Monday June 4^th saw the first ‘National’ event of the domestic F3J series, one of three events, with Interglide and the Nats. Two national scores along with two regional scores are required to make up the league (scores from international events can be used to substitute one of these on completion of the domestic series). Marsh Gibbon was the location and the comp formed part of the Radioglide weekend. Held on a bank holiday, naturally the weather played a part in the success of the weekend and some pilots turned up early to take part in the Multilaunch comp to be held on the Sunday, which was unfortunately cancelled due to rain.

However Monday dawned bright if somewhat chilly in the gentle northerly breeze. Twenty six pilots lined up with some newcomers, Cliff Hannam of eSoaring fame, Mick Thorpe and Tom Satinet along with Terry Pelling, Ken Goddard Neville Warby and others returning to the league. CD for the day was Sydney Lennsen who brought a gentle charm to the proceedings announcing slots with calls of ‘Attention, attention’ and wishing each batch of competitors ‘Good luck’ as their names were called. Right from the off lift was there to be found. In my first slot, my own woefully inadequate skills were tested to the full when I was making my landing approach after four minutes, to hit lift at 50 feet over the field and get away for a 9.47 flight, a personal highlight. But many found the conditions to their liking and as usual slots were flown out and 90 plus landing bonuses scored. Amongst those having a particularly good day was Graham Wicks, eventually returning a 4990.4, including three slot wins and two 995+ scores. Gary Binnie again found himself amongst the slot winners in only his second comp and Chris Glover, flying an ex Neil Jones Pike Perfect found himself making the five man fly off with Wixy, Colin Paddon, Peter Allen and Fozzie Devall.

By now the wind had eased and lightweight models were the order, Wixy flying a Supra and Peter Allen a very light Cluster. Round one saw Colin taking the 1000 with Wixy not far behind on 982.4 with quite a gap to Peter Allen, Chris Glover and Fozzie. But Colin was not to be denied and recorded his second 1000 in the final round followed by Wixy, Chris, Peter and Fozzie, which reflected the overall positions for the comp.

Once again we must thank Mike Raybone for matrixing the event, Peter Allen for laying out the field and buying the prizes, Sydney for his CD’ing but most importantly Gill Glover who spent all day in the control tent assisting with scoring.

After the comp finished I was privileged to watch Austin Guerrier and others trimming their new models. Austin was flying a beautiful all carbon ultra light Explorer 3500 which after 10 minutes or so programming flew like a dream displaying a phenomenally low sink rate. After a couple of quite brisk tows, Kevin Dart and Kevin Beale got together to give the model a really fast launch, Kevin B holding the winch pedal full bore and Kevin D straining to hold the model before releasing it for a three second tow and huge ping. The model accelerated like an arrow, no bend, no flex, no trauma, amazing.

So onwards to Interglide at er, well Marsh Gibbon again. Good luck guys, I’ll be on holiday, back for the next comp in July.

Graham James.

Fly Off Scores

Scores from the 5 rounds