R/C Soaring Home Page

Southern Winter League 1

15 - 17 September 2017

Rounding Base B - Nigel Witchalls at the controls

Sixteen rounds at the Long Man

The journey

Crawling down the M23 with the rain bouncing off the bonnet and windscreen wipers at full chat, I wondered if my late entry had been such a good idea... But as so often on these occasions, I needn't have worried - on arrival at the Long Man car park, Stu Wallace and the crew were already gathered, and the rain was giving way to bright sunshine. Things were looking up!

The comp

The comp took place on the NNW slope of the Long Man. During the pilots briefing, Stu called for two scoring runs per flight, with crow-through. It was an inspired decision, reducing the number of landings and making best use of the available manpower.

The wind was around 10 - 15 mph for most of the day. There was good lift beyond base A which most pilots used for the climbout in preference to pumping. The course itself was slightly crossed, which made ballast choice tricky. Some pilots experienced turbulence at Base B - Allen Elliott fell victim, fortunately the damage on his Needle 115 was limited to a broken wing joiner.

The times

Times where mostly in the 40's with two 30's and a few 50's. After 16 closely fought rounds, I found myself the winner by the slimmest of margins over Graeme Mahoney (Fosa Space Lift) with Ian Falconer (Shinto) in third place. Graeme achieved the fastest time of 36.66. A special mention for young Sam Wallace who flew accurately and achieved a splendid 900 score.

All in all a very enjoyable day of F3F. My thanks to Stu, Pete Burgess, Allen Elliott and Sam Wallace - roll on the next one!

Results

 1 Mike Shellim     13297.92   1000.00 
 2 Graeme Mahoney   13283.75    998.93
 3 Ian Falconer     12977.23    975.88
 4 Tony Livingstone 12824.51    964.39
 5 Stu Wallace      12478.02    938.34
 6 Peter Burgess    12433.69    935.01
 7 Sam Wallace      11977.26    900.68
 8 Nigel Witchalls  11790.41    886.63
 9 Phil Taylor      11501.50    864.90
10 Allen Elliott     5539.61    416.57

Fastest time: 36.66 by Graeme Mahoney in round 14

Images

Find out more

See F3F up close by visiting us at a competition near you.

For details of F3F events, see the GBSRA web site. Regional winter league events are listed on the BARCS forum.