Well, the weatherman promised outstanding weather for the Sunday – warm (37 degrees!!) and a bit windy (30 km/hr – 8 m/sec!!). It was definitely outstanding weather … for windsurfing!!!

A few of us brought along our Angel S 50’s to find that, as good as they do fly, they struggle a bit in the wind. The Figure M was a challenge for everybody.Even the YS overpowered models of Lionel and Tom felt the wind batter them around. The order for the day was a lot of speed and a lot of “crabbing”; something the Angel’s were struggling to achieve.

Full Results in pdf format HERE (right click to download and keep).

Nonetheless, the day was excellent with 15 pilots making it to the competition. Remarkably, we had at least three contestants in each category.

As you may recall, Henry destroyed his trustworthy Cyclone at P&DARCS in December (yes, the one with the plasticine counterweight). Thus, Henry was flying a new model at this competition (yes, another Cyclone!). The model flies like a dream and although Henry came in third in Expert, he actually managed to win one round off of Peter Hill and David Law (1^st and 2^nd).

Tom seems to be over his engine blues. He put in two very good flights to win two rounds and finish first in FAI-F3A (no flame-outs!). Cliff is back with a vengeance and came in 2^nd. Lionel claimed 3^rd place.

Greg Hede (some would say a “newcomer”; others would say a “blast from the past”) took 1^st place in Advanced with some very good flying. Brian Green took one round from Greg to place 2^nd. Darren Williams came in 3^rd with his AngelS.

Noel Whitehead took 1^st place in Sportsman with Peter Stapleton and Ted Knowles coming in 2^nd and 3^rd respectively.

I think the judges were overwhelmed handing out “zeroes” over the competition. The manoeuvres most zeroed were the Figure M and the spins. Amongst the most common reasons for the zeroes were:

1. Rolling 1 ¼ turns coming out of the Figure M

2. Over-spinning or under-spinning in the 2 ¼ reversed inverted spins

3. Flopping the entry to the spin (due to the strong head-wind)

One of the more amusing manoeuvres seen on the day was Darren’s interpretation of the “Two Turn Spin with a full roll in the exit” (Advanced schedule). Darren actually included the full roll in the vertical (not sure that it was intentional, though).

Tom also added his flair to the Figure M. Instead of a half roll integrated in the outside loop Tom decided to leave it at a quarter roll. As soon as he reached the knife edge position at the bottom of the half outside loop he stopped rolling and flew up to the second stall turn in what looked very much like a knife edge loop. A bit of a shortcut there!

It was a very good competition with most of us getting three flights in before the cool (and wet) change hit us at about 3:30 p.m.

Our next competition is on February 21^st - The Tates Performance Trophy at Mannerim (Geelong). This year it is only a one-day competition. See you there!!

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