event report by Graham Tolhurst

This event was originally scheduled to be run on the 16th May, but was rescheduled for 18th July due to a very poor wind forecast.  The morning of the event was forecast for light winds, which may have put some people off, but local knowledge led me to believe that a good sea-breeze would pick up later in the morning or early afternoon, giving good prospects on our west-facing slope...

Entries were down on last years event with just four flyers present at the start of the day and one more arriving later in the afternoon.  These were Steve Alford (Avro Vulcan B2), Ted Williams (DH Vampire FB5), Ken Merritt (Supermarine Spitfire Mk9), Terry Lidstone (Convair Delta Dagger) and Alan Davis (Avro Vulcan and Fournier).

A briefing was held in which entrants were informed of the relaxed and informal rules.  At this time, the wind was still light and visitors were informed of the best places to land on the slope if they could not find any lift.  The models were laid out for photographs before any flying took place and voting slips were issued.

Terry Lidstone was very brave to launch his Delta Dagger at this time and decided to make the most of his flight by opting out of a safe slope-side landing in favour of a long glide to the field at the bottom.  However, he made a safe landing and trekked down to recover his model.  By the time he made it back up the hill, the wind was beginning to pick up and several other models were finding just enough lift to stay up.

Within about half an hour, everyone was flying in the almost ideal conditions; sunny, with a moderate westerly wind producing good lift.  The only event that marred the day was a collision between Ken Merritt’s Spitfire and Alan Davis' Vulcan.  Both models fell to the ground with quite severe damage.  Luckily, they were not too high at the time of impact and no further damage was caused when they hit the ground.

A final photo-shoot and voting session was called. After the voting slips were counted, the results were:

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