What a fun couple of days. I didn't get a chance to take many decent picks but there are a few below.
Day one was pretty much occupied watching low cloud on the SW side of Mickey's, with a brief interlude to sneak in a round and a half. Day two dawned pretty much the same but cleared around 11ish to let us get in a total of eight rounds on the westerly side of Mickey's.
The was big variation in lift and no real mean average times. Even when the cloud lifted there was so much humidity the planes didn't want to go at all fast. A couple of decent bits drifted through and four rounds were won with sub forties. The rest with low forties. It's a shame though because with good pilots in dry conditions and 30mph on Mickey's anything is possible. Fastest time was a 36.xx by me with my new Skorpion in nice, smooth, easy to fly, fast air.
At the end of eight rounds I don't think anyone could have predicted the top five such was the variation. That added a bit of spice to the prize giving.
Some things to remember...
- Petr of DS Model flying his Lynx (which by the way had the fastest time for the first leg!) in very good air. All was going swimmingly until he clouted the base B marker pole with a chilling, grass fibre cracking, thud and the Lynx disappeared out of sight. Petr turned to the watching hordes and was about to take a bow when the hordes kindly informed Petr that the monster lift had catapulted his Lynx 50 ft back into the air inverted. He turned around, regained control and blasted around to finish the course in 66.xx. Tougher than Wales that Lynx.
- The prototype Ascot of VV model looks rather special. Similar fuz to the Viking, which is great as it's probably the best fuz in the world. Production version will have a choice of tails, including a two piece plug in version. Wing is gorgeous, amazingly stiff and super light - really quite special. Really keeps the energy on in flight, you've heard it all before I'm sure, but this one really looks the part, as witnessed by the number of orders already in the book even though production is still five months away. Oh, and it's tough to; long story...
- Siegfried's Shocker - wow, very nice. And Siegfried did a very good job of steering it. I know because he was immediately before me in the flying order.
- Because it's a VR year we kept things low key and had pilots buzzing. The usual British humour and convivial atmosphere was appreciated by all our guests, but maybe that's because they couldn't understand what we were saying about them ;-)
- As usual the comp was run by the SWSA. As usual the SWSA is a club of fliers, not administrators. As usual Andrzej, Mike, Shane and Andy worked tirelessly for the benefit of others, quite probably at the expense of their own performance.
- At the last minute poor Joe from Cubitt's Models couldn't make the event but still made arrangements for the famous Cubitt's goody bags to turn up. What a guy!
- That DS Model Ocelot prize was even better in the flesh than on the photos. Gary Harrison was the very lucky winner. The Czech guys stayed with me for a couple of days any I got the chance to have a good look at the Ocelot and I have to say it's one of the best quality little mouldies out there. When you consider the ballast tube, pre-installed V tail linkage and all the hardware, not to mention the very sweet flying qualities, it really should be on your treat yourself list.
- Team England takes the trophies by a big margin. Bring it on rest of the world...
- My second Skorpion, which is the relatively light glass version, is as fast as my first DS Light. Had around 700g of ballast in it the whole time. Flew flat German style in the good air. Flew up and over Norwegian in the not so good air. It's a nice package that works well for me.
- Mr BarkWeb was there. Please use him for your web hosting - I'd be stuffed, scuppered, knackered and screwed without his support. So please support him
- I've got a new piece of software that automatically assesses the scene and adds comments to the photos. Have a look and see if it works...
| 1 | Kevin Newton | 6520.51 |
| 2 | Carlos Cantero Jnr | 6461.16 |
| 3 | Siegfried Schedel | 6363.70 |
| 4 | John Bennett | 6265.27 |
| 5 | John McCurdy | 6208.11 |
| 6 | Vaclav Vojtisek | 6207.80 |
| 7 | Mark Passingham | 6195.60 |
| 8 | Greg Dakin | 6191.85 |
| 9 | Mark Southall | 6188.58 |
| 10 | Mark Redsell | 6175.88 |
| 11 | David Woods | 6106.61 |
| 12 | Jaroslav Vojta | 6088.17 |
| 13 | Steve Forbes | 6086.34 |
| 14 | Shane Biddlecombe | 6083.82 |
| 15 | Mike Shellim | 6054.03 |
| 16 | Fernando del Barrio Moreno | 6034.51 |
| 17 | Andrew West | 6013.69 |
| 18 | David Cederwall | 5924.95 |
| 19 | John Phillips | 5917.59 |
| 20 | Mark Abbotts | 5908.33 |
| 21 | Mike Evans | 5901.89 |
| 22 | Mike Young | 5885.95 |
| 23 | Tom Mcpherson | 5883.02 |
| 24 | Ken Woodhouse | 5835.75 |
| 25 | Andrzej Tabero | 5826.66 |
| 26 | Gary Harrison | 5787.17 |
| 27 | Mick Walsh | 5688.66 |
| 28 | Mark Freeman | 5679.29 |
| 29 | Tom Noble | 5544.40 |
| 30 | Julian Perrot | 5506.59 |
| 31 | Graham Reed | 5477.45 |
| 32 | Vic Eldridge | 5472.89 |
| 33 | Petr Diblik | 5353.96 |
| 34 | Steve Clutterbuck | 5338.72 |
| 35 | Peter Bailey | 5057.73 |
| 36 | Carlos Cantero Sr (dad) | 4317.88 |
| 1 | England A | Kevin Newton | John Bennett | Mark Southall | 18974.37 |
| 2 | Team Ivinghoe | John McCurdy | David Woods | Mike Shellim | 18368.76 |
| 3 | Swillers | Mark Passingham | Greg Dakin | Ken Woodhouse | 18223.19 |
| 4 | Wales A | Shane Biddlecombe | Mike Young | Andrzej Tabero | 17796.43 |
| 5 | Czech 1 | Vaclav Vojtisek | Jaroslav Vojta | Petr Diblik | 17649.93 |
| 6 | SMSA Muppeteers | Steve Forbes | Tom Mcpherson | Mark Freeman | 17648.65 |
| 7 | Slope HogZ | Andrew West | Mark Abbotts | Steve Clutterbuck | 17260.74 |
| 8 | Fast2Furious.com | Carlos Cantero Jnr | Fernando del Barrio Moreno | Carlos Cantero Sr (dad) | 16813.54 |
Thanks to BarkWeb for the webspace.
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