The first of the Peterborough winter series took place on the 19^th October 2008. The forecast wasn’t bad, Dry and overcast with wind increasing throughout the day. The forecast was about right although it was a lot colder than we expected.

The first round got underway at about 10:20am. The wind was roughly 10mph and I decided to use 3oz ballast as the wind was tending to gust slightly, these conditions continued throughout round 1 and flights were typically 4-6 minutes. Only 1 pilot throughout the first round did not score a landing bonus.

In round 2 and 3 the wind was stronger with more gusts. Up went the ballast to 8oz Very strange cloud formations could be seen and these conditions caught a few more pilots out on landing. Flight times ranged from 2.27 minutes to 9.41 minutes. It seemed that as soon as you were down to double tree top height the air turned and you were dumped.

Round 4 and you were lucky to land safely with the wind noticeably increasing. Surprisingly enough there were no damaged models although I would suggest that a few pilots should check out their models before flying them again. Kevin Knewitt was dumped just above the large oak tree and only just managed to recover clipping the outer branches but still managing to score a 50 bonus.

We decided to give prizes for open, 100’s and also for best built up wing as we did in the summer comp.

The overall winners were,  1^st Kevin Knewitt, 3854. 2^nd Alan Morton 100’s, 3632. 3^rd Dave Varah, 3626. The top 100s was Alan Morton but the prize went to second placed Brian Hammon as I was in the top 3 open.  The only built up wing was flown by Floyd Berryhill. Thanks to Neville and to everyone who helped on the day

 All scores will be carried forward to the next competition and there will be extra prizes at the end of the series. The next competition is on the 9^th November. Anyone interested contact Alan Morton.

4mortons at talktalk.net or mobile 07986 238172