The English Open F3f 2019.

[Gromit]

1 hour ago, Zim said:

Congratulations, Andy! And another big change since the last time I attended an F3F meeting - a slope kitchen! Will it be an Olympic sport next? With Lottery funding? 

Great job, Stu, by the sounds of it.

Thank you Zim .

Your post has given me the perfect opportunity for me to post my sincerest personal thanks to Whitesheet Club member & absolute top bloke 'midweek Mike',  Mike Bleathman, aka Mike b52 on the forum.

Mike is at the very heart of the Whitesheet RFC. I have never known, nor will anyone ever find in a club of any kind, a club member who consistently so freely offers &  gives so much of his own time & effort in the interest & benefit of any club. Mike is a very highly valued & respected asset to the Whitesheet RFC. Those of us on the WRFC Committee are so very thankful for everything Mike does for the benefit of all its members.

Throughout the weekends competition, Mike set up a 'Slope Kitchen' in the pit area.  Large fishing type shelter, table, Gas burning stoves, ketles, and a trolley full of all kinds of goodies & treats for everyone. 

In addition to volunteering to do this, &  keeping everyone topped up with complimentary WRFC freshly made Tea's & Coffee's, Mike  freshly cooked  Bacon rolls on the hill. As if doing all this wasn't enough, Mike brought along freshly baked cakes these being made especially for the event by his partner/wife ( i'm not sure which she is ).  I'm sure you will all agree this being truly 'Cracking' .

In further addition to all the above, this was Mikes first ever F3f competition, i'm sure we can all remember the nerves we ourselves experienced at our first few comps. To have the confidence & ability to race competitively in addition to single handily running the catering is remarkable.

It was obvious to everyone witnessing Mikes very good flying throughout the weekend, Mike has a great future ahead of him in F3f racing, 

 Finally, from Myself & on behalf of the WRFC Committee,  & all the English Open pilots, I wish to give Mike the sincerest thanks & gratitude of us all

 

  Stu, Whitesheet RFC Comp Sec. 

[Mikeb52]

Thank you Stu, for your very kind thoughts.... I’ve paid you well! 

It was a great experience racing for the first time, and I loved it! Lots to learn, but that’s the fun of it all. I had a great time getting to know all the racing guys, and the banter that goes with it. 

A mention to William, who along with myself, were f3f virgins,! But not anymore. He also flew very well for his first comp too. 

Caroline is not my wife yet!  But guess who’s doing the catering, when we do

Mike. 

[Brett82]

I second all used above, massive thanks to Mike for sorting out some awesome bacon butties and hot drinks.

And all at your first comp, well done mate.

On that note, well done to William Fourie too on your first comp. You guys both seemed to enjoy it so hopefully we are you both at some more comps soon. 

Brett 

[William]

Awesome weekend! Thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome and being so generous with advice and encouragement - it was desperately needed and appreciated.

Huge thanks to Stu for organizing everything but still having time to talk to and help the newbies like me and then selflessly not flying the whole of Sunday just so that I wouldn’t come last!

Mike, the man, the legend - great job: F3F pilot extraordinaire AND a chef - is there no limit to this mans talents?

Special mention to Graeme, without whom I’d never have got into F3F, who is a true ambassador of the sport and always helps to answer my endless questions.

Great to meet everyone and can’t wait for the next competition.

William

[Gromit]

34 minutes ago, Mikeb52 said:

Caroline is not my wife yet!  But guess who’s doing the catering, when we do

Mike. 

Looking forward to receiving my wedding invitation then      .

I wouldn't be at all surprised regarding the catering .

Please be sure to thank Caroline on everyone's behalf for the 'Bake off' cakes. 

Stu. 

[oipigface]

A truly horrendous start for me gave way to 14 rounds in which I think I flew rather well (for me). This event was a real cracker, with good conditions, a spectacular lull on Sunday afternoon, tea, cake, and Andy on form. I didn’t see much of Andy’s flying, because I was usually still parking my model during his slots.

Thanks to Gromit who carries on through the pain in brilliant style, and the others who kept the centre running smoothly. Thanks to all the pilots who helped keep the buzzers continuously manned. If you did fewer than 8 spells on the buzzers, you were not keeping up with the average! Thanks to Mike and the future Mrs Mike for bacon and baking.

 

[Gromit]

9 minutes ago, oipigface said:

A truly horrendous start for me gave way to 14 rounds in which I think I flew rather well (for me). This event was a real cracker, with good conditions, a spectacular lull on Sunday afternoon, tea, cake, and Andy on form. I didn’t see much of Andy’s flying, because I was usually still parking my model during his slots.

Thanks to Gromit who carries on through the pain in brilliant style, and the others who kept the centre running smoothly. Thanks to all the pilots who helped keep the buzzers continuously manned. If you did fewer than 8 spells on the buzzers, you were not keeping up with the average! Thanks to Mike and the future Mrs Mike for bacon and baking.

 

My thanks to yourself John for devising the 'John Treble' buzzer bas flag system, this working perfectly throughout the wknd.  

We will certainly be using your system at all future comps at Whitesheet, very many thanks .

Earlier this year John started / posted a thread regarding / explain his system, here is the link 

  Stu. 

[Graeme_M]

Ditto all the above, really enjoyable weekends racing.

Good win Andy, thought I had you until my last flight, maybe next time.  Interesting watching JP using his terrain following radar, putting in a charge on day 2 just piping Mark to third.

until next time...

Graeme.

[Rumbey]

Very enjoyable weekend.

Stu you do a great job and its a pity you couldn't fly on the Sunday. Maybe next year you will be sorted!

Andy really has got his Pitbull performing superbly and deserved his win, Graeme also flew extremely well for 2nd as did JP for 3rd.

Mike did a fantastic job in the "slope Kitchen". I watched most of his flights and thought he did really well for his first comp. Onwards and upwards for sure!

Thanks to all the CDs for the smooth and pretty much faultless operation.

For me and my new to me Precision, it took me some time to figure out ballasting but towards the middle of day 2 I felt like it was starting to perform. Until I hit one of those pesky small bushes on landing. (small LE damage)

Roll on next year and hopefully see you all at the Welsh!

[oipigface]

2 hours ago, Gromit said:

Earlier this year John started / posted a thread 

I note that it was actually on April1!

[isoaritfirst]

Well done Stu and Gillian.

A great event and another sizeable amount of cash raised towards Bloodwise.

I'm sure Tom would be very proud of his parents energy and enthusiasm through difficult times.

I hope that the rewards for all you do for the F3f community bring their own rewards to you both.

 

The English Open, has set a new standard for UK events. 

 

[isoaritfirst]

Stormin. 

Well that's what I expected from the weather for the weekend, what we had though was sunshine all the way.

Stormin,

however was a good description of how Andy took to Saturdays part of the event, 300 points ahead after making very fine use of the air he had.

Sunday Andy may not have looked so impressive, but, at the end of the day those 300 points remained intact,

Congrats a well deserved win.

 

Team Giff Goff may not be Bonkers but fair play boys, a goodly group of locals, Ian and Tony putting in some fine performances to support Graham in his efforts to catch Andy.

As for the rest of us,

Anywhere in the top half dozen shows a certain amount of stoicism.

16 rounds is a good leveller, so despite the conditions being very varied, most people had some decent stuff.

The challenge sometimes is to maintain your momentum, not just in the model but in also in your head.

But that's true of all sports.

 

 

 

 

[Redbird]

Great job done there Stuart. Thanks to the other workers too, Graeme Mark and Mike Bleathman (who kept his Pitbull screaming nicely).  Personally I am struggling to learn the relative importance of setup, ballast, turn styles, wind speed etc, but figure that I do gain something from every outing even if I learn things that are ineffective!

[f3fisa]

Thanks to everyone for organising the comp Stuart and Mike for the nice bacon rolls and cake.

I've attached a few jpegs of the results of my weather station logger for the weekend.

As you can see the conditions were variable.

My next modification is to assimilate the time of day to the pilot.

The graphs have time along the bottom and either wind speed or direction on the y axis.

As you may know the legal limits are + or - 45 degrees from the slope or below 3m/s or 6.7mph.

However these limits were broken many times throughout both days but not for periods of 20 seconds or more.

There was only one occasion when the limits were really tested.

I hope the charts are of interest.

BTW thanks to Peter from South Coast Sailplanes for the sponsorship.

David.

 

 

[Gromit]

Wow ! excellent information, 

When combined with looking at the spreadsheet, the information available is superb.

Thank you very much indeed David, 'Cracking' 

  Stu. 

 

[Gromit]

The Spreadsheet will be posted at around 7.00pm. 

Apologies for my not having already done so, but as a consequence of the significant physical effort involved in running the wknd, my chronic pain levels have soared. This being very debilitating all day for me.  

  Stu. 

[Gromit]

 

English Open 2019 spreadsheet 

Spreadsheet ;-  English Open F3f 2019 Spreadsheet..xls

  Stu. 

[Rumbey]

My 94 seconds in rd 13 is nearly as painful to read as it was to fly!!!!

[Nigel_W]

Here is another way of looking at the pain and the gains.   Well done to those at the top from 1st to 3rd/4th/3rd/4th.....

English Open F3f 2019 Spreadsheet Charts.xls Charts.pdf

Enjoyed the comp, though must fly better.  Thanks Stu for organising - sorting trophies, raffle prizes, etc takes some considerable effort in the background I am sure.

 

[f3fisa]

This is a largely unedited video of the prize giving.

A much shorter edited video of the comp will follow in a few days.

David