Brief report on this test day.

Possibly the best flying day so far this year and everyone had a good day's flying. Only 7 participants, which was a little surprising in view of the brilliant weather, but made up for by an equal number of spectators and interested parties, who had plenty of questions in preparation for their own participation in events later in the year. Our visitors were also happy to help with timekeeping and other duties during the day - which was much appreciated. Thanks in particular to Jeff Fisher, who also took most of the photos I've included below.

Early problems trying to get Peter's height limit switch to work with his new synthesised receiver took a while to resolve, but from that point onwards the day ran very smoothly and everyone had some very good, (and some very poor) flights on a day where lift sometimes proved difficult to find and at other times was all over the sky!

The day started warm & sunny with light to almost zero wind speeds at times. A few more clouds started to drift in after lunch, but the weather stayed fine and very warm for the time of year. The best flights all day were recorded in the last round - and notably Chas, although he only reached just over 100 meters on launch due to a battery which was well down on power, managed to climb away and max out with the rest of us.

All the flight logs have now been collected together and launch heights found to be remarkably consistent with all the models flown. In a couple of rounds models were launched straight into quite strong lift and in others the sink was so great that there were pilots opting to come down after a few minutes and re-launch in the hope of getting a better score.

Neil had a small problem on a test flight before the contest, where the motor was cut prematurely by the ESC, presumably because it "saw" a lower voltage than it liked. Neil was using quite an old Lipo, which may explain his problem. It was certainly warm enough not to have any Lipo low temp problems as we did in the January event!

Chas dropped out of one round when a tail servo started playing up and Bernie didn't fly the last two rounds after an aileron linkage failed. Fortunately, he spotted the problem during normal pre-flight checks - which was just as well.

I had one scary moment in very strong turbulence way down wind, which meant I had to re-light the motor and power back for a re-launch. The new re-launch rule does seem to be very useful and adds a certain extra tactical element. The rule was well used by Neville on one flight, where he landed at close to 5 minutes, but with no landing bonus. A quick mental calculation indicated that a re-launch was is order and his score could be improved upon as long as sufficient landing bonus points where scored on the re-launch flight.

Neville & Alan were both flying winch launched gliders and everyone agreed that mixing the 2 disciplines created no real problems as long as we all launched from the same position in line with the winches and then walked back to our respective landing spots. Previous testing had shown that 200m was close to the launch heights being achieved by Alan with his 100S Tracker model and although some of the winch launches during the event yesterday were perhaps not quite so high in the low wind conditions - Alan still managed 2nd place in the event with his 100inch RES model.

There is no in my doubt that flying skills coupled with reliability of model & equipment will always win the day in this sort of event. It you can fly a glider - plus find and use lift, then you are in with a chance - from then on practice, watch and learn but above all HAVE FUN.

Enjoy the pictures above & below.