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Gallery
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Day one of competition weekend, June '06 |
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| The earlybirds arrive at the Wrecker at 8am to get a good half an hour of reasonable lift but by the time everyone had arrived the lift was all but gone. Some light lift and a few thermals got the competition started on the Wrecker but it wasn't long before the lift was gone again. The winds picked up again so sports flying took place as the wind direction was variable, it settle down enough for us to decide to try a restart of the comp and just as first man goes to launch the lift dies. After another 45 minutes the wind had swung onto the Back of the Wrecker so the coarse was dismantled and everyone trooped over to the Back of the Wrecker. Mark Abbots was first to try the air with his Mini Dragon and it was going reasonably, certainly better than the air we'd had earlier so sport flying carried on as the coarse was put up, again just as pilot no 1 steps up to launch the wind dies to nothing. Half an hour later the wind picks back up but this time its on Mickeys so again everyone packs up and treks over to Mickeys, sports flying is pretty good, coarse is erected first pilot up......wind dies. By now it was becoming a joke so the comp was cancelled and any further lift would be for sports flying. About an hour passed, a few people went home but for the people who stuck it out until the bitter end were rewarded with 3 hours of 25mph winds on VR98. The big winds weren't forecast but what a relief after such a disappointing day, at least is wasn't raining :-) . | |||
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Day two of competition weekend |
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The day started of just like day one, very light winds with only Alulas and electrics being flown on Mickeys slope. After an hour the winds picked up to a reasonable 8mph with thermals blowing through very frequantly so the comp was started. There were 4 rounds held on Mickeys slope but each one was getting progressivly worse as the wind was swinging westerly so the comp was halted and moved over to the west side of Mickeys and by the time the whole group were reassembled on Westside there were 25mph plus wind straight up the slope so some awesome combat was on the cards. A further 6 rounds were flown in good lift to awesome lift resulting in some huge hits and kills, a few memorable hit were a 3 way hit resulting in all 3 planes coming down also Dave Rumbles Duck being totally trashed, twice. In total there were 5 rounds of combat per pilot with a final round of "Best of the Best" , young Mitchell Palmer took the crown. After the combat saw a great afternoons sports flying with everything from combat wings to F3F to scratch built vac bagged wings flying. Highlight of the sports flying was probably Tim Previtts home brew vac bagged plank racer I was lucky enough to have a go and it was very quick and accurate, the energy retention was incredible yet it was very easy to fly if he goes into production he onto a winner. |
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All
pictures below are courtsy of Mitchell Palmer, Steve Clarke and
Steve Alford |
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Final Scores for the combat After
5 rounds each Best
of the Best Top
3 positions |