What I find worrying is the lack of new entrants in recent years. The point was made during the meeting that unless the number of entries improves for the non-Nationals BMFA indoor events, we will simply lose them, as they are no longer economically viable.
So, I guess the onus is on us to persuade our modelling friends to come along and give it ago. I know it can seem a bit daunting with the standard of models built by the top guys, but if you bring along a simple well trimmed model, you will always have a chance of doing well, especially in the open classes.
This event was run to the normal BMFA scale rules, for details of which see the Nationals report (I get bored writing the same thing every time) with static judging for all four classes.
I suppose I should take my own advice sometimes, as I brought along a new untrimmed model (a 1/24 scale Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar) for open rubber, and had a battle to get a qualifying flight. I eventually managed just one from a hand launch, but it was a fairly exciting affair, and only just missed the judges and the walls. A bit more work needed methinks.
I also had a bad time with the Fox Moth in peanut, which taxied into a chair leg after a good first flight and perfect landing, breaking a lower wing off. After that it refused to behave, and I eventually managed to break all the wings off before the end of the meeting. Could be time to build a new peanut model for next year.
For the first time in a competition report I have included one or two MPEG movies which although in quite a small format (to keep the file size down) should still be good enough to give you a taste of the excellent flights our top modellers regularly achieve.
Let's start with a Derek Knight's electric powered Tiger Moth, which was flying really well and finished second place in class.
To see the video, click here or use the right mouse button and choose the "save link as" option to store it on your hard drive. File size is 3.7 MB.
Chris Strachan was trimming this new model, a rubber powered Coonley Special Goodyear racer. Initial flights looked very promising. Chris's scale racers are generally amongst the most realistic flyers around, and he had a pretty successful meeting, placing second in both the rubber and pistachio classes.
David Prior brought his lovely little Sopwith Baby along to enter in open rubber, finishing fifth in class. The model takes off and lands courtesy of wheels hidden inside the floats.
Mike Hadland had his tiny Pistachio scale Bucker Jungmann flying very steadily, as you can see in the video here (file size is 2.5 MB). This time he had to be content with fourth place in the class, which was won by Divs Master's SE5a.
Lawrence Marks entered his Marcoux-Bromberg Jackrabbit racer in the peanut class, and I observed it circulating with gusto. I think it could make a good entry in the air race at the Nationals.
Lawrence is now building a new electric Kitfox Lite, incorporating lessons learned from the current model, and he brought it along to show us. Another advantage of building the same type again of course, is that you do not have to go digging up new reference material for it.
This is Divs Master's Zombie equipped electric SE5a in action. click here to see the video (file size is 3.3 MB).
Gordon Hannah flew this Andreason BA4-B biplane in the peanut class and got the second best flight score behind Mike Hadland (his best single flight was an impressive 51 seconds). Note the scale replica of the builder in the cockpit!
Another of Gordon's models was this Blackburn 1912 entered in the open rubber class. Unfortunately he didn't manage to register a qualifying flight.
Peter Iliffe won the CO2 / electric class with his CO2 powered Albatros V and a video of one of the flights can be seen here (2.1 MB)
Nick Peppiat brought along this new Chambermaid racer to do some trimming flights. It is a very light model for its size, and flew around slowly up near the roof as if on rails. Nice pilot too.
This fine pair of Pietenpol Air Campers were built by Russ Lister. The smaller one is peanut scale and the larger one powered by a Gasparin GM 120 CO2 motor.