite light and similar to today.  But I am really looking forward to getting to know her better as first initial impressions are very good and remind me of the first time I flew the Ceres with all the same urgency that she showed!

Super Ceres Saturday

For the first time in a long time I found myself with the opportunity for two consecutive days sports flying. In fact the last time I had two consecutive days sports flying was Lundy over two years ago, I must really get out more. With two planes waiting to have their maiden flights it seamed like the perfect chance to get this done.

Seeing as I haven’t had much stick time over the last few months the plan was to concentrate on the Ceres on Saturday and the Stinger on the Sunday. The plan was to have a fly of the Ascot to get a good feel for the air and then get the Ceres out to play.

Now the first fly in the ointment was when I had walked up to Mickey’s hoping for a nice 12 to 15 mph breeze I was confronted with a 30 to 35 mph blow. Not only that, but the wind was cocked off to west, which meant a trek further around the slope.

So once I got there I filled the Ascot with lead and chucked her off.  She was right in her element and was soon screaming around the sky, but if anything the wind was getting a little stronger so should I commit the Ceres?

Now this is not strictly a maiden as this was the second Ceres I have hand. The first one I bought was off John Phillips which had been flown with all the loving care that only John could have given it! As a result of quite a lot flat field flying and aggressive winch launches the flaps had developed quite a bit of slop to the extent she would wave to me as she went past on the slope. Even with all of this she was still an absolute joy to fly and was fast becoming my first plane of choice.

Unfortunately my first Ceres had a bit of a mishap! After telling everyone not to go to far back on the Ice Cream slope to land at a Winter League I did just that and paid the price of a gentle land out in the Quarry. I wouldn’t say the damage was terminal but a major rebuild is on the cards to get her in the air again and as so many of you know time not something I have lot of late.

I was enjoying the Ceres so much I had already consciously made a decision to buy another Ceres with RDS on the wings as the slop on the wings has been quite well documented by other pilots and this looked like a good option to remove it.

Jiri will install the RDS for you, but I chose to do this myself. Although this was quite daunting at first, once I got stuck into it was quite simple to do and quite rewarding as well.  Setting the model up was even easier. Joel West kindly gave me the setting from his Ceres when I had me first one and they were so spot on I always found myself coming back to them, so I copied over the memory from my old Ceres. The first surprise was how close the aileron movements were when you consider the different linkage mechanism between conventional control horns and RDS and only some minor adjustments were required to get the same control surface throws.

So back to the slope and even though the wind was a little windy for a maiden I put six slugs in the Ceres and went for it.  Wow was the first thought to the improved aileron response. My old Ceres I had to mix flaps with ailerons to get a decent response but the new Ceres was on steroids and I had to switch the flaps out to quite her down. I was expecting a minor improvement but noting like this.

This is a nice position to be in as it gives you the option just to run with ailerons or reduce the throws and run with ailerons and mixed flaps. I have always tried to run with just ailerons in the past but have always meant to try the mixed option to see if it suited my F3F flying style more. Both ways work and pilots that have won the BMFA league have flown both ways, so it is very much a point of finding out what is right for you.

The other most impressive thing was that Ceres was absolutely screaming and only with 3/5 of the ballast in. I had the Ascot full to get the same response, in fact the Ceres felt faster. A dive test and inverted flight indicated that the C of G was pretty neutral as I could fly inverted with little or no down input. There is always a danger in a good blow with a neutral C of G that the model will start to hunt a bit but the Ceres was rock solid.

This has me thinking about my Ascot now that I have always flown her with quite a conservative C of G and might just try moving back a bit more.

A quick check of the Crow breaking and I then went to land. No drama here may be a bit more down compensated in the elevator required to deal with tricky rota but otherwise a very enjoyable afternoon.      

Sunday and the Stinger was charged and ready to go and the plan was this time have fly with the Ceres to gauge the air and then work on setting up the Stinger. The forecast had deteriorated a bit over 24 hours and clag was going to prove to be the big problem. A quick check on Nant-Y-Moel weather site confirmed the Bwlch was covered in clag.

My only hope was the Meio which is one of my local slopes and is bit lower than the Bwlch. Metcheck was indicating it would lift around 6 o’clock in the evening so I got on with some jobs around the house and then went up. It was clagged but was lifting. As soon as it looked like I might get a flight in I walked up the slope and did a range check on the Stinger. That was all fine and dandy but the clag just wouldn’t lift that bit more to make it suitable for a flight. By 7:30 common sense kicked in and I de-rigged the Stinger and went home.

Hopefully I will get out this weekend to Maiden the Stinger and do a bit more work on the Ceres so that she is ready for Welsh Open next week. I failed yet again to get two consecutive days sports flying but still have a big grin on my face after flying the Ceres again. All in all not a bad weekend!